Be careful what you say around Dr. Susan Pacheco. She's a black belt in Tae Kwan Do, along with her husband and three teenage children. Four years ago they took up the martial art as one, and now train together three or four times a week.
One day last year her children persuaded her and her husband, also a doctor, to see Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth. It was a homework assignment for the teenagers so they made a family outing of it. "Before going to see the movie, I was not particularly interested in climate change, but seeing it changed my life," she says. "Fire and passion came back into my heart." She felt compelled to do something about the climate crisis.
Dr. Pacheco trained to become a climate messenger in December 2006, and her life is now dramatically different. She has traveled to her native Puerto Rico many times to give the talk and find ways to make islanders more aware of the climate crisis.
She and her husband left Puerto Rico in 1985 to become physicians in Houston -but the island is still very dear to her heart. She decided to make it the platform for her climate change efforts because of its vulnerability. The coastlines that surround Puerto Rico are at risk from rising sea levels from continued climate change. This will, in turn, substantially impact the local population and the tourist industry that supports it.
Susan says that attitudes in Puerto Rico are still evolving when it comes to environmental issues. There is a strong sense of regional pride and, when stirred, the people of Puerto Rico will rally together to protect their island. In the mid 1990s, for instance, they joined together to prevent open pit mining that would disturb the landscape. Now, she believes, they can be motivated to help stop the devastation that climate change will bring. "People in Puerto Rico are thirsty for knowledge," she says. When she gives her slide shows on climate change she feels the audience "come towards me."
Being involved in the climate crisis as a trained messenger has changed Susan Pacheco's perspective on life. As a physician, the demands of the job were so great that there was little time to get involved in other issues.Now there isn't a day that goes by that doesn't touch on climate change. She's even a bit of a celebrity in Puerto Rico through her frequent appearances on local TV and radio. She's not keen on being a celebrity, but every time she talks to an audience about climate change she says her commitment gets stronger. "There are so many things you can do!"
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