However disconnected we may feel personally from the climate crisis, there is a role that each of us has to play. Here are three action points for each and every one of us.
Author: Pat Mitchell
Pat Mitchell is the editorial director of TEDWomen. Throughout her career as a journalist, Emmy-winning producer and pioneering executive, she has focused on sharing women’s stories. She is chair of the Sundance Institute Board, the chair emerita of the Women’s Media Center board, and a trustee of the VDAY movement, the Skoll Foundation and The Woodruff Arts Center. She is an advisor to Participant Media and served as a congressional appointment to the American Museum of Women’s History Advisory Council.
Build Back Better: A “Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity” to Solve a Universal American Problem
When asked how I navigated my career while being a single parent, I answer honestly: “Not well enough.” Now, legislation moving through Congress would make that struggle a little easier for working parents.
The vast majority of American voters—around 80 percent—are in favor of a national paid leave program. But its passage is not certain.
Billions Pledged to Accelerate Gender Equity at Generation Equality Forum
The Generation Equality Forum—held in Paris from June 30–July 2, 2021 and livestreamed to participants around the world—was a monumental event that set a new and unprecedented level of funding to prioritize and implement gender equality programs and commitments.
A quarter century after the U.N. Women’s Conference, at which 189 countries pledged to adopt the ambitious Beijing “Platform for Action” to achieve gender equity, once again political leaders, feminist movement leaders, corporate executives and activists gathered to address the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on women and girls, and to commit to action that will accelerate global progress over the next five years, by 2026.
Table for 12, Please: Kamala Harris, Madame Vice President
A deep dive into the work Vice President Kamala Harris is doing at the table—nearly 100 days into this administration
Biden has said, “There’s not a single decision I’ve made yet” about his administration that he hasn’t consulted with Harris on first.
Table for 12, Please: Shalanda Young, Acting Director of Office of Management and Budget
On March 22, the Senate voted 63-37 to confirm Shalanda Young as the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. She is currently acting director of the department.
If Young is made director of the OMB, she would be the first Black woman in charge of the agency.
Table For 12, Please: Isabel Guzman, Small Business Administrator, Will Manage $1 Trillion in Relief
On March 16, the Senate confirmed Isabella Casillas Guzman, President Biden’s pick to lead the Small Business Administration (SBA), an agency that has seen its profile grow enormously in response to the pandemic. She is the first Latina to lead the agency and the only Latina in Biden’s diverse Cabinet.
“Now more than ever, our small businesses need us,” Guzman said.
Table For 12, Please: Katherine Tai, U.S. Trade Representative
Katherine Tai is the only Asian American woman appointed to a Cabinet-level position under Biden and is the first woman of color to serve as the U.S. trade representative in its 60-year history.
Table For 12, Please: Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s Getting America Back to Work
Gina Raimondo was sworn in March 3 as the nation’s new commerce secretary by Vice President Kamala Harris after a bipartisan vote of 84-15 in the Senate. In introducing her as his pick for Secretary of Commerce, President Biden called her “one of the most effective and forward-thinking governors” in America.
Table for 12, Please: CEA Chair Cecilia Rouse on How Math Can Bring Social Change
The Senate confirmed Cecilia Rouse as chair of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers—the first Black leader of CEA and the fourth woman in 75 years.
“I went into economics because I wanted to use the tools of economics to generate positive social change,” Rouse said. “I love asking questions and turning to data to use evidence to understand the world, and challenge my own understanding of it.”
Table for 12, Please: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm Is “Impatient For Results”
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm will be getting to work immediately, helping President Biden carry out his ambitious green energy plan, which proposes to spend $2 trillion over four years on clean energy projects and end carbon emissions from power plants by 2035.