Women particularly impacted as food providers.
Former Irish president Mary Robinson will speak at Mount Holyoke College on March 9.
When people talk about climate change, they often think of glaciers melting in the future or complicated science, but the first woman president of Ireland whose foundation is focused on climate justice emphasized that “we should know that hundreds of thousands of people are suffering food insecurity, children are dying of hunger that is exacerbated by climate change and that we need to be urgent about this and by 2015 as governments have agreed, have a fair and ambitious climate agreement.”
Mary Robinson is bringing her message to Mount Holyoke College.
Joan E. Grenier, owner of Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, knows of the “incredible work” Robinson has done as a national leader, with refugees and on the topic of climate justice.
That’s why the bookshop is a cosponsor of Robinson’s presentation on March 9, on “Looking at Climate Change as a Human Rights Issue” at 3 p.m. in Chapin Auditorium in Mary Woolley Hall at Mount Holyoke College.
“Climate Justice links human rights, development and climate change and adopts a people-centered approach,” said the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who is chief executive officer of the Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice and author of the new book “Everybody Matters: My Life Giving Voice.”
Elected as the Labor Party candidate as president of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002, Robinson, a Harvard Law School graduate, became interested in climate change because of work she did with a focus on Africa.
“Everywhere I went people focused on the fact that things were so much worse, and it was because there was no longer predictable rain, there were no longer predictable seasons, countries suffered from long periods of drought and then flash flooding, and I realized that it was undermining livelihoods and that we should be talking about people and the fact that it was affecting the poorest,” she said in an e-mail interview.
Robinson views climate change as a human rights issue because “it undermines people’s access to food security, people’s access to water, it undermines health because malaria and dengue fever are spreading to new areas because of climatic changes, and it also forces people to leave their home if they live on small islands,” she said.
“Climate change is very real,” said Grenier, who has hosted several climate-change authors and activists. “It is one of the most important issues of our time.”
A grandmother of four, Grenier said she “does not like the direction we’re headed in (in terms of climate change); I’d like to leave a different legacy for my grandchildren.”
Robinson said Ireland is more conscious of the impacts of climate on poor countries than is the United States.
“We are anticipating a new climate bill which I hope will be strong and robust in addressing issues of mitigation and also adaptation,” she said.
“The United States is beginning to appreciate the need to address climate change, and I was pleased to see the leadership of President Obama (on the issue) both in his second inauguration address and his recent state of the union address.”
The Obama administrations awarded Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 as as an "agent of change" and crusader for women's right. The honor drew criticism from some Jewish lawmakers and groups who saw her reports on Gaza and the West Bank as anti-Israeli as well as her leadership at the 2001 U.N. World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa as anti-Israeli.
Robinson was born Mary Bourke in Ballina, County Mayo in 1944, the daughter of two physicians. Besides Harvard Law, to which she won a fellowship, she was educated at the University of Dublin (Trinity College), where she later served as chancellor, and she and her husband founded the Irish Centre of European Law, and King’s Inns Dublin
She has served as a barrister in both Ireland and England, and argued "landmark cases" before the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court in Luxembourg as well as in the Irish courts.
Robinson was the first head of state to visit Somalia after its civil war and famine in 1992 and the first to visit Rwanda after the genocide in 1994.
“Climate change undermines development and poor livelihoods and therefore has a very severe effect on development,” she said.
“There is also a strong gender dimension because the impacts are different on men and women and much harder on women when poor livelihoods are made even poorer and the women still have to do the farming and provide the food for the table.”
Robinson has also been awarded the Indira Gandhi and Sydney peace prizes.
In her book, she reveals what lies behind her vision and determination that made her path to prominence as compelling as any of her achievements.
A book signing will follow Robinson’s South Hadley talk, which is free and open to the public.
The 336-page hardcover book with a March 5 publication date, sells for $26.
For more information, call (413) 534-7307.
For more information on the Mary Robinson Foundation -Climate Justice visit http://www.mrfcj.org/