Why Climate Change Will Hit Women Hardest
Published November 11, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
I wrote the other day over on Change.org's sustainable food blog about the fact that women produce the lion’s share of the world’s food but own only 2 percent of the Earth’s tillable land. Considering that climate change is going to present special challenges to farmers, who depend on abundant resources and stable weather patterns, women are, as they say, in for it. And I haven't even mentioned disease or disappearing drinking water yet.
A new “Gender and Climate Change Manual” from the Global Gender and Climate Alliance rightly states that “the poor, the majority of whom are women living in developing countries, will be disproportionately affected. Yet most of the debate on climate so far has been gender-blind.”
This topic is remarkably important and almost entirely ignored. The issue pops up infrequently and peripherally, as when the 52nd session of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women last year took “gender perspectives on climate change” as its “emerging issue.” It's only "emerging" now because no one was paying attention before, but this should have been part of the debate since the beginning.
And now, as our climate transforms in the ways we already can't stop, emerge this problem will. To whit:
- Women will be on the front lines of the increase in disease caused by heightened global temperatures and increased storm activity. The World Health Organization estimates that around 50 million women living in high malaria zones become pregnant every year, and around 10,000 of them and 200,000 of their babies die from malaria infection. The more the climate warms, the more malarial mosquitoes circulate and the more dire the risk to women.
- A 2007 study from the London School of Economics and Political Science found that women are more likely than men to die in natural disasters in places where women’s rights are not protected. Considering that women’s rights are very commonly not protected as robustly as men’s, women in countries around the world face a bleak outlook as the climate changes and the frequency of natural disasters increases.
- Women are usually responsible for maintaining their families' access to drinking water, which is less and less available to many in the developing world. According to a report by WHO, 1.2 billion people do not have access to safe water, and of those that do, most live far away from it. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, 42 percent of the population has to walk more than 30 minutes to get safe water. The more the climate warms, the farther they’ll have to go. And guess who does all that walking?
- Women’s lack of land rights and comparatively minimal access to microcredit means that they are simply less secure than men. When the going gets tough, women cannot depend on stable sources of income or external help. According to a study in the Lancet, women own less than 2 percent of all the world’s arable land. Further, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations found that in five African countries female small farmers got less than 10 percent of the credit that male small farmers received. Women's comparative lack of assets and education makes their insecurity all the worse.
The fact is that women already get the short end of the stick, and that end is going to get shorter and shorter as the world warms.
But it isn't just women who suffer from the world's disregard of the inequalities they face. If women aren't brought into the conversation about solutions in a meaningful way, the global community will have trouble slowing down that warming. Around the world, after all, women are heavily involved in all the tasks that use land and water resources — agriculture, animal husbandry, cooking, washing, hauling water. We won't be able to engineer effective solutions without their input and cooperation.
How's that for an emerging issue?
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Comments (7)
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Author
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Katherine Gustafson is a freelance writer and editor with a background in international nonprofit organizations. Her articles, essays, and stories have been published in numerous magazines, newspapers, books, and Websites.
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It would be a whole lot more effective if people were to stop calling it "Global Warming". The Earth has natural cycles of temperature change and always has. I think it has gotten a little out of control. I am not saying humans are not contributing to temperature changes, but if you actually look at the overall picture the Earth temperature is in decline. We should be concentrating more on pollution. A carbon tax for Americans or Europeans isn't going to reverse anything as long as countries like China continue to claim they are leaders in green technology while contributing to more global pollution than any other nation...just a thought.
Posted by Stacie Frost on 11/14/2009 @ 07:27AM PT
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You are correct, it is better to call it anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC), because that description more accurately explains the phenomena, but science clearly shows that the overall temperature of the planet is going up, not down. In a recent study, 97% of publishing climatologist surveyed agree that that "global warming" is real, it is happening now, and human activity is largely responsible. Yes, the earth has natural cycles, but current increases in temperature do not fit into any of them.
Burning high-carbon fuels costs America over 120 billion dollars in health care costs alone each year due to air and water pollution, so a cap and trade policy on carbon would definitely reduce pollution and improve health. If you really want to reduce harmful pollution, why would you be against it?
Regardless of what China says, they are investing huge amounts of money in clean energy technology because they see the handwriting on the wall. Their position is merely one for negotiation, and it has fooled many Americans, particularly the AGCC deniers. If America does not act now, and fast, we will end up having to buy all the new battery, solar, and wind technology from China. Why would you be for that?
Posted by Craig Nazor on 11/15/2009 @ 10:50AM PT
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I guess what I am having a problem with is the anthropogenic part. I just don't see evidence that man is largely responsible. Take this chart for instance:
http://www.planetperformance.org/global-warming/nasa-temp-means-1880-2000.gif
This chart is often used to demonstrate how bad climate change is, however when you look at such a small span in time, there is no doubt your perception will be skewd.
This chart is courtesy of NASA. It looks at the bigger picture, tracing its data from the Phanerozoic period spanning the past 545 million years. It clearly demonstrated the decrease in temp. I mentioned.
http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect16/Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png
I don't have any problem with cap & trade per se, as long as it is strictly reserved for industry and not the individual. What we should be doing is concentrating on incentives for both industry and individuals to use cleaner sources of energy in the first place. Another thing that would help greatly would be to extend specific educational assistance for students pursuing degrees in environmental sciences. I vehemently oppose any carbon tax. Taxation is slavery.
Posted by Stacie Frost on 11/15/2009 @ 12:10PM PT
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Stacie,
You appear to misunderstand the concept of level of resolution when it comes to those two graphs. Think of it this way: you wake up in the morning with a big red zit on your face. You are scheduled to have your picture taken. Now, if what you need is a full-frame headshot, then you had better be thinking either makeup or Photoshop, because that zit is going to show. But if you were getting your picture taken with all the other members of your church choir, then the zit will probably not be noticeable, because it will be too small. The resolution of the image will not be high enough to show the zit.
It’s the same thing with these two charts. On the first chart, 100 years of data is graphed in four inches of space, and the warming trend is obvious. On the second chart, 100 years is represented by .000000875 of an inch. The rapid change of temperature that the earth is now experiencing is happening way to quickly to be visible to the naked eye on the second graph. Not only that, this rapid temperature change is closely following the rapid rise in atmospheric CO2 levels that the earth has experienced since the dawn of the industrial revolution.
If you only look at the ”bigger picture” (lower resolution), you miss the big, rapidly growing red zit that is anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC).
All the CO2 cap-and-trade proposals I have read only apply to corporations and not to individuals. Being a teacher myself, I strongly support any increase in funding for education. But your statement “taxation is slavery” logically does not make sense.
From Wikipedia:
“Slavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others.”
“To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law.”
All modern societies raise revenues by leveling taxes. All modern societies currently outlaw slavery. If "taxation is slavery," how could this be? Cap-and-trade would tax corporations, not individuals. How else do you think that the government should raise the money necessary to stop AGCC?
Posted by Craig Nazor on 11/15/2009 @ 06:23PM PT
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"women already get the short end of the stick, and that end is going to get shorter and shorter as the world warms"
Are you suggesting that in a (slightly?) cooler world, women could be better off than in today's?
Posted by Maurizio Morabito on 11/18/2009 @ 10:02AM PT
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I am saying that global warming is going to have more immediate and damaging impacts for women, in general, than for men. And so to the extent than any of our current water shortages and storm surges and disease epidemics are caused by climatic changes from global warming, I would venture to say that, yes, they make the lives of women, who in large part are the ones working the farms and gathering the water and trying to protect children from disease, particularly hard.
Posted by Katherine Gustafson on 11/18/2009 @ 10:11AM PT
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Yes, that bit I think I understand. But there are two ways to interpret it:
(a) in a cooler world fewer negative things would happen and thereby the lives of women would improve. Say for example it's 2050 and the temperature has gone up 1C compared to 2009 and women are worse off: in that case, bringing the temperature down to 2009 levels would help women the world over
Or (b) the situation of many women around the world is so dire that after more or less any change of any sort they will get "shorter and shorter" sticks (analysis of vulnerability and all that)
Posted by Maurizio Morabito on 11/18/2009 @ 10:43AM PT
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