Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Mothers of Invention is a project of Doc Society. In 2017, Doc Society was invited by Mary Robinson (first female president of Ireland and former head of the UN Human Rights Commission) to contribute to her communication strategy. For Mary, the Paris Agreement represents the highpoint of what policy advocates can achieve and whilst she feels achievement that a climate justice lens was brought to the process, now the challenge is to engage citizens so that they can hold their governments to account, and demand action. Together, we have devised an awareness-raising, educating, and action-instigating movement, with a podcast series at its heart.

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Best Estimate of GHG Avoidance/Reduction of This Project (Tonnes CO2 Equivalent/Year):

Impact on Underrepresented Groups:

Mothers of Invention are reaching key audiences through a gender-lens and emotionally engaging content with powerful narratives and real characters, something rarely associated with climate communications. We have approached narratives with the gender perspective which is embodied in our tagline Climate change is a man-made problem with a feminist solution . Mary Robinson has taken to adopting this tagline in her policy discussions and communications in an effort to raise awareness on the female perspective on climate discourse as being widely impacted by Climate change first and foremost. A feminist approach is not exclusive to women alone, our first male ‚ mother of invention‚ is feminist and Secretary General of Amnesty International, Kumi Naidoo, who actively encourages a gender lens on climate discourse.

We work most closely with the UK Tar Sands Network co-founder, Suzanne Dhaliwal, who in fact joined our team on the last series, giving us credibility and contacts to many POC led groups and providing a critique of our episode plans. One great advantage of this is that we get to discuss climate communications analysis which further refined our own ideas.

Another of our objectives is to invite selected mothers to key meetings and facilitate their engagement in climate communications such as Sarra Tekola, the Co-founder of Seattle based Black Lives Matter climate justice organisation to attend and speak at the New York Climate Week 2018.

We have also helped elevate grassroots campaigns, especially in the US. One example is our support of the Detroit based prolific environmental justice campaigner, Siwatu Ra, who was incarcerated for two years and was recently released. With our assistance, Siwatu‚ legal team submitted the transcript of Mary Robinson‚ support for Siwatu and request for the case to be re-examined as part of their appeal.

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Mission Statement:

Mothers of Invention is a climate justice podcast from the first female President of Ireland, Mary Robinson alongside NYT columnist and comedian, Maeve Higgins. Mothers of Invention is a climate justice podcast from the first female President of Ireland, Mary Robinson alongside author and comedian, Maeve Higgins. Mothers of Invention supports new voices and narratives in the climate debate by talking about climate change solutions through a climate justice and gender lens. Each episode features 3-5 ‚ Mothers of Invention‚ linked by a theme (eg. health, divestment, litigation). These are women from all walks of life and all corners of the earth driving powerful climate solutions ‚ from the grassroots to the courtroom, from the front lines to the boardroom. Since its launch of the first series in July 2018 till present day, the podcast has accumulated over 72,000 different subscribers and currently is taking over 42,000 subscribers into Season 2.