The environmental and feminist movements have grown like stems and branches of a twisting vine or tree. Sometimes merging, sometimes growing apart. At times they have strengthened each other, yet at other times they have grown distant. Ultimately, they both address similar forces of oppression and exploitation. They share a common goal of dismantling the “status quo.” Their shared vision is the thriving of both women and nature. Climate change is not just an environmental crisis—it is a feminist crisis as well.
Category: Environment
Planet Versus Plastics: The Climate Crisis, Girls and Ice Cream
Girls have been systematically erased from conversations about the climate crisis. For many, this erasure has happened despite the life-changing impacts it is already having on their lives. Climate change is a crisis for girls’ rights as it exacerbates pre-existing risk-factors and heightens them to dangerous extremes.
What will it take for decision-makers to be convinced that girls should not just be a focus of responses. but also at the forefront of change?
Not One Woman on the List
Earlier this month, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev announced the organizing committee for COP29, which will be held there in November. The list included 28 appointees, including Azeri government ministers of energy, health, finance and economy, among others. What the list did not include: women. Not one woman on the list.
The backlash was swift and thunderous. Global women leaders are speaking out: “Many of the key successes of the COP process, including the Paris Agreement, were delivered by women leaders, working closely with their male colleagues.”
Why One Mother Is Celebrating New Federal Methane Reduction Rules
When local parents and Patrice Tomcik, a mother, learned that a drilling company would be fracking on land just a half mile away from their children’s school campus, they became concerned. These gas wells will threaten the health and safety of children for decades to come. That’s why the federal government’s recent actions give some measure of comfort. The new EPA rules will establish comprehensive protections from methane and other harmful pollution for families living near new and existing oil and gas operations.
Climate Justice at COP28: Perspectives of Caribbean Feminist Activists
Right now, political leaders, corporate representatives and climate activists are gathered in Dubai for the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference—COP28—to discuss approaches to mitigating the climate crisis. We caught up with feminist climate activists in the Caribbean on what climate justice means to them and what their expectations are of COP28.
The First ‘Health’ COP Must Prioritize Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for Young People
The 28th U.N. Climate Climate Change Conference (COP) currently meeting in Dubai until Dec. 12, is being hailed as the “Health COP”––promising to bring the climate and health agenda into the mainstream. Yet we are seeing almost no direct focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights, which is a critical gap because climate change creates barriers to fulfilling those rights.
Resisting Climate Patriarchy
Construction is complete on the Enbridge corporation’s Line 3 pipeline, which was dug under the Mississippi River to carry expensive, dirty tar sand oil from Alberta, Canada, to be refined in Wisconsin. In Aitkin County, Minn., the trial of Mylene Vialard (aka Ocean) reveals a pipeline of injustice—the structural violence of white settler-colonial capitalist patriarchy. Vialard’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 20.
Climate Change Is a Growing Risk for Older Women
As climate change fuels ever-deadlier disasters, it may seem that no one is immune to the wildfires, storms and heat waves that plague our baking planet. While this may be true, some are more threatened than others, and older women are among those most at risk.
Older adults represent a significantly disproportionate share of deaths associated with climate-fueled disasters.
Who Do We Call to Solve Our Most Complex Problems? Vice President Harris
Vice President Harris and Israeli President Isaac Herzog just announced $70 million in funding—half from the U.S. and half from Israel—for climate-smart agriculture to capture, store, use and protect water resources in the Middle East and Africa. And it’s no accident a project like this was put forward by the first female vice president in United States history who is a woman of color.
On World Refugee Day, 110 Million People Must Leave Home to Flee Conflict and Persecution
Compounded crises—including conflict, climate and COVID-19—are driving unprecedented levels of human suffering, economic vulnerability and forced displacement.
Tuesday, June 20, we celebrate World Refugee Day—honoring the strength and bravery of those who have been forced to flee their homes. With the 2023 theme of World Refugee Day, “Hope away from home,” we must question whether we, as humanitarians, are effectively using our resources to create an environment for refugees to become self-sufficient.