Local author and Environmental Officer, Angela Burnett Penn has embarked on a five-state book tour across the northeast United States. Photo: Provided

The tour began Thursday, April 12, 2018, at the Ivy-League Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island where Ms Burnett appeared on a panel with leading authors, storytellers and poets. Photo: Provided

Ms Burnett is the author of The Irma Diaries: Compelling Survivor Stories. The tour began Thursday, April 12, 2018, at the Ivy-League Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island where Ms Burnett appeared on a panel with leading authors, storytellers and poets.

She will continue to raise awareness about the impact of Hurricane Irma in the Virgin Islands and the broader issue of climate change which will fuel more frequent strong, Irma-brand hurricanes.

Ms Burnett addressed hundreds who attended this year’s March for Science in Boston and shared the stage with the likes of Senator Pacheco, the leading Massachusetts Senator on climate change and highlighted the Virgin Islands as a country on the frontlines of climate change. 

She said, “I am advocating for policymakers in Washington, D.C. to take serious action on climate change.  Studies indicate inaction on climate change is mainly due to people feeling disconnected from the issue - seeing it as abstract, vague and not happening now or hurting anybody. The Irma Diaries will hopefully change that by drawing people into our experience as small islands on the frontlines of climate change, which is happening now and having major impacts. The USA Book Tour is an opportunity to bring the platform of The Irma Diaries to life”

Ms Burnett will speak at the Massachusetts Climate Leadership Summit at UMass Amherst this week and will be the keynote speaker at the launch of Paperbark Magazine, which will feature The Irma Diaries on its first cover. She will also appear as a panellist at Ivy-league Columbia University, New York discussing Climate Change and Small Island Developing States (SIDs). Other stops along the book tour include guest lectures at Smith College and Brandeis University in Massachusetts, Rutgers University in New Jersey and the University of Maryland.

Ms Burnett will also promote the newly established Virgin Islands Climate Change Trust Fund, designed to fund climate change projects and to which she is donating 25 percent of the profits of the book sales. Burnett is donating an additional 25 percent of profits to the survivors she interviewed for The Irma Diaries.

The Irma Diaries is a collection of 25 survivor stories based on first-hand interviews with survivors on Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Jost Van Dyke and Anegada.