Dalla scandinavia arrivano riflessioni interessanti sulle implicazioni che il comportamento degli uomini e delle donne ha sui cambiamenti climatici in atto e quanto sia importante tenerne conto nell'elaborare strategie vincenti di contrasto al femomeno del riscaldamento globale.

Riporto alcune considerazioni che trovo particolarmente interessanti, troverete materiale più approfondito nei link:

Gender equality is an essential part of the climate solution. If the differences between women and men are not taken into consideration in climate negotiations it will be difficult to find solutions that work for everyone.

Another reason is that climate changes affect men and women differently. For example, many more women than men drown in climate-related natural disasters such as flooding because they cannot swim or climb trees. According to Rebecca Pearl, a study from the London School of Economics concludes that gender differences in mortality rates in the event of climate-related natural disasters
are directly linked to women’s economic and social rights.

Ulf Rikter-Svendsen from the Norwegian Reform - Resource Centre for Men, was one of the experts on the panel. He stressed that men must not be made scapegoats in the climate debate.

"It is important to include the perspective of men and boys in the climate debate. However, the stereotype of the man as the bad party is not very helpful. Making men into scapegoats with regard to the climate will only put the brakes on the work."

The effects on men and women are different in both the West and in developing countries. For example, 70-80% of victims of the 2004 tsunami were women.

The Nordic Council of Ministers is also hosting an expert seminar on gender equality and climate change on Thursday, March 5. The aim is to stress the importance of paying attention to gender equality in the climate debate, and the seminar is part of the Council of Ministers' drive to promote gender mainstreaming in the UN climate negotiations

http://www.norden.org/webb/news/news.asp?id=8432〈=6

 http://www.norden.org/webb/news/news.asp?id=8395〈=6

http://www.norden.org/gender/doks/sk/Gender_and_climate_changes_Rapport.pdf

Come si dice in questi casi: da cosa nasce cosa. Ecco scovato un bravo ragazzo. Stefen Wallin Ministro per l'ugualglianza di genere in Finlandia.

http://www.norden.org/webb/news/news.asp?id=8433〈=6

 

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Un profilo molto interessante. Una donna ebrea che, a Gerusalemme, si prodiga per rendere la città intera più pulita e verde per tutti i suoi abitanti. 

Positivo che una donna sia leader in campo ambientalista in un contesto in cui i vari integralismi religiosi fanno a gara a chi mostra le attitudini più misogine.

She has been working as an activist for 13 years spearheading campaigns to keep Jerusalem of Gold, green, and was recently elected to the new position in politics.

As founder of Sustainable Jerusalem, Tsur has helped organize 75 green groups together under one umbrella. Through it, she's taught other activists how to lobby in the government, and how to hone in on specific issues worth fighting for.

 Some of the projects she'll be organizing include establishing an environmental lobby. "There is nothing more universal than local issues,"

"The Jerusalem forest shouldn't be depleted anymore - it's a quarter of its original size. Hopefully we will create a continuous park along the railway line from Emek Refaim to Malha. Residents wanted it, and we have committed to it. It runs through rich, poor, Jewish, Arab neighborhoods and answers a real need for quality open space," she declared.

"We need to think about not only cleanliness, but what happens to our garbage, about recycling. I'm going to see what's been planned, what's being done. I don't see why we shouldn't be recycling much, much more," Tsur maintained.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1226404730047&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles^l2517&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Profiles&

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Se si ha davvero a cuore l'ambiente si dovrebbe, per coerenza, riconoscere e dare visibilità a chi lotta per un futuro eco-compatibile.

Tra costoro le donne ebree sono le leader sia dal punto di vista della qualità che della qualità di impegno in tale ambito.

L'edizione primaverile di Jewish Women International dedica un approfondito articolo con una serie di profili di donne ebree impegnate nei vari settori dell'ambientalismo.

The women you met in “Down to Earth” are only a representative group—and a small one at that—of the Jewish women who are leading lights in the green movement. Lillian Siegel, a Schusterman Insight Fellow who worked in the JWI Program Department, has gathered a list of some of the other Jewish women who are making a significant mark in the burgeoning environmental field.

http://www.jwmag.org/site/c.fhLOK0PGLsF/b.5026997/k.92C0/Down_to_Earth.htm

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Appoggio con passione la causa ambientalista (anche se non condivido l'impostazione estrema di alcuni gruppi integralisti) ma ritengo che la stessa sia insufficiente se non è associata ad un approccio di genere.

Segnalo questi due documenti molto interessanti:

http://feministcampus.org/know/global/docs/WomenWater.pdf

http://www.wedo.org/learn/campaigns/climatechange/new-training-manual-on-gender-and-climate-change

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Sono assolutamente d'accordo che le femministe dovrebbero dedicare maggiore attenzione alle specifiche ripercussioni che i cambiamenti climatici in atto hanno sulla vita delle donne, in particolar modo di quelle che vivono nei paesi in via di sviluppo. Mi permetto però di chiedere altrettanta attenzione alle ripercussioni di genere anche da parte degli ambientalisti le cui encomiabili azioni hanno tutto il mio sostegno. A costoro mi sento di ripetere una frase che amo molto "Il you don't take gender into account into any of your solutions, you are about to fail".

According to the UK 's Guardian publication, Bangladesh makes up not even 10% of the land mass of South Asia , but over 90% of the region's water passes through it. Experts state that Bangladesh 's shifting and intensifying weather patterns are making a bad situation worse. The case of Bangladesh shows us that climate change is real, and is already impacting populations and ecosystems around the world.

But the case of Bangladesh shows us something more: That it's the world's poor who will feel the impact of this change the hardest. And who exactly are the poor? Women, who make up approximately 65% of the world's poorest populations.

Because of the traditional domestic responsibilities which fall on women and girls, experts state that climate change is having a disproportionate affect them.

Back home in Bangladesh , the list of innovative ideas to combat and more importantly, adapt to climate change is endless. International aid organizations are working with local NGOs to build "floating villages," clinics on boats, and help women educate their communities about securing flood and cyclone shelters.

http://community.feministing.com/2009/11/climate-change-hits-women-hard.html

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Ancora una volta ribadisco il concetto: lottare contro l'inquinamento ambientale in tutte le sue forme ed operarsi per un futuro verde ed eco-sostenibile è un'iniziativa lodevole e necessaria che appoggio completamente, dimenticare però le dinamiche di genere connesse e non tenere conto del coinvolgimento delle donne sia come vittime dei cambiamenti climatici sia come agenti per un cambiamento positivo è miope. Cosi' come è miope che la stampa non parli a sufficenza di queste tematiche.

L'intervista che vi segnalo è molto chiara a riguardo.

Women have been playing a major role in the management of natural resources for centuries, dealing with the agricultural sector. In countries of Africa, in Congo for example, they produce 73 percent of the food and in Africa as a whole 50 percent of the food that is being consumed on the continent. Unfortunately, when you look at the other data you see that women only own one percent of the land worldwide; or when you look at the money from the new financing mechanism – or the previous financing mechanism – associated with climate change, you don’t find women as major beneficiaries.

The reason is that the whole climate change convention is gender blind.

Women are using the forests in a different way than men. In some countries, India for example, the role of women in protecting the forests to avoid deforestation has been major; and the same is true for Brazil or Guatemala. When it comes to forests and mitigation – one of the major areas being discussed – it is fundamental that in those countries that have forests, where women are users of the forests, they are involved in defining how the forests are going to be used,

http://www.awid.org/eng/Issues-and-Analysis/Issues-and-Analysis/Q-A-Gender-Missing-in-Climate-Agreements

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Un esempio positivo quello di Emma Watson. Contrariamente ad altre sceme o finte sceme che pensano solo a cambiare vestito ogni giorno e fidanzato ogni settimana ci sono anche giovani attrici che, oltre ad essere carine, sfruttano la fama per delle giuste cause.

Emma has become the first poster girl for eco-chic and has designed a new range for People Tree, the pioneering Fair Trade and sustainable British fashion brand founded by green campaigner, Safia Minney, in 1991.

The collection, for men and women, is youthful and sporty, with organic cotton separates, Breton knits and quirky touches such as a 'School of Fair Trade’ badge on a brushed fleece blazer, a 'daisy-chain necklace’ motif, which Emma painted and then had printed on a T-shirt, and a hand-drawn 'Union Jack’ for tops and bags. Prices range from £12 for a scarf to £115 for a cricket cardigan.

Her decision grew out of a real frustration. “It’s hard to know what is good and what is bad on the high street and equally hard to find fashionable or youthful ethical clothing. I don’t want to wear something on my body that hurts the environment or the people in it. I wanted to put together a collection I could be proud of in terms of both ethics and design. It shocks me that even today only one per cent of cotton produced in the world is Fair Trade and organic.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/hilaryalexander/7103320/Emma-Watson-models-her-range-for-People-Tree.html

http://www.peopletreefoundation.org/

http://www.peopletree.co.uk/

http://www.peopletree.co.uk/category/emma-watson/

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Un'ottima notizia da oltreoceano.

The Women’s Bureau (WB) and the Employment and Training Administration’s (ETA) Office of Apprenticeship (OA), U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announce the availability of Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (WANTO) grant funds of approximately $1,800,000 to assist employers and labor management organizations in the placement and retention of women in apprenticeship and nontraditional occupations. 

Unlike recent WANTO SGAs, which were limited to the construction industry, this SGA expands the focus to include a broader range of industries including advanced manufacturing, transportation, and construction, and “green” jobs in industries related to these three industries.

http://www.dol.gov/wb/federalregister3-30-2010.htm

http://www.dol.gov/wb/media/reports/whyisgreengoodforwomen_factsheet.pdf

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For the first time in JNF history, a woman is heading the national foresting efforts in Israel. Despite mythic legends of women planting and sweating alongside men to build the State of Israel, women never held leadership positions in this field — until today. Era Heitin was recently appointed the Head Forest Ranger for the JNF in Israel, (a profession held by very few women in Israel), and will be given the prestigious job of lighting one of the flames at the national candle-lighting ceremony at Mount Herzl on Yom Ha’atzmaut.

“When I was young, I would look out my window in Ma’alot and see the beautiful trees,” Era said in an interview with Oded Shalom and Gidon Meron in last week’s Yediot Aharonot. “Who would have thought that the beautiful landscape would become my profession?”

Heitin, 29, was born in Latvia and immigrated to Israel at the age of 12. “For me, personally, the work in the forest gives me the feeling of getting away from the everyday race that everyone is in,” she told Yediot. “And yes, going around the forests, with the sounds and smells of the leaves, does it for me.”

Today, Israel is the only country in the world that has more trees than it did 100 years ago, thanks, in large part, JNF. In that sense, the trees tell a story of optimism and progress. But Era is here to ensure that the story of progress continues, not just with Israel’s forestry and infrastructure, but also with Israeli society in general — especially with the women.

http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/127167/

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Non posso che rendere omaggio a questa ragazza che ha compiuto un'impresa grandiosa per una giusta causa.

A 22-year-old woman has become the youngest person to row across the Atlantic.

Katie Spotz completed the 2,817 mile journey in 70 days.

She was greeted by her father and brother after reaching Georgetown,Guyana, South America having weathered storms, shark infested seas and even an on board fire.

She rowed to raise money and awareness for the Blue Planet Run Foundation, a non-profit organisation whose goal is to bring clean drinking water to the estimated 1 billion people worldwide who lack it.

'The records are just a bonus for Katie. Rowing the Atlantic and raising funds for clean water are the things she really cares about,' said her coach Sam Williams.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1258266/American-Katie-Spotz-youngest-person-row-Atlantic.html

http://rowforwater.com/

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Gasp! Ma come! Gay e lesbiche non dovrebbero essere "contro natura"!? E invece, ma guarda un pò, si preoccupano dell'ambiente più degli eterosessuali.

The LGBT sector is leading America in “green” consciousness, and has already embraced ideas that green organizers hope the rest of the nation will endorse and act on.

An Echelon Magazine 2009 online survey reports that “two-thirds (66%) of lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender adults, say that it is important to support environmental causes, compared with 56% of non-LGBT adults. Three-quarters (75%) of LGBT adults (compared with 53% of heterosexuals) believe global warming is happening right now, and by more than two-to-one proportions, 39% of LGBT adults say they have seen or read Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ while only 20% of heterosexuals say they have seen or read it.”

Apparently our LGBT community also cares about the environment and the future of next generation, whether we have children or not.

“Most significant,” said Bob Witeck of Echelon, “is the measure of global environmental stewardship. Although LGBT households are not parenting as frequently as our non-gay counterparts, 51% say they are concerned about the planet we are leaving behind for future generations – compared with 42% of heterosexual adults. This signals a very high sense of community and cooperation that many LGBT citizens know first-hand.”

http://sdgln.com/commentary/2010/04/15/green-not-just-another-pretty-color-rainbow-flag

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Rainforest Action Network (RAN), one of the nation’s leading environmental action organizations, has named Rebecca Tarbotton as its executive director. As the first woman to head the organization, Tarbotton joins an exclusive club of women leaders in the environmental sector.

Tarbotton is used to taking on tough problems and winning – regularly standing down CEOs from Bank of America’s Ken Lewis to Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit. Under her leadership as Global Finance Campaign Director, RAN secured a sector wide policy to limit bank financing of coal-fired power plants. Prior to RAN, Rebecca worked as an international food and human rights activist, both in California and abroad, giving her a deep understanding of current global environmental challenges from international agribusiness to climate change.

“I’m thrilled that someone with Rebecca’s passion and skill is stepping up to lead RAN,” said Randy Hayes, RAN’s founder and first executive director. “The world may have changed in many ways since 1985, but the basic need to prevent corporations from destroying the world’s last rainforests remains as critical as ever.”

Called everything from “a mosquito in the tent” by Fortune Magazine to a “force to be reckoned with” by Canada’s McLean’s Magazine, Rainforest Action Network is one of the few national organizations to focus on the intersections between corporate greed, fossil fuel dependence, forest destruction and climate change.

 http://ran.org/content/rans-new-executive-director

 

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According to the RHRC (Reproductive Health Response in Crises Consortium), 85 percent of persons displaced by the flood are women and children. As the floodwaters rise, they are at acute risk from starvation, exposure, sexual assault and water-borne diseases. However, providing them with assistance is more difficult than these basic facts suggest. In traditional Pakistani society, it is taboo for women to receive aid or medical care from male relief workers, preventing many of them from seeking such aid in the first place.

This particularly applies to pregnant women surprised by the flood. Pakistan already had a high maternal morality rate before the flood, with 320 women dying per 100,000 live births. This rate has undoubtedly increased due to the disaster. While the Pakistani government and NGOs have sent female aid workers into the affected areas, their numbers are not always sufficient to meet the crushing demand for help. In addition, women are increasingly cut off from a supply of birth control pills and condoms (before the flood, 30 percent of fertile women were using some form of contraception). A wave of unwanted pregnancies, with all the complications that will bring, is certain.

In any case, as government and Western aid takes its time in arriving, Islamist groups more in tune with local proprieties have been filling the gap, clearly jockeying for a more visible role in the reconstruction. British-Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid believes that the destruction of crops and infrastructure will lead to food riots. He believes that "joblessness and helplessness will lead to more young men joining the militants, who are propagating the idea that the floods are God's wrath against the government ... All of this will dramatically loosen the state's control over outlying areas, in particular those bordering Afghanistan, which could be captured quickly by local Taliban," leaving Pakistan as "a failed state with nuclear weapons."

Where do Pakistani women fit into this view of the future? Let's look at their past first. While they are better off than many in the Muslim world and have benefited from progressive gender policies over recent decades, they still have at best a 36 percent literacy rate. The International Labor Force Survey of 1991-92 reported that only about 16 percent of women age 10 form part of the official workforce, a figure that may have doubled since then. In rural areas, it is estimated that around 80 percent of women are engaged in farming. Twenty-four percent of the population lives below the poverty level, including the majority of families headed by women.

http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/08/20/pakistan_floods_women_victims_open2010/index.html

 

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Katrina’s Jewish Voices is an online collection project to collect, preserve, and present the American Jewish community’s experiences of Hurricane Katrina and their recollections of the Jewish communities of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The Jewish Women’s Archive organized the project, in collaboration with the Center for History and New Media, with generous funding from foundations and individual donors.

Katrina’s Jewish Voices welcomes members of the Jewish community—women and men alike—to tell their own stories of how the storm affected them, and to share their memories of these historic Jewish communities. The project is collecting digital artifacts in a variety of forms, including photos, blog postings, podcasts, emails, essays and other first-hand accounts, from American Jews nationwide.

These collections serve as a vital resource for future historians of the American Jewish experience, as well as for those interested in exploring how individuals and different faith communities responded to this vast humanitarian crisis.

Sharing our stories is also a way to create powerful connections in the present. We hope that those who contribute to this online collection and those who immerse themselves in the stories and images they find here come away moved and inspired by these varied Jewish voices of Katrina.

http://katrina.jwa.org/about/#supporters

http://katrina.jwa.org/browse/

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