Week 1: Environmental Racism and Real Super Heroes

So I took the Gender and Climate Quiz and lets just say I'm glad I took it in private. Needless to say my score was subpar. Though I knew a few things and got lucky more than once, I can honestly say that my knowledge of climate change and the realities of it's effects on women especially was very much lacking. Not only did the quiz emphasize gender within the climate change debate it asked questions that were specific cases of woman being affected by climate change. For example, there was a question that inquired about the percentage of food produced by woman in Africa, 80%. Yes I got it wrong.


In Irene Danklemen's article, Gender and Climate Change: Introduction, she discussed a  case study about the gender aspects of the affects of climate change on gulf coast communities. She emphasized that women in the area were disproportionately working at low-wage jobs and were within high poverty rates. This left them more vulnerable than other communities to feel the last effects of disasters. She also found that though women were among the most vulnerable population to these effects they were able to be stakeholders in disaster relief and recovery operations and committees.

In the Climate Justice Leaders as Comic Superheroes reading I found a main focus of the series minority leadership in climate change. Within a lot of the readings they stressed the importance of women and minority leaders to be on the front lines of the climate change debate and how their presence allows for the voices of their communities to be heard and felt.

Upon reading all of the articles for Week 1, I was able to build a pretty sturdy foundation of what climate justice is, what activism within the movement looks like, and what gender and racial inclusivity looks like within the movement. From these readings I was able to better understand the terminology within the climate change discussion. Grassroots organizations are those small organizations that are not mainstream but still have an impact on changing policy etc. Environmental racism is referring to the  government deciding which communities to protect and which to leave to fend for themselves. Usually the communities left to fend for themselves and adapt to the worsening conditions are those of marginalized populations.



Bibliography

Cole, Luke and Sheila Foster. 2008. "The Enviornmental Justice Movement." Ecology: Key Concepts in Critical Theory.
Dankelman, I. (2010). Gender and climate change : An introduction. Washington, DC: Earthscan.

Harris, Rachel. 2010. "Gender Aspects of Climate Change in the US Gulf Coast Region."

Terry, Geraldine. 2009. "Prelims- Climate Change and Gender Justice." Climate Change and Gender Justice i-viii.