Posted on Sep 11, 2022
Human rights lawyer explores loss and impact of climate crisis in Pacific islands in new book
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Julian Aguon hopes his new book helps spread understanding — through the lens of grief and loss — of the injustices in America’s territories.
“The colonies should be brought front and center in the conversation about what needs to change in this country,” said Aguon, a human rights lawyer in Guam and author of “No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies.”
Aguon’s book is a memoir-manifesto that publishes Tuesday. It’s a collection of essays, poems, commencement speeches and eulogies — among other writings — about resistance, resilience and collective power in the midst of the climate crisis.
In the first chapter, he writes: “How obscene is it that communities with the smallest carbon footprint—like low-lying islands and atolls in the middle of the Pacific Ocean—are paying the steepest price for a crisis we had almost no hand in creating?”
“The colonies should be brought front and center in the conversation about what needs to change in this country,” said Aguon, a human rights lawyer in Guam and author of “No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies.”
Aguon’s book is a memoir-manifesto that publishes Tuesday. It’s a collection of essays, poems, commencement speeches and eulogies — among other writings — about resistance, resilience and collective power in the midst of the climate crisis.
In the first chapter, he writes: “How obscene is it that communities with the smallest carbon footprint—like low-lying islands and atolls in the middle of the Pacific Ocean—are paying the steepest price for a crisis we had almost no hand in creating?”
Human rights lawyer explores loss and impact of climate crisis in Pacific islands in new book
Posted from nbcnews.com
Human Rights
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Climate Change
Posted >1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Something about the sheer scale of the problem makes people feel like they can do little to nothing to combat it. So if we shift the way we talk about climate change, we can actually move people’s hearts,” he said. “We don’t need yet another IPCC report to tell us things that we already know. We have enough facts. What we don’t have enough of are stories from the front lines of the climate crisis.”
“No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies” was first published in 2021 under the title “The Properties of Perpetual Light,” but it was re-released this year with an introduction by author Arundhati Roy and an updated afterword about how Aguon’s life has changed since the book was published.
He said he was reminded while writing the book that grief and broken hearts serve as a bridge, particularly at a time when there is so much loss.
“We’re living in a world that’s changing so rapidly, from accelerating totalitarianism around the world to a destabilizing climate. It’s just like, we are living in this mode of almost incalculable loss,” he said. “What do we do? 'Where do we go from here?' is the question I was trying to answer in the book.”
..."Something about the sheer scale of the problem makes people feel like they can do little to nothing to combat it. So if we shift the way we talk about climate change, we can actually move people’s hearts,” he said. “We don’t need yet another IPCC report to tell us things that we already know. We have enough facts. What we don’t have enough of are stories from the front lines of the climate crisis.”
“No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies” was first published in 2021 under the title “The Properties of Perpetual Light,” but it was re-released this year with an introduction by author Arundhati Roy and an updated afterword about how Aguon’s life has changed since the book was published.
He said he was reminded while writing the book that grief and broken hearts serve as a bridge, particularly at a time when there is so much loss.
“We’re living in a world that’s changing so rapidly, from accelerating totalitarianism around the world to a destabilizing climate. It’s just like, we are living in this mode of almost incalculable loss,” he said. “What do we do? 'Where do we go from here?' is the question I was trying to answer in the book.”
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