Women Forging Environmental Change - International Women's Day 2022
By Frankie Lloyd
Research has revealed that in day-to-day life, women* actively do more than men to protect the environment. They are more likely to support environmentally-friendly policies[1], to own an electric car[2], and to turn to a plant-based diet[3]. However, as is seen in the majority of STEM fields, women remain underrepresented in the environmental sector. As Liliana Shymanska explored in her piece for the British Science Association[4], only 33% of recent reports for the International Panel on Climate Change featured female authors[5]. Additionally, fewer than one in seven of the 1,000 climate scientists featured on the Reuters Hot List are women, with only one woman appearing in the top 10[6]. Therefore, on International Women's Day 2022, I want to share the stories of a handful of women within the environmental sector who personally empower and inspire me throughout my own work.
The women featured in this blog come from a variety of backgrounds and carry out vastly different work. We have a prime minister, a poet, a mother, and an executive director. However, each are activists and environmentalists in their own right and act as role models to young girls aspiring to enter the world of environmental health, justice, and activism. In fact, I found it incredibly difficult to limit the summaries featured throughout this blog to a couple of short paragraphs respectively. Therefore, I encourage readers to carry out their own further research on these fantastic leaders and to support their work however possible.
Mia Mottley
Image Credit: UNEP
The current Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley, is an impassioned advocate campaigning against pollution, climate change, environmental injustice, and deforestation. My attention was first drawn towards her during the opening of the Cop26 conference which I watched in awe of her unabating passion. To an audience of white male leaders accused of neglect of the planet and its people, she demanded they ‘try harder’ — a simple statement summarising the pleas of millions living on the frontlines of the environmental disaster. Whilst other world leaders presented inchoate promises at Cop26, Mottley’s eight-minute speech was laden with concrete strategies and statistics, the likes of which should inspire other global leaders to act.
During her tenure as the first female Prime Minister of Barbados since its independence, Mottley has transformed Barbados into a frontrunner for the global environmental movement. She has developed an ambitious plan which involves phasing out fossil fuels by 2030, planting 1 million trees, and powering all homes with renewable solar energy. However, her passion for climate justice expands beyond Barbados. She advocates for other small-island states that are projected to be overwhelmed by rising sea levels, using her degree from the London School of Economics to propose innovative financial tools that can encourage economic development and combat poverty whilst improving local environments.
Rachel Carson
Image Credit: The Life Picture Collection Via GETTY IMAGES
Whilst predominantly a ‘poet of the sea’, Rachel Carson (1907 - 1964) was an American aquatic biologist and nature writer most known for her 1962 book ‘Silent Spring’, which provoked the passage of a variety of environmental acts throughout the 60s and 70s. Carson was educated in zoology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University, after transferring from an English major. In 1936, she became the second woman to be hired by the US Bureau of Fisheries and worked as a junior aquatic biologist. She also continued to write essays and articles, ultimately securing a frequent spot in The Baltimore Sun.
Carson’s publications largely explored environmental pollution and aquatic natural history, warning that our ecosystem was reaching the limits of what it could sustain. Silent Spring explored this concept in depth, warning that chemical pollution was incredibly harmful to living creatures and the natural environment. She called for tighter control of pesticides, including DDT, but her book was seen as heavily controversial and Carson was accused of ‘grossly distorting’ the reality of the chemical industry. However, the environmental policy sector credited Carson’s writings as they passed a variety of bills throughout the 60s and 70s, including the Clean Air Act (1963), the Wilderness Act (1964), the National Environmental Policy Act (1969), the Clean Water Act (1972) and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. Sadly, Carson passed away in 1964 before she could witness the epic domino effect triggered by Silent Spring. However, her legacy lives on and proves that science communication is an invaluable tool for change.
Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah
Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah giving her TED talk ‘The Tragedy of Air Pollution - and an Urgent Demand for Clean Air’
In 2020, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s daughter, Ella, became the first person in the world to have ‘air pollution’ written as the cause of death on her death certificate after she passed away at only nine years old. Ella had suffered severe asthma her entire life and had been admitted to hospital twenty-eight times prior to her death with doctors unable to explain why she suffered so gravely. Following Ella’s death, Rosamund’s mission was to honor a promise she made to her daughter 一 to find out exactly what had made her so sick.
Despite battling unimaginable grief, Rosamund worked tirelessly to understand her daughter’s sickness. Whilst collaborating with lawyer Jocely Cockburn, Rosamund discovered that the air pollution levels in London had been at a peak each time Ella was admitted to hospital. Following this, Rosamund campaigned for a second inquest into her daughter's death, which confirmed their discovery in a landmark decision in 2020. However, Rosamund did not stop here 一 she founded the Ella Roberta Family Foundation to improve the lives of other children in the South East London area who are affected by asthma. She is also a World Health Organisation advocate for health and air quality and an ambassador for the BreatheLife campaign. I would personally encourage you to watch Rosamund’s TED talk ‘The Tragedy of Air Pollution’ to experience this woman’s immense passion for yourself.
Winona LaDuke
Image Credit: Johns Hopkins Center for a Liveable Future
Winona LaDuke is a Native American environmental activist and economist. While LaDuke grew up in Oregon, her father was an Anishinaabe man from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. Throughout her childhood, LaDuke would visit White Earth frequently to strengthen her connection with her heritage. This attachment to Native land likely inspired LaDuke to study rural economic development at Harvard University. When she graduated in 1982, she moved to the White Earth Ojibew reservation in Minnesota where her involvement in campaigning and activism flourished.
The Anishinaable struggled with land loss throughout LaDuke’s life as the Nelson Act of 1889 allowed non-natives to purchase reservation land. By 1932, the Anishinaable owned only one tenth of their land. In response to this, LaDuke founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project in 1989. This project used its funding to buy back the reservation land that had been purchased by non-natives, successfully securing 1,200 acres of land by 2000. Alongside this, LaDuke was involved in the founding of Honor the Earth 一 a native-led organisation distributing funds to Native-run environment and justice initiatives 一 and also co-chaired the Indigenous Women’s Network. Since its founding, Honor the Earth has granted over 2 million dollars to more than 200 Native communities.
*The term ‘women’ refers to anybody whose gender aligns with female. Gender and biological sex are not one and the same.
Ramstetter, L., & Habersack, F. (2019) ‘Do women make a difference? Analysing environmental attitudes and actions of Members of ther European Parliament.’, Environmental Politics, 20(6)
Montague, B. (2018) Women will drive transition to electric cards, study finds. Available at: https://theecologist.org/2018/jul/05/women-will-drive-transition-electric-cars-study-finds (Accessed 07 March 2022)
Frost, R. (2021) Why might veganism be more popular with women than men? Available at: https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/01/25/why-are-women-more-likely-to-go-vegan-than-men-masculinity-meat (Accessed 07 March 2022)
Shymanska (2021) Mind the gap - women in environmental science. Available at: https://www.britishscienceassociation.org/blog/mind-the-gap-women-in-environmental-science
IPCC (2018) Selection of Authors for IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Available at: https://www.ipcc.ch/2018/04/06/ar6-author-selection/ (Accessed 07 March 2022)
Reuters (2021) The Reuters Hot List. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/climate-change-scientists-list/ (Accessed: 07 March 2022)