Global warming, meet your new adversary
A film turns a Tampa woman into an activist.
By DAVID ADAMS, Times Latin America Correspondent
Published January 22, 2007
TAMPA - To help her presentation on global warming, Roberta Fernandez flashes a map of Florida.
It shows the southern half of the state underwater, including Tampa Bay. "If Greenland melts the sea will rise 20 feet," says Fernandez, who calls herself a Climate Messenger.
There are gasps in the audience of smart, but mostly uninformed staffers at a local mortgage and real estate firm who have given up their lunch hour to hear her message.
Seven months ago she was just like them. But that was before she saw An Inconvenient Truth, former Vice President Al Gore's hit climate change documentary.
"I was astounded. I knew about global warming, but not in that way," said Fernandez, 48, who lives in Tampa and owns a Montessori school.
After she came home she found the film's Web site and learned that Gore was looking to personally train 1,000 "Climate Change Messengers" to spread the word on global warming. She signed up.
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http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/22/Tampabay/Global_warming__meet_.shtml