April 21, 2022
Chaco Canyon Image: Pueblo Action Alliance
The existing, extractive systems much of the Western world has in place were put there by—largely—white men. It’s time to take a different approach. To do so, we need a change of the guard. Having women at the helm of our government and agricultural systems will be vital to surviving the climate crisis.
—Grace Lynch, SAs She Rises podcast creator
The gist:
Last fall, when Grace Lynch launched the first season of the climate justice podcast “As She Rises,” the most common question she received was, “Why are you speaking with only women?”
Lynch, who felt overwhelmed by the subject of climate change, “felt a strong desire to change the message about climate change,” and “so I asked myself, ‘Who could make this issue finally accessible and even more importantly, digestible and uplifting?’” And her answer was, “I believed that those closest to the problem should be the ones speaking about the real-life impacts on the ground to paint a portrait of what it’s actually like to live through the climate crisis. With that, it made perfect sense to center women of color and native voices.”
We know women and children are the most vulnerable to climate change. Why?
- Not only do women lack the monetary resources, they typically are caretakers of children and elderly people so they lack mobility
As an example, in 2004, a tsunami struck Sri Lanka. In the aftermath, it was assessed that four times as many women died in the wake of the storm.
- When forced to move, migrant women are often left without documentation
- they many be navigating a language barrier, or
- they are trying to provide for their families
The “firsthand accounts that shed light on just how destabilizing the climate crisis can be for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people,” are the main contents of the podcast. But the impact that women have on positive climate solutions is the other side of the story.
The Stats:
Around the world, when women lead in the climate crisis we see progress.
- According to the Brookings Institute, countries where women have higher social and political mobility emit 12 percent less carbon dioxide than their contemporaries.
- Female heads of state, like New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, have proven to be incredibly effective at combating the climate crisis. In fact, New Zealand’s 40 percent female cabinet aims to have their public sector carbon neutral in just three years.
- The U.N. has also reported that when given the same resources as men, female agricultural workers increase production by upwards of 30 percent.
Lynch adds that, “while we wait for the world’s leadership to catch up, there are already incredibly powerful grassroots environmentalists who are making progress in addressing climate change and our extractive practices.”
- Julia Bernal, the executive director of the Pueblo Action Alliance, an organization that was instrumental in successfully pressuring the Department of the Interior to protect these sacred tribal lands. The formal decision to preserve the area from future oil and gas leasing came from Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland—the first Indigenous woman to ever hold a federal cabinet position.
- Amy Trainer successfully represented the Swinomish people in a campaign to protect the headwaters of the Skagit River from a proposed mining operation. The preserved landscape will ultimately be returned to the original stewards of the land—the First Nations people of Canada.
When thinking about the climate crisis, it is easy to become overwhelmed by dread and feelings of helplessness. But learning about the work of these incredible women has given me a new sense of hope and optimism as we all march forward into the impending storm. If we’re willing to listen to these women, we might actually be able to make it out of this alive. And dare I say, even better than before.
Photo: A woman in Mumbai, India, participates in a ‘Global Climate Strike’ demonstration on March 26, 2022, to raise awareness about the environmental issues affecting the world. (Ashish Vaishnav / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images)
Connect with the Ms. Magazine post here.
