As a mother and teacher, I鈥檝e had a front-row seat to observe evidence of among teen girls in this country. I鈥檝e taught environmental education at Warren Wilson College for more than two decades, but I鈥檓 not always sure how to support my students鈥攐r my 23 and 17-year old daughters鈥攚hen faced with the realities of our climate crisis and the political obstacles to action, such as the recent approval of the Willow project聽for oil extraction on public lands in Alaska.

I鈥檝e seen firsthand what author and researcher聽聽at Stanford University calls聽 a phrase she coined to describe those confronted with a climate emergency they didn鈥檛 create, compounded by structural obstacles like racism and gender inequality. Yet Wray also calls for stories and community as a path toward purpose in real uncertainty.

So I decided to do something: I spent a year researching fifty women鈥攐ne from each state in the country鈥攚ho are taking action for climate justice. I talked to poets, scientists, farmers, teachers, community organizers and more. The stories became my book聽. What I found was that women are creating a road map through climate uncertainty with collaborative action toward a healthy, vibrant world for us all. This is a story I want my students and children to hear.

Worldwide, women and girls are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis,聽comprising . At its heart, climate justice is about access to a healthy environment for聽all.听础 showed the mental health impacts, including PTSD, anxiety and depression, from experiencing extreme weather events. Yet we also know that talking about climate may be one of the most effective things we can do to engage our neighbors, family, and friends around shared values, according to climate scientist

It turns out the聽 are worried about the climate, but most (63%) rarely or never discuss it with their family and friends. However, my own neighbors and friends do talk about dramatic聽weather events like droughts and floods linked聽to the聽climate crisis, as well as the first winter in our memory in these mountains without any snow.聽The聽聽shows that talking about climate also reassures people they are not alone. The women I interviewed can attest to the power of imagining possibility together.

For example, filmmaker Dayna Reggero traveled to eight states to document conversations about climate and community: mothers fighting a natural gas blowout in California, sea level rise in Florida, and coal ash ponds in North Carolina. Through her , she worked with 聽to share the narrative of women from Stokes County, North Carolina鈥擝lack and white together鈥攚ho fought fracking and the harmful effects of coal ash ponds on the health of their community.

鈥淭hese mothers all care about children, their homes, and their community,鈥� Reggero told me. 鈥淚t gives them a connection and a common fight, sometimes even a common enemy.鈥�

Likewise, I talked to Jacqui Patterson who worked with the 2,200 NAACP chapters across the country to tailor climate justice programs to regional needs, such as training people who鈥檝e been incarcerated to work in the solar industry. She鈥檚 started the , a resource hub for building Black frontline leadership for climate justice.

鈥淭he weight of this work is amplified by the emotional pull of deeply caring for the people with whom I鈥檓 working, as they are my brothers and sisters,鈥� she said.

If worrying alone made me overwhelmed, my conversations with these women made me feel a part of something larger than myself. Fifth-generation Montanan Grace Gibson-Snyder聽spoke about the intense smoke from wildfires in Missoula, as well as her role as one of 16 plaintiffs in the youth climate lawsuit 鈥�Held v. State of Montana鈥攁sserting the state violated their right to a clean and healthful environment. With Indigenous leader Bernadette Demientieff from Alaska, I heard how pressure on banks to divest from funding the fossil fuel industry could protect sacred lands and water.

In each case, I saw how the relationships between people and places created the power to imagine and act. As marine biologist聽Ayana Elizabeth Johnson said: 鈥淭o me, it鈥檚 not a matter of joy or sadness or optimism or pessimism. It鈥檚 just a moral duty to be a part of the solution.鈥� The title of her new book鈥�?鈥攑oses a question my students don鈥檛 often hear from the media. In response to the Willow project, she also tweeted: 鈥淭his fight is not over. See you in courts @potus.鈥�

My environmental studies department in the Blue Ridge mountains uses the phrase 鈥減ractical idealists鈥� to describe how we want students to collaborate in this uncertain world, full of possibility. Of course, the fossil fuel industry is betting we the people won鈥檛 succeed, but I watch my students growing food, leading field trips for local schools, nurturing friendships from the ground up. And from these women鈥檚 stories, I see how working with others can sustain us with momentum, rather than paralyze us with anxiety. The question isn鈥檛 what can I do to confront the climate crisis, but with whom can I join together鈥攔ight here and right now.

Click here to read an excerpt from Love Your Mother: 50 States, 50 Stories, and 50 Women United for Climate Justice.

The post What I Learned from Women about Collective Action and Climate Anxiety appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

With her feet rooted on the ground and her voice steady, Colette Pichon Battle seems to be the type of person most of us would want nearby in a crisis. When she speaks about climate change displacing millions, she uses measured words to describe strategies to dismantle structural racism, build alliances in community, and provide legal services for equitable disaster recovery. As I listen to , I鈥檓 reminded of a cheer from my high school in coastal Alabama: 鈥淩ock, rock, rock, rock, steady, eddy, eddy, eddy, rock! Rock steady.鈥� So I wasn鈥檛 surprised to learn she describes her superpower as 鈥渟eeing patterns in chaos,鈥� an apt skill for the organization she founded, the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy, now called .

Working on the frontlines of climate disasters caused by hurricanes, sea level rise, and fossil fuel companies, she knows that recovery for industries has been quick, and recovery for communities has been slow. From Houston, Texas, to Pensacola, Florida, her work brings climate change to the community level, especially with women at the heart of neighborhoods and households.

鈥淲e found that the folks most willing to get to know each other were actually women,鈥� she said in an interview with Reimagine. 鈥淲hen women talk about their communities, it鈥檚 sort of like women talking about their children . . . So a lot of the moral fabric and the moral movement of a family and of a community is done through the women.鈥�

She and her staff used a meeting format called the People鈥檚 Movement Assembly, which involved Black, Latina, and Asian American women learning about each other鈥檚 lives and agreeing to reach a vision together. From there, groups of women followed through on actions, such as talking about the climate crisis and extractive industries with elected officials in Louisiana who needed the vote from people of color.

In Bayou Liberty, just north of New Orleans, Colette grew up in the house built by her grandfather, where her mother was born. There, water was a way of life: 鈥淭he bayou is green and lush and all the things that equal bountiful life,鈥� she told TED Radio, 鈥淏ut it is also watery and muddy. You can smell everything.鈥�

She remembers the names of particular hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, much as I did growing up in Alabama. During the eye of the storm, family members would get into flat-bottomed boats called pirogues to check on neighbors before retreating to safety inside while the other band of the hurricane passed. But the water became unrecognizable given the severity of Hurricane Katrina. As an adult, Colette practiced law in Washington, DC, but after the destruction of Katrina, she vowed never to leave her beloved Gulf Coast again.

When she first saw the Louisiana flood maps at a community meeting, Colette says her life changed. The maps explained how the thirty-foot surge from Hurricane Katrina could flood her community as well as those in Mississippi and Alabama. She realized the land lost from sea level rise was the buffer to her own home鈥攁 buffer predicted to disappear. 鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 alone at the front of the room,鈥� she explained. 鈥淚 was standing there with other members of south Louisiana鈥檚 communities鈥擝lack, Native, poor. We thought we were just bound by temporary disaster recovery, but we found that we were now bound by the impossible task of ensuring that our communities would not be erased by sea level rise due to climate change.

鈥淚 just assumed it would always be there. Land, trees, marsh, bayou. I just assumed it would be there as it had been for thousands of years,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 was wrong.鈥� Knowing climate is predicted to displace more than 200 million people by the next century, Colette advocates for preparing for global migration by restructuring social and economic systems rooted in justice, such as investing in public hospitals before the impact of climate migration or additional storms like Hurricane Ida. It鈥檚 not like we don鈥檛 know what is coming, and Colette knows preparation is a life-and-death matter.

鈥淐limate change is not the problem,鈥� she said. 鈥淐limate change is the most horrible symptom of an economic system that has been built for a few to extract every precious value out of this planet and its people, from our natural resources to the fruits of our human labor.鈥�

What holds clear and steady is her belief of what can be done now. 鈥淚t鈥檚 already possible, y鈥檃ll,鈥� she often tells people, with the practical sense of someone who can get things done. Colette knows women who have the most to lose from climate disasters also know what it鈥檒l take to plan for the future and anticipate the storm.

Reprinted with permission from聽Love Your Mother: 50 States, 50 Stories, and 50 Women United for Climate Justice by Mallory McDuff 漏 2023.

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