<
https://grist.org/culture/barbara-kingsolver-american-climate-corps-pledge/>
"Barbara Kingsolver has been weaving her concern about the environment into her
books ever since she started writing novels in 1988. Her 2012 novel
Flight
Behavior explored how climate change might affect the monarch butterfly, and
the 2007 nonfiction work
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle recounted her family’s
experiment eating only food grown near their home in Virginia.
She recently applied this skill to a new, much shorter genre: pledge-writing.
The coordinators of the American Climate Corps — President Joe Biden’s
signature green jobs program — invited Kingsolver to pen the promise new
members would recite when sworn in. “I told them, ‘This will be the first vow
or pledge I’ve written since my wedding vows,’” Kingsolver said. Last month,
the first 9,000 members of the Climate Corps committed to Kingsolver’s oath:
I pledge to bring my skills, respect, and compassion to work every day,
supporting environmental justice in all our communities.
I will honor nature’s beauty and abundance, on which we all depend, and
commit to its protection from the climate crisis.
I will build a more resilient future, where every person can thrive.
I will take my place in history, working with shared purpose in the American
Climate Corps on behalf of our nation and planet, its people, and all its
species, for the better future we hold within our sight.
The inaugurated members have spread across the country to install clean energy,
restore habitats, and build trails. The Biden White House expects to employ
20,000 young people over the first year of the program, inspired by the
Civilian Conservation Corps, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched in
the 1930s to help the country recover from the Great Depression.
Kingsolver believes that the reimagined version will make history, too, calling
it “one of the most exciting things that’s happening in the country right now.”
In a call with
Grist, she discussed her vision for the American Climate Corps
and how it connects to the themes in her novels: nature, empathy, and class.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity."
Via
Fix the News:
<
https://fixthenews.com/good-news-capital-punishment-mental-health-rwanda-pollution-europe/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
