Global warming author a winner

Leonie Joubert, the Cape Town-based author of Scorched: South Africa's Changing Climate, has won the prestigious Ruth First Fellowship this week.

Leonie, who was born and raised in the Hogsback region of the Eastern Cape but now lives in Claremont, will be speaking for an hour on the risks posed by climate change at the MTN Sciencentre in Canal Walk shopping mall at 3pm on Saturday 19 May as the final event of National Science Week 2007.

"The talk by Leonie Joubert is free thanks to sponsorship from the Department of Science and Technology," said Busi Maqubela, the MTN Sciencentre floor manager. She said there were only 200 seats available in the science centre's Ericsson auditorium and encouraged people to arrive early.

Maqubela added that former US vice-president Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, also on the topic of global warming, would help kick off of National Science Week 2007 on Saturday 12 May at 4pm at the MTN Sciencentre.

Al Gore movies
The movie by "the former next President of the United States" is being re-screened on Sunday 13 May at 2pm. On Saturday 19 May, just three days before the launch of Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason, his documentary will be re-screened at noon at the MTN Sciencentre so that people can then attend Leonie Joubert's talk.

Julie Cleverdon, the acting head of the MTN Sciencentre, said that Scorched was also given an honorary award this week when the shortlist for the Sunday Times Alan Paton Non-Fiction Award was announced, “for entering the new territory of science journalism and its skill in popularising an often inaccessible field”.

"I feel extremely honoured to have Scorched mentioned – we don’t have a strong tradition of science writing in South Africa, even though it’s a hugely popular genre in countries such as the UK and US," Joubert said. "We desperately need more South Africans writing about science and environmental issues within our local context and in a way that is accessible to people within their different literacy levels."

Memorial to Ruth First
The Ruth First Fellowship is named after the journalist, academic and communist party member Ruth First (1925 – 1982) who was killed by a parcel bomb sent by apartheid security police on behalf of the ruling party of South Africa, the whites-only National Party.

The 2007 themes for the fellowship were “Is a culture of greed taking root in South Africa?” or “What are the implications of global warming for South Africa?”

"Since affluence, materialism and greed are some of the big drivers behind the pollution which causes global warming, it is possible to link both themes into my project," Joubert said. The fellowship allows her three to six months in which to research the topic and produce publishable works as well as present a public lecture on August 17, the 25th anniversary of First’s horrific assassination in Mozambique.

Joubert said that she will visit five families, within five different communities, who are vulnerable to climate change for various reasons in order to explore South Africa’s contribution to global warming, as well as the country’s economic growth objectives. The Ruth First Fellowship is offered by Wits' University Journalism School and the Ruth First Trust.

For more information on Leonie Joubert's book, please check out www.scorched.co.za.