Unbowed: Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai on Climate Change, Wars For Resources, the Greenbelt Movement and More

President Bush convened a special meeting on climate change over the weekend. The move came just days after he skipped a major UN summit on the subject. The meeting in Washington DC was sponsored by the Bush administration and brought together 17 of the world's leading polluters. On Friday the President outlined his vision of dealing with global warming on an individual and voluntary basis.

• President Bush, speaking September 28th, 2007.

But the Bush administration's voluntary approach to tackling global warming received little support. The US position was isolated as European, Chinese, and Indian diplomats all questioned Bush's leadership on climate change. Even as the Bush administration continued to reject mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, other countries called for more binding measures.

Last week I spoke to a woman who has been on the frontlines of the popular struggle for the environment long before the current global warming crisis. She began fighting state-backed deforestation in the 1970s by spearheading a grassroots movement to plant and care for trees. Now she is calling on people around the world to plant one billion trees in the next year and get involved in the fight against climate change. Her life-long activism was recognized in 2004 when she became the first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm talking about Kenyan ecologist and founder of the Green Belt Movement Wangari Maathai.

Wangari Maathai was in the United States to mark the publication of her memoir. It's called "Unbowed" and tells the story of Maathai's journey from rural Kenya to the international stage.

Wangari Maathai was in Seattle when I spoke to her last week. I began by asking her to describe the impact of global warming on Africa.

• Wangari Maathai, Kenyan environmentalist and 2004 Nobel laureate.

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