“Holding her first grandchild in her arms in 2003, Mary Robinson was struck by the uncertainty of the world he had been born into. Before his fiftieth birthday, he would have to share the planet with more than nine billion people - people battling for food, water, and shelter in an increasing volatile climate. The faceless, shadowy menace of climate change had become, in an instant, deeply personal."
I’m Betty Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" and that’s the opening lines from Mary Robinson’s book Climate Justice. Mary Robinson is a former President of Ireland and the UN’s Special Envoy on Climate Change.
In May 2019 in Boston, I attended a luncheon and heard her speak. Through her travels around the world, she discovered that an irrepressible driving force in the battle for climate change could be found at the grassroots level, mainly among women. She also realized that the struggle to combat climate change is inextricably linked to tackling poverty, inequality, and exclusion.
With major droughts and major flooding ,people at the grassroots level are suffering the worst effects of climate change. Each chapter reveals the climate change issue for a grassroots community and how they are addressing it. Constance in Uganda, Sharon in Mississippi, Patricia in Alaska and Natalie in Australia are all starting movements on behalf of their world.
Climate change threatens a staggering seventy-five million people around the world who currently live just one meter or less above sea level. If whole communities live differently - it changes the system. Costa Rica in 2015 produced 99 percent of its electricity supply through entirely renewable energy. Uruguay - 95 percent.
If you care about your world, you must read Climate Justice by Mary Robinson. At that luncheon we each received a bamboo re-usable straw..start there.
