Week 10 Reflection

This week’s readings talked more about gender and climate change, specifically as it relates to womens’ roles in climate organizations. On Tuesday, we spoke in class about some of the challenges women face working in climate organizations as well as some things that motivate women to continue working in this realm. We also got the chance to talk with guest speaker, Julie Gorecki, who is herself a woman working in the field of climate action. Thursday’s readings were more focused on US policies related to climate change. The document titled, “10 Principles for Just Climate Change in the US” especially stood out to me among our readings for this week. We’ve looked at some very beneficial and interesting texts in this course, and I think that this particular text does a very good job of concisely communicating an overview of what climate action in the US needs to look like.

I was also very touched by the Sierra Club’s narrative about the Sherwood family. Being from New Orleans, I have certainly become accustomed to emergency plans and evacuation. These stories never get easier to read or even to think about, but I think the author did a very good job at telling the story in a a very human way by including a lot of the dialogue and emotions shared amongst the family. This also reminded me not only of Katrina, but of the following school year that I spent in Houston where my class and I each wrote narratives of our own experiences with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.