"Love Your Mother" Book Reading with Mallory McDuff
From elder voices opposing the Dakota Pipeline to young people running for office to advocate for change, every day we see real-life stories about how women are making a collective difference on climate justice. Women are also disproportionately impacted by climate change and thus are critical to transforming society away from dependence on fossil fuels and toward renewable energy and environmental equity.
As a mother and a professor of environmental education, Mallory McDuff wanted to give her two daughters and her students a roadmap to engage in climate justice in their communities, rather than be left feeling paralyzed by the enormity of the problem. She set out to find women of diverse ages, backgrounds, and vocations--one from each of the fifty US states--as inspiration for a new kind of leadership focused on the heart of the climate crisis. Love Your Mother lifts up the stories of these women working toward a viable future, from farmer and rancher Donna Kilpatrick in Arkansas to writer Latria Graham in South Carolina.
From Alabama to Alaska, from Wisconsin to Wyoming, these women are poets, physicians, climate scientists, students, farmers, writers, documentary filmmakers, and more. Their work lights the way for conversation and collective action in our homes and in the world. It's time we follow their lead.
"Expressed in these fifty stories is a wild love for Mother Earth and her children--a love for all of us, alive together, indivisible. These fierce American voices filled me with two emotions I had not allowed myself to experience in a long time: pride and hope." --Will Harlan, author of Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island
"Through vivid, thoughtful storytelling, McDuff's profiles emphasize a timely truth: climate leadership isn't a monolith. Matriarchs, farmers, writers, rebels, scientists, doctors, innovators, influencers, teachers--all of us, in short--have a home in this movement, if we choose to seek it." --Georgia Wright, co-creator of the podcast Inherited
Mallory McDuff teaches environmental education at Warren Wilson College where she lives on campus with her two daughters. She's the author of five books, most recently LOVE YOUR MOTHER: 50 states, 50 stories, & 50 women united for climate justice and OUR LAST BEST ACT: Planning for the end of our lives to protect the people and places we love. She's written for the New York Times, Washington Post, WIRED, Shondaland and more.
Tracey Edwards is a community activist and mother of two from Walnut Cove, NC. She helped bring justice to her community by addressing the issue of coal ash created by Duke Energy polluting the air, water, and soil with serious health impacts for local residents.
Caroline Rutledge Armijo is an environmental advocate, artist and mother living in Greensboro, North Carolina. Since 2010, Caroline has advocated with the Belews Creek community around threats of fracking and living with coal ash. Caroline is the Founding Director of The Lilies Project, an ArtPlace America creative placemaking grant that worked with NC A&T State University to make art out of coal ash. Caroline is a founding member of ACT against Coal Ash.
