Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Ireland’s first female president talks climate crisis
WEST CHESTER » It was a small gesture with big implications at West Chester University’s Emilie K. Asplundh Concert Hall, Tuesday night.
Mary Robinson, who served as the seventh president of Ireland from December 1990 to September 1997, and was its first female president, had just delivered a 45-minute address on climate crisis and how the world’s poor and dis-empowered countries are disproportionately threatened by climate change. She had spoken briefly of the evils of throw-away plastics.
Two chairs were set up to one side of the stage, with two bottles of water on a table where WCU President Chris Fiorentino and Robinson could informally chat.
Fiorentino understood the irony of the moment and swept up and removed the water bottles from view and placed them back stage.
Robinson talked about sitting on a bench by herself in Greenland and watching and listening to glaciers melting on a warm summer day. She compared the sound of calving glaciers to thunder or distant gunfire.
She said the glaciers were under stress and “this shouldn’t be happening like this. Listening to that glacier was not right and fair.”
Robinson was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama and recently published her new book, “Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience & the Fight for a Sustainable Future.” She also served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and leads the Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice.
Borough Councilman Don Braceland enjoyed the event.
“Mary Robinson’s talk was inspirational, motivational and highlighted the issue of climate justice with exceptional clarity,” Braceland said.
Early on she talked about the Doomsday Clock which first predicted how close the world was to catastrophe in 1947.
Climate change, as well as nuclear and other technologies have moved the clock to 100 seconds from midnight — the closest we’ve been to disaster.
“This is a dangerous time, a difficult time and we have to be aware,” Robinson said.
She also talked about climate justice or finding commonalties rather than differences. She addressed the gender impact and the effect on children and young people who have the right to live in “a safe and livable nation.”
The audience collectively laughed when Robinson talked about causes, from a podcast.
“Climate change is a manmade problem and requires a feminist solution,” she said.
She said the solution is in sight, if only politicians would listen.
Robinson stressed the need to get angry and change behavior.
She said areas that rely on fossil fuels need to provide adequate pensions and train younger workers to make sure that communities make investments in clean energy.
While Robinson started her talk by saying WCU has a “real interest in sustainability issues,” Fiorentino asked her what he university could do.
She said they should make changes “compatible with sustainability.”