Katherine Massam, An Environmental Hero: Kyoto Action Committee

Katherine Massam, An Environmental Hero: Kyoto Action Committee

Viewpoint by Dennis Shibut, WCW Columnist

I would like to take this opportunity to bring to your awareness, one of the unsung environmental heroes, I have had the pleasure to work with. Some readers may have noticed at the end of my reports for WCW inSIGHT that there is a to Katherine Massam for her help in preparing each of the Kyoto Reports that I publish.

Her main role is to edit the text, which is no small task: she protects Kyoto readers from my penchants to mangle syntax, 'brilliantly' wander off topic, rant, and hyperbole. Without her, the quality of reading these Kyoto Action Reports would suffer noticeably. I have humbly appreciated her efforts over the years.

On the personal side, Katherine is English, married to Willy, who is French. They have two young boys. Just after they married, she and Willy immigrated to Quebec, Canada to find work and start a family. I met Katherine years before all this happened, when she was a young assistant teacher in Avignon, France. I quickly saw in her some sterling qualities: a sharp intelligence that did not tolerate fudging reality, and a keen moral conscience that desires, most of all, to do the right thing for everyone involved. In other words, Katherine is a born activist. For the record, she emphatically denies this.

As proof, she later worked for Barnardos, one of the oldest and largest children's charities in the UK, and at the same time was a member of Amnesty International where she wrote letters calling for the release of political prisoners around the world. When she and Willy immigrated to Canada, she took up the cause of the environment. Besides Kyoto Action, Katherine is a member of the Sierra Club (Quebec chapter) and has done volunteer work on their "Cool Cities" project. She also donates and campaigns for Greenpeace, Equiterre (French), Avaaz, and The Council of Canadians.

I should also mention that in addition to her “activist” activities, Katherine has a day job!

About the Author

Denis Shibut is the creator of the Kyoto Action website, MS Physics, member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, former researcher for NASA and US Coast & Geodetic Survey.

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