As 2019 draws to a close, we have as many urgent issues as ever! Climate change is a growing problem, disasters descending upon us faster than anticipated (I suspect not really, but scientists haven’t wanted to sound like alarmists). Women and girls have been in the forefront of fighting against climate change and for a more sustainable world, and hopefully will continue to be. As Besame has pointed out in her excellent WOW column, many women and girls are and need to be on the front lines of the battle against climate change.
Nairobi Summit: Women's empowerment a 'game changer' for sustainable development. https://news.un.org/...
The global goal of a sustainable future for all cannot be achieved until women, girls and young people gain control over their own bodies and lives, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told world leaders meeting in Nairobi on Tuesday.
So let’s review a couple other climate leaders, h/t officebss and her team, our herstorians:
Chai Jing (1976-present): Chinese broadcast journalist, author and environmental activist; she began her broadcast career in 1995 as a radio host in Hunan province. She was an investigative reporter for China Central Television (2001-2013). In 2012, she published her autobiography, Insight, which sold over 1 million copies.
In 2014, she began an independent investigation into China's environmental problems, which culminated in a self-financed documentary, Under the Dome. By March, 2015, the film had garnered over 150 million views in China, sparking widespread discussion about pollution and environmental policy in China. The film was then blocked on Chinese websites by the authorities. In 2015 she was also named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people.
Considering she put her career on the line, and spent quite a bit of her own money to produce her documentary, she is very brave! I could not figure out which if any Twitter account is hers, so had to settle for another’s quotes:
Maria Telkes (1900-1995): Hungarian-American physical chemist and inventor, who was a pioneer in the application of solar energy to water distillation and home heating. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1925, worked as a biophysicist (1926-1937), and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1937. As a civilian adviser to the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development during WW II, she worked out a solar heated water distillation system to make sea water potable. In the late 1940s, she designed a system of chemical storage of solar energy for the first solar-heated house, a project of MITconstructed in Dover, Massachusetts. She also developed a solar-powered stove, and in the 1970s, experimented with an air-conditioning system that stored cool night air for use during the heat of the next day.
There are of course many more, but all I have time for today!