#women and climate change

[coochiequeens]

“ New ActionAid research in Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia and Nigeria has found that climate change is also increasing gender-based violence and damaging women’s mental health.”

This has been a year of climate catastrophes for every corner of the globe. From floods in Pakistan and Nigeria to the worst droughts on record across the Horn of Africa, no one on the planet is insulated against our rapidly worsening climate. Among the most disproportionately affected are women and girls. Yet their story is all too often just a footnote in the news.

We know about the gendered impact of climate change from our work across the world. We have seen time and time again how women and girls are pushed to drop out of school or marry early to help manage the financial stress that families face during droughts or floods. New ActionAid research in Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia and Nigeria has found that climate change is also increasing gender-based violence and damaging women’s mental health.

As a warming planet leads to a rise in humanitarian emergencies and displacement, women and girls must not be left to pay the steepest price.

In northern Kenya, Rosemary — a former farmer whom ActionAid works with — now needs to walk several miles farther than before to find water. Her community is facing extreme drought after consecutive failed rains, with 90 percent of all open water sources in their area now dry. This increased burden and the distances she has to go put her at greater risk of violence as she needs to travel, often outside daylight hours, to areas where she has no protection.

Meanwhile, the drought and the invasion of a crop-eating worm pest have already destroyed her farm, once her main source of income. This has forced Rosemary into animal husbandry, but she faces the challenges of an unpredictable climate here too. Unable to access water and grassland, two of her cows recently died, pushing her further into financial precarity.

Farmer incomes have dropped sharply in Rosemary’s community because of the failed rains. This is leading to girls being taken out of school — and in some cases married off — to ease family expenditure and help to bring in income. In precarious times of climate stress like this, girls are 20 percent more likely to be married early than in times of stability, putting women’s rights to education and liberty at risk.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Women and girls on the front line of the climate crisis, like Rosemary, know what actions are needed and are important agents of change. Rosemary leads a local activist network that tackles violence against women and girls and provides guidance to young women on their human rights. This support is key for women and girls navigating the knock-on impacts of climate change and drought.

Women like Rosemary are capable of building communities that are resilient to the challenges of climate change. But they need support to scale up their work and the opportunity to help decide how international, national and local climate finance is spent.

Yet, sadly, we know that the voices of the women on the front lines are not sufficiently heard in the grand halls and behind the closed doors where the big decisions are made, including at the ongoing COP27 climate change conference. This is particularly worrying in 2022 as the impacts of climate change escalate while international support for women like Rosemary remains scarce.

Industrialised nations that have contributed the most to the climate crisis are yet to deliver on their promised — yet inadequate — funding to help mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change in the future. These failed promises, combined with the lack of finance to support climate impacts now — known as loss and damage finance — means that the odds are loaded against a funding paradigm that accounts for the additional risks and consequences women and girls face.

While the United Kingdom is increasing its financial support for climate adaptation, it has not pledged new and additional loss and damage funding to countries like Kenya, which is battling its worst drought on record.

This is unacceptable. Climate finance needs to cover reparations for the lost years of girls’ education, address women’s lost security, and compensate for their failed crop yields. We need progress on these issues at COP27, not yet another year of kicking the can down the road.

World leaders need to pay attention to stories like Rosemary’s. We need less rhetoric and a greater focus on women’s rights and actions to help them thrive and bring their communities out of poverty. Without this, the gendered injustice of climate change and the silent crisis for women and girls will only get worse.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

By Sophie Rigg Senior Climate and Resilience Adviser, ActionAid UK

Sophie Rigg is ActionAid UK’s Senior Climate and Resilience Adviser and leads their climate policy and research work focusing on the intersection of gender justice and climate justice. She specialises in locally led and gender-just climate adaptation, climate resilience, and loss and damage. She is a board member of the Global Network for Disaster Reduction (GNDR) and on the Steering Committee of CAN-UK. Sophie is also an observer on the Climate Investment Funds.

[plutusiasdelhi]

WOMEN AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Investing in their education, training, and access to resources is imperative to empower women in climate action. Equipping women with knowledge and skills in sustainable agriculture, water management, and clean energy generation can mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on livelihoods. 

Initiatives like the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India, which educates women farmers on adapting to shifting climate patterns, exemplify the positive impact of such investments. 

The article regarding the topic of WOMEN AND CLIMATE CHANGE is written by Rishabh and the it is reviewed by our extremely qualified and experienced faculty Dr. Bijendra Jha.

[queerism1969]

[notherpuppet]

I’ve never had a big following before and it’s really important to me to try to use the platform I have to promote harm reduction:

@ the U.S. followers I have; VOTE HARRIS

[mysharona1987]

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #10

March 15-22 2024

The EPA announced new emission standards with the goal of having more than half of new cars and light trucks sold in the US be low/zero emission by 2032. One of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history, it'll eliminate 7 billion tons of CO2 emissions over the next 30 years. It's part of President Biden's goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 on the road to eliminating them totally by 2050.

President Biden canceled nearly 6 Billion dollars in student loan debt. 78,000 borrowers who work in public sector jobs, teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters etc will have their debt totally forgiven. An additional 380,000 public service workers will be informed that they qualify to have their loans forgiven over the next 2 years. The Biden Administration has now forgiven $143.6 Billion in student loan debt for 4 million Americans since the Supreme Court struck down the original student loan forgiveness plan last year.

Under Pressure from the administration and Democrats in Congress Drugmaker AstraZeneca caps the price of its inhalers at $35. AstraZeneca joins rival Boehringer Ingelheim in capping the price of inhalers at $35, the price the Biden Admin capped the price of insulin for seniors. The move comes as the Federal Trade Commission challenges AstraZeneca’s patents, and Senator Bernie Sanders in his role as Democratic chair of the Senate Health Committee investigates drug pricing.

The Department of Justice sued Apple for being an illegal monopoly in smartphones. The DoJ is joined by 16 state attorneys general. The DoJ accuses Apple of illegally stifling competition with how its apps work and seeking to undermining technologies that compete with its own apps.

The EPA passed a rule banning the final type of asbestos still used in the United States. The banning of chrysotile asbestos (known as white asbestos) marks the first time since 1989 the EPA taken action on asbestos, when it passed a partial ban. 40,000 deaths a year in the US are linked to asbestos

President Biden announced $8.5 billion to help build advanced computer chips in America. Currently America only manufactures 10% of the world's chips and none of the most advanced next generation of chips. The deal with Intel will open 4 factories across 4 states (Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, and Oregon) and create 30,000 new jobs. The Administration hopes that by 2030 America will make 20% of the world's leading-edge chips.

President Biden signed an Executive Order prioritizing research into women's health. The order will direct $200 million into women's health across the government including comprehensive studies of menopause health by the Department of Defense and new outreach by the Indian Health Service to better meet the needs of American Indian and Alaska Native Women. This comes on top of $100 million secured by First Lady Jill Biden from ARPA-H.

Democratic Senators Bob Casey, Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, and Jacky Rosen (all up for re-election) along with Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Sheldon Whitehouse, introduced the "Shrinkflation Prevention Act" The Bill seeks to stop the practice of companies charging the same amount for products that have been subtly shrunk so consumers pay more for less.

The Department of Transportation will invest $45 million in projects that improve Bicyclist and Pedestrian Connectivity and Safety

The EPA will spend $77 Million to put 180 electric school buses onto the streets of New York City This is part of New York's goal to transition its whole school bus fleet to electric by 2035.

The Senate confirmed President Biden's nomination of Nicole Berner to the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Berner has served as the general counsel for America's largest union, SEIU, since 2017 and worked in their legal department since 2006. On behalf of SEIU she's worked on cases supporting the Affordable Care Act, DACA, and against the Defense of Marriage act and was part of the Fight for 15. Before working at SEIU she was a staff attorney at Planned Parenthood. Berner's name was listed by the liberal group Demand Justice as someone they'd like to see on the Supreme Court. Berner becomes one of just 5 LGBT federal appeals court judges, 3 appointed by Biden. The Senate also confirmed Edward Kiel and Eumi Lee to be district judges in New Jersey and Northern California respectively, bring the number of federal judges appointed by Biden to 188.

[amnhnyc]

By studying calcifying organisms, Leanne aims to better understand the impacts of human activity on marine ecosystems. Through her research, she hopes to influence policy that helps protect marine calcifiers in the future.

“Why is this important? The idea is that the more porous the shell, the weaker it is. Mussels need strong, robust shells to protect their inner soft organs—and that strong 3D structure is important for ecosystem function as habitat formers and storm defenses.

Currently, the changes seen in shell porosity are not large enough to influence the material properties, so we aren’t seeing weaker shells just yet. But with further warming in our oceans being predicted, this could potentially lead to even more porous shells, potentially impacting mussels’ function as habitat formers and storm defenses, as well as their ability to protect themselves from predation,” Melbourne explains.

Learn more about her research here.

[pumpumdemsugah]

I hope this goes somewhere soon

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jack Ohman, Tribune Content Agency

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 7, 2024 (Monday)

People in Florida are evacuating before Hurricane Milton is expected to hit the state’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday evening, bringing tornadoes, high winds, a dramatic storm surge, and upwards of 15 inches of rain. Milton grew from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in a little over a day, fed by water in the Gulf of Mexico that climate change has pushed in some places to 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2.2 degrees Celsius) higher than normal. Veteran Florida meteorologist and hurricane specialist John Morales choked up as he called it “horrific.”

President Joe Biden has approved an emergency declaration for Florida, enabling the federal government to move supplies in ahead of the storm’s arrival, but the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has refused to take a call from Vice President Kamala Harris about planning for the storm. When asked about DeSantis’s refusal at today’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre noted that the president and vice president have reached out to give support to the people of Florida.

As for DeSantis, “It’s up to him if he wants to respond to us or not. But what we're doing is we’re working with state and local officials to make sure that we are pre-positioned to make sure that we are ready to be there for the communities that are going to be impacted. We are doing the job… to protect the communities and to make sure that they have everything that is needed." When asked about DeSantis’s snub, Harris answered: “It’s just utterly irresponsible, and it is selfish, and it is about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.”

Before this year, Florida had goals of moving toward clean energy, but in May 2024, DeSantis signed a law to restructure the state’s energy policy so that addressing climate change would no longer be a priority. The law deleted any mention of climate change in state laws. Saying that “Florida rejects the designs of the left to weaken our energy grid, pursue a radical climate agenda, and promote foreign adversaries,” the governor posted a graphic on X that said the law would “INSULATE FLORIDA FROM GREEN ZEALOTS….”

Like DeSantis, Trump and Project 2025, a playbook for the next Republican administration, authored by allies of the right-wing Heritage Foundation and closely associated with Trump and Republican vice presidential candidate Ohio senator J.D. Vance, take the position that concerns about climate change are overblown. Project 2025 says the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, whose duties include issuing hurricane warnings, is “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.” It calls for either eliminating its functions, sending them to other agencies, privatizing them, or putting them under the control of states and territories.

The U.S. Supreme Court came back in session today in Washington, D.C. It has decided not to hear arguments about whether the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTLA) overrules Texas’s state abortion ban. EMTLA requires that hospitals provide emergency abortion care to save a woman’s life or stop organ failure or loss of fertility. Texas’s ban remains in place.

As legal analyst Joyce White Vance commented: “At least no one can pretend we don’t understand the consequences for women, & others, of putting appointments to the Court back in [Republican] control.”

The Georgia Supreme Court today reinstated the state’s six-week abortion ban after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, appointed in 2012 by Republican governor Nathan Deal, decided last week that the law violates Georgia’s Constitution. In his decision, McBurney wrote that “liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices.”

McBurney’s decision came shortly after a state investigation revealed that at least two women in Georgia died after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision struck down the abortion protections the court put in place in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. In anticipation of an end to Roe, Georgia governor Brian Kemp in 2019 signed a six-week abortion ban prohibiting the procedure before most women know they’re pregnant. The Dobbs decision allowed that law to go into effect.

The Georgia Supreme Court stayed McBurney’s decision during the state’s appeal of it. Chris Geidner of Law Dork noted that the court did leave in place McBurney’s block on the law’s provision that district attorneys can have access to “health records” where an abortion is performed or where someone who received an abortion lives.

In her attempt to reach new audiences, Vice President Harris sat down for an interview with Alex Cooper of the Call Her Daddy podcast to talk about women’s issues. Call Her Daddy is the second most popular podcast in the country, reaching as many as 2 million downloads per episode. According to NPR’s Elena Moore, Call Her Daddy’s audience is 70% women, 93% under 45.

Cooper began the interview by acknowledging that she does not usually talk about politics, but “at the end of the day, I couldn’t see a world in which one of the main conversations in this election is women and I’m not a part of it…. I am so aware I have a very mixed audience when it comes to politics, so please hear me when I say [that] my goal today is not to change your political affiliation. What I’m hoping is that you’re able to listen to a conversation that isn’t too different from the ones that we’re having here every week.” Cooper said she had also reached out to Trump, adding: “If he also wants to have a meaningful, in-depth conversation about women’s rights in this country, then he is welcome on Call Her Daddy any time.”

On the podcast, Cooper and Harris talked about the prevalence of sexual assault before addressing abortion. When Cooper quoted Trump’s promise to protect women, Harris noted that he was the one who appointed the three extremists to the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade and that 20 states now have abortion bans, some with no exceptions for rape or incest. Harris pointed out that the majority of women who receive abortion care are mothers and that every state in the South except for Virginia has an abortion ban. For a woman in those states—and one out of every three American women lives in one—the journey is expensive, hard, and traumatic.

“You don’t have to abandon your faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government shouldn’t be telling her what to do,” Harris said. “And that’s what’s so outrageous about it, is a bunch of these guys up in these state capitals are writing these decisions because they somehow have decided that they’re in a better position to tell you what’s in your best interest than you are to know what’s in your own best interest. It’s outrageous.” Harris pointed out that she is the first vice president or president to go to a reproductive health care clinic, and she noted that those clinics perform Pap smears, breast cancer screening, and HIV testing and that they are having to close because of the abortion bans. She noted, though, that since Dobbs, people across the country have chosen to protect abortion rights.

The article in the right-wing National Review about the interview was titled: “Kamala Goes on Sex Podcast to Lie about Georgia Abortion Law.”

On Call Her Daddy, Harris also brought her economic plans for an “opportunity economy” to a younger audience. When Cooper asked her how she was going to help young people “not feel left behind,” Harris agreed it is “a very real issue and we need to take it seriously.” She promised to address housing costs by increasing the housing supply, working with home builders in the private sector to build three million new housing units by the end of her first term; help with $25,000 downpayment assistance for first-time homebuyers; and enact tax cuts for 100 million middle-class working people, including a $6,000 tax credit for new parents to help them afford the costs of a child’s first year.

The Committee for a Responsible Budget noted today that a moderate reading of Harris’s economic plans suggest they would increase the U.S. debt by about $3.5 trillion through 2035. A similar examination of Trump’s plans says they would increase the debt by $7.5 trillion.

Meanwhile, today, Trump openly embraced the race science favored by Nazis. In a scattered call to right-wing host Hugh Hewitt’s show, Trump called Harris a communist and lied—again—that she has let 13,000 murderers into the country. And then he claimed that murder is in a person’s genes, and “we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.” He has also noted that “it would be very dangerous” for anyone to admit they were voting for Kamala Harris at one of his rallies because they would “get hurt.”

Hurricane Milton spurred meteorologist John Morales to step forward to take a stand, sharing his thoughts after Hurricane Helene hit. “Something’s shifted,” he wrote. “And it’s not just the climate.” He noted that with Helene on the way, “I did what I’ve done during my entire 40 year career—I tried to warn people. Except that the warning was not well received by everyone. A person accused me of being a ‘climate militant,’ a suggestion that I’m embellishing extreme weather threats to drive an agenda. Another simply said that my predictions were ‘an exaggeration.’

“But it wasn’t an exaggeration,” he wrote.

“For decades I had felt in control. Not in control of the weather, of course. But in control of the message that, if my audience was prepared and well informed, I could confidently guide them through any weather threat, and we’d all make it through safely…. But no one can hide from the truth. Extreme weather events, including hurricanes, are becoming more extreme. I must communicate the growing threats from the climate crisis come hell or high water—pun intended.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[runawaymun]

Can you do gender fluid bi flags thranduil?

Here he is!!! Back on my indigenous Sindar agenda hehe :D Thank you SO much for this request, I always love drawing him especially for Pride because I get to design the most fabulous outfits. I used the bi flag colors mostly in the crown, and the genderfluid flag colors in his outfit.

I finished this one on stream so if you'd like to watch me color and render it, here it is.

Pride Request Guidelines

[guilty-feminist]

[spinosacha]

To members of the EU: remember that there is election for the european parliament the 6-9th of June depending on your country.

The european parliament is the sector of EU that is elected by and represents the people of the EU. They vote on legislation and have huge power.

I know the EU system can be very confusing but you don’t have to know everything to know which party or MEP you agree with. If you care about Palestine, climate change, the biodiversity collaps, refugees, lgbtq rights, Ukraine, womens rights or any issue really, then this is election is important to you.

Also remember to check out the deadline for letter voting, it’s usually a little earlier.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[mysharona1987]

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week. #6

Feb 16-23 2024

The EPA announced 5.8 billion dollars in funding upgrade America's water systems. 2.6 billion will go to wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, while the remaining $3.2 billion will go to drinking water infrastructure. $1 billion will go toward the first major effort to remove PFASs, forever chemicals, from American drinking water. The Administration all reiterated its plans to remove all lead pipes from America's drinking water systems, its spent 6 billion on lead pipe replacement so far.

The Department of Education announced the cancellation of $1.2 billion in student loan debt reliving 153,000 borrowers. This is the first debt cancellation through the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan, which erases federal student loan balances for those who originally borrowed $12,000 or less and have been making payments for at least 10 years. Since the Biden Administration's more wide ranging student loan cancellation plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2023 the Administration has used a patchwork of different plans and authorities to cancel $138 billion in student debt and relieve nearly 4 million borrowers, so far.

First Lady Jill Biden announced $100 million in federal funding for women’s health research. This is part of the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research the First Lady launched last year. The First Lady outlined ways women get worse treatment outcomes because common health problems like heart attacks and cancer are often less understood in female patients.

The Biden Administration announced 500 new sanctions against Russian targets in response to the murder of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. The sanctions will target people involved in Navalny's imprisonment as well as sanctions evaders. President Biden met with Navalny's widow Yulia and their daughter Dasha in San Francisco

The White House and Department of Agriculture announced $700 Million in new investments to benefit people in rural America. The projects will help up to a million people living in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and the Northern Mariana Islands. It includes $51.7 million to expand access to high-speed internet, and $644.2 million to help 158 rural cooperatives and utilities provide clean drinking water and sanitary wastewater systems for 578,000 people in rural areas.

The Department of Commerce signed a deal to provide $1.5 billion in upgrades and expand chip factories in New York and Vermont to boost American semiconductor manufacturing. This is the biggest investment so far under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act

the Department of Transportation announced $1.25 billion in  funding for local projects that improve roadway safety. This is part of the administration's Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program launched in 2022. So far SS4A has spent 1.7 billion dollars in 1,000 communities impacting 70% of America's population.

The EPA announced $19 million to help New Jersey buy electric school buses. Together with New Jersey's own $45 million dollar investment the state hopes to replace all its diesel buses over the next three years. The Biden Administration's investment will help electrify 5 school districts in the state. This is part of the The Clean School Bus Program which so far has replaced 2,366 buses at 372 school districts since it was enacted in 2022.

Bonus: NASA in partnership with Intuitive Machines landed a space craft, named Odysseus, on the moon, representing the first time in 50 years America has gone to the moon. NASA is preparing for astronauts to return to the moon by the end of the decade as part of the Artemis program. All under the leadership of NASA Administrator, former Democratic Senator and astronaut Bill Nelson.

[geminni5]