Welcome to Litsy!

Part memoir, part manifesto: Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate addresses this book mainly to youthful readers, but I found it inspiring. Courage is contagious. She shares her experiences with burnout, racism (cropped out of an AP photo when she attended a conference in Switzerland) & overcoming her own shy awkwardness. Her delivery is earnest, there‘s an impressive array of facts, and there are concrete suggestions for individual actions.

A team of researchers found that more than 8 million people were killed by fossil fuels in 2018, much higher than earlier research estimates. Even the researchers were shocked by the results, which they called “astounding.”

Across the world, 12 million girls under 18 are married each year, many of them against their will. According to a World Bank study, child marriages cost Africa US$63 billion in human capital. For countries like Uganda, this leads to poverty that persists over generations.
[photo: Zambian Natasha Mwansa who began advocating against child marriages, and supporting teen reproductive health, when she was 12]

35% of girls will be married before they turn 18 in sub-Saharan African countries. In Uganda, it‘s more like 40%, and 10% of girls in my country are married by the time they‘re 15. This isn‘t solely an African problem. In South Asia, UNICEF reports, almost 30% of girls will be married by the time they turn 18.

In addition to contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, burning firewood or charcoal causes nearly 4 million premature deaths worldwide every year from childhood pneumonia, emphysema, cataracts, lung cancer, bronchitis, cardiovascular disease and low birth weight, because of smoke inhalation.

Since the 1960s Lake Chad Basin has shrunk from being the world‘s 6th largest inland body of water to less than a 10th of its original size. Now the desert advances each year & the Basin, which used to provide food & water for between 20 and 30 million people, is home to 11 million people who require humanitarian relief.
(Internet photo)

Although the African continent has 15% of the world‘s population, it is responsible for only between 2 and 3 percent of the global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. An Oxfam study concluded that a person in the UK will have emitted more carbon dioxide in the first two weeks of 2020 than someone in Uganda will in the whole year.
(Internet photo)

Friday Reads March 3: Black History; #MarchMysteryMadness; Asian Canadians; and hope for the future
https://youtu.be/KI5gbHDHNTk

Yay for #BookSpinBingo! I actually started the tagged yesterday, and it turns out it is my #BookSpin 🎉 Everything's coming up Millhouse!

@TheAromaofBooks

This is an amazing book by such a young author. It certainly opens your eyes to climate change from a different perspective. Shamefully, African voices have been ignored and that must change. We have to pay attention to those who are experiencing first hand what is most definitely coming our way. Nothing will change until we act together for all of our futures.

#naturaLitsy

I've been wanting to read this since it was published and found it in my library today. 🙌 @Riveted_Reader_Melissa it would be a great read for #shesaid I've only read the intro as finishing up another non-fiction book first. I'm so shocked at the way she was treated at Davos. It's going to be interesting getting the pov on climate change from another's perspective, particularly from an area so devastated by it.

#naturaLitsy