Speakers

Are you looking for a climate speaker for your event?

You will find here a list of inspiring speakers who can provide expert insights into the various scientific, social or religious aspects of climate change.  On this page, you’ll find informed and skilled communicators who are enthusiastic about engaging with diverse groups about the urgency of climate change, and about real solutions to this crisis.  We have chosen these speakers because we know they are skilled at creating dynamic sessions, and because they represent a wide range of expert perspectives on real climate issues.

All speakers come to these events with the following CSCS principles:

  • Trusted authorities who are trained in their area of expertise.
  • Selected for their ability to communicate effectively.
  • Respectful of individuals who disagree, and start from a position of listening when conversing with audiences.  
  • Comfortable conversing with audiences from a variety of ethnic, socioeconomic, cultural, faith and political backgrounds.   
  • Speak from an Anabaptist perspective, but do not assume that audiences come with the same Anabaptist or other faith perspectives.  

To arrange a speaker, email us at info@sustainableclimatesolutions.org.  We can respond to specific events you’ve arranged, or help you set up a virtual event.  In the current pandemic context, we are offering speakers for virtual events only.  In the future, we will respond to requests for in-person events as we can. We provide honoraria for speakers, and do not charge for making speakers available, but welcome donations to CSCS to help cover costs.

Dr. Sibonokuhle Ncube

Sibonokuhle Ncube is from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. She is a mother, social justice advocate and development expert. Sibonokuhle has served as a deaconess and is known for her passionate speaking, intergenerational and cross-cultural insights.  She has more than 18 years of experience working with climate change responses, climate finance governance, and disaster preparedness in southern Africa.  She is a member of the Brethren in Christ Church of Zimbabwe, and recently served as National Coordinator of Compassionate Development Services. She is currently studying at the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary.

“The rural poor suffer from climate change the most”

Speaking Topics include:

  • Stories from the frontline: Climate change from an African perspective;
  • Climate justice as peace witness: Motivating church youth to participate in an intergenerational climate witness;
  • The internet of things – why women and Anabaptists should be concerned about innovations at the confluence of business and technology;
  • Who is under (y)our carbon footprint? Paradoxes, axioms and God’s Shalom.

Jim Leaman, PhD

Jim Leaman is a professor and program director for the Department of Business and Leadership at Eastern Mennonite University. His perspectives on climate change are informed by formal education and research and by geographic experience, with his life roughly shared between East Africa and the northeastern United States. Jim filters all of his courses through a critical lens of sustainability, but his specialized fields are in the areas of energy economics and environmental and ecological economics. His most recent research and writing is on sustainable housing, where his findings suggest models that are viable, affordable, and available today in the right combination of priorities.

“The environmental injustices of climate change should charge

each of us to personal responsibility and action”

Speaking Topics include:

  • Sustainable Housing: Surprisingly Simple
  • Other topics:
    • Renewable energy
    • Environmental economics
    • Ecological economics
    • Sustainable housing
    • Sustainable transportation

Clara Weybright, CSCS Climate Futures Fellow

Clara Weybright is one of this year’s Climate Futures Fellows. Her fellowship is focused on helping congregations engage in climate advocacy and understand the importance of their voices in shaping climate policy. Clara hopes to empower people of faith to engage with the political process and the policies that help us respond creatively to the climate crisis.  She is based in Washington, D.C., where she works with Mennonite Central Committee’s Washington Office.  
 

“Advocacy for good climate policy plays a crucial role in helping us heal our planet and its people.”

Speaking Topics include:

  • Climate advocacy training sessions for congregations
  • Current issues in climate policy: An introduction for people of faith
  • What does an Anabaptist approach to advocacy look like?
  • The importance of collective action and activism as a response to the climate crisis
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Doug Kaufman, CSCS Director of Pastoral Ecology

Douglas Kaufman is Director of Pastoral Ecology at CSCS, and Co-pastor of Benton Mennonite Church, Goshen Indiana.  He has worked with his congregation and more broadly on ecological and sustainability issues for about 20 years, since learning that the river where they baptize sometimes has too much manure for safe contact.  That has led to ongoing volunteer water testing through Hoosier Riverwatch, and more recently to a Master’s of Theology in ecology from the University of Toronto.  His more recent research has focused on ritual and theological responses to the emotional barriers that keep people from engaging the climate crisis.  

“Our faith needs to be a resource to help us engage the reality of climate change, rather than a way to help keep us in some form of denial about it.”

Speaking Topics include
 
  • How faith can help us move from soft forms of climate denial to engagement
  • How hope can help us confront climate despair
  • Also available for:
    • Sermons and Sunday School sessions for churches
    • Leading worship and ritual engaging climate denial and despair in various settings
    • Leading university classes or other settings talking about emotional and religious aspects of climate change 

Doug Graber Neufeld, PhD, CSCS Director

Doug Graber Neufeld is Director for the Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions, and is Professor of Biology at Eastern Mennonite University.  To the issue of climate change, he brings 20 years of experience engaging students and communities with a variety of environmental and sustainability issues.  He works most closely with water issues, both in the context of local Appalachian communities, and with his 4 years of experience with Mennonite Central Committee in Cambodia and Kenya.  He is chair of the Creation Care Task Force for Mennonite World Conference.  He lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where he and his family enjoy connecting with all aspects of the local natural history.

“We know what to do, the evidence shows the solutions are out there.  Now we have to work together to get it done.”

Speaking Topics include:

  • Identifying what works: An evidence-based approach to climate change.
  • Right and Wrong in a Warming World.
  • Local solutions to providing clean water in a changing world