Instead of chocolates, roses and jewelry this Valentine’s Day, women across the world are being encouraged to stand up and demand political leaders take action to address climate change and its root causes.
Known as the 1 Billion Women Rising campaign, groups such as the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network and the NAACP are coming together with female environmentalists such as Jane Goodall to illustrate the impact climate change has had on women, not just environmentally, but economically and socially as well.
On Feb. 14, Osprey Orielle Lake, founder and president of Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus, and other environmentalists — men and women alike — are encouraging women throughout the world to come together to demonstrate the importance of climate justice, why there is a need for urgent action to address climate change’s effects, and some possible solutions to lessening carbon footprints, such as organic farms and solar power technology.
Because climate change and its related extreme weather patterns such as droughts, storms or floods impact everyone, not just women, it may sound odd to have a women-specific campaign to call for action.
But groups such as WECAN reasoned that there is a need for women in particular to stand up and fight climate change, because they are more affected by climate change and more likely to make changes in their daily lives than men.
The group also stated that women account for about 20 of the 26 million estimated refugees displaced by climate change throughout the world, which is about 80 percent of the world’s climate refugees.
“What we know is that women are at the nexus of a thriving and just global future,” Lake said, while talking about why it’s important for women to get involved with the campaign.
Since women are “disproportionately impacted by climate change, environmental and economic problemsand yet demonstratively central to the most important solutions,” Lake, says it’s important women get involved in the fight to protect the Earth.
She further explained that history proves that women and nature have been mistreated, adding it’s time to change both.
“The longstanding history of violating the Earth and violating women is deeply rooted in the same problem and societal imbalances,” said Lake, also co-founder WECAN .
“To achieve long-term solutions, we will need to deal with root causes and systemic change, and this will mean liberating the silenced and oppressed voices of women and nature.”
Even the United Nations has recognized there is a gender-imbalance when it comes to the threatsassociated with climate change and has called for a gender analysis to be done on all climate change-related actions “so that women’s and men’s specific needs and priorities are identified and addressed.”
How exactly does climate change affect the sexes differently?
Dr. Jyoti Parikh, executive director of Integrated Research and Action for Development, said in a report for the U.N.’s Development Program in India that women are affected in at least four ways by climate change, which she says arises from “prevailing social inequalities” that manifest them. The first is decreased food security.
“With changes in climate, traditional food sources become more unpredictable and scarce,” Parikh said. “This exposes women to loss of harvests, often their sole sources of food and income.”
Lake agreed food security is an issue, especially for women from low-income communities, indigenous women, and those in developing countries that rely more on natural resources.
“Due to extreme and increasing droughts, women and girls in Africa have to walk long distances to fetch drinking water while foregoing economic opportunities and education,” Lake said.
“In search for fuel wood (sic) women have to walk further into the forest and are more at risk to be attacked and raped.”
The second disproportionate burden women face when it comes to climate change is the impact on women’s livelihoods.
“Women are more dependent on their livelihood on natural resources that are threatened by climate change,” Parikh said.
“For instance, climate change causes a rise in the sea level, affecting the fishing community (both men and women) not only in terms of fish-catch but also with regard to water scarcity, as seawater gets into fresh water.
“Besides, when the land is inundated, infrastructure (roads and houses) are damaged,” she added. “Large scale migration from inundated areas is expected and much of the burden of migration falls on women.”
Shortages and lack of access to water resources is the third consequence of climate change.
The fourth consequence Parikh documented is an increased burden of caregiving.
“As primary caregivers, women may see their responsibilities increase as family members suffer increased illness due to exposure to vector borne diseases such as malaria, water borne diseases such as cholera and increase in heart stress mortality.”
Since it seems clear women and men are impacted by climate change and its impact differently, “gender differences must be taken into account,” Parikh said.
Making changes
Given that women in North America make 80 percent of all consumer purchases, Lake believes women can impact what’s being done to lessen the effects of climate change on multiple levels.
“[I]magine how that market power could be mobilized to significantly reduce carbon emissions through purchasing choices, including demanding an end to fossil fuels and a radical increase in renewable energy,” she said.
Nathalie Issacs, co-founder of 1 Million Women, an organization that focuses on sustainability and climate awareness, agrees women have real economic power when it comes to influencing climate change.
Issacs said that the power comes from our everyday choices, including how we live, what we buy, don’t buy, how much we save, how much we spend, where we invest, how much we donate, where we work, and who we do business with.
“By mobilizing this economic power of women, built on the individual choices we make with our money, theobjective of 1 Million Women is to change to a fossil free economy,” she said.
“Together, the economic and the citizen power of a million women can help change the world. … We can’t be effectively involved in the solutions to dangerous climate change if we aren’t taking action in your own life. By starting with individual action, we take women on a journey to empowerment.”
In addition to economic choices, Lake said women are key when it comes to discovering and implementing sustainable solutions.
“Women are responsible for half of the world’s food production, and women standing together are envisioning a world where women, especially those growing our food, no longer own less than 1 percent of land and wealth,” she said.
“When women farmers are empowered, we will see food security. It is women who are responsible for food production and the collection of water and fuel wood, which makes them particularly aware of changing weather patterns that alter growing seasons, decrease crop yields and lower water levels.”