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Mar 9

What women can do to tackle the climate crisis – Green World

Diets that Work Comments Off on What women can do to tackle the climate crisis – Green World

This weekend, women around the world gathered to celebrate womanhood and champion gender equality as part of this years International Women's Day on 8 March.

As the threat of the climate crisis escalates, women and girls will disproportionately bear the brunt of its devastating impacts but how can women take individual action and collective action to fight the climate emergency here in the UK?

Aiming to help find the answers, Green Party councillor and MP candidate Carla Denyer led a workshop at Bristol City Hall on Saturday (7 March), entitled What women can do to tackle the climate crisis?, with Lia-Anjali Lazarus from Bristol City Youth Council, Zoe Banks Gross from Knowle West Media Centre, Green MP candidate Heather Mack and City to Seas Rhiannon Holder.

The event formed part of Bristol Womens Voices annual International Womens Day celebrations, which featured over 50 free events ranging from self-defence workshops to live music and life-drawing classes.

At Denyers workshop, which took place in the Eco Chamber room, speakers gave short presentations on three key opportunities for women to fight climate change: reusable menstrual products; cycling, women and the climate; and the environmental impacts of food.

The workshops 31 attendants then discussed these themes in small groups, deciding on three actions they can take in their personal lives, in an organisation theyre part of, and through lobbying.

Zoe Banks Gross, Sustainable Neighbourhoods Programme Lead at Knowle West Media Centre, kicked off the workshop by explaining how women can help tackle the climate crisis through cycling rather than driving.

Opening her speech, she said: A woman I really rate asked me the other day, Why should I cycle instead of drive? Will it really make a difference to climate change? Yes it will make a difference. And yes, I accept that at least initially it may feel a little less convenient. But as women who are fighting for equality and equity, that little inconvenience must not put us off getting on a bike.

Women are more likely to be in transport poverty. We are more likely to work part-time, care for children and/or parents, and earn less in the paid work we do. This means that whether we need to access public transport or use a car, it will likely use more of our income than men. If we want to embody a better system and better future for all women, even if we can afford to drive, we should cycle or walk.

To help encourage more women to take up cycling, the workshop discussed the importance of lobbying for better, safer cycle infrastructure, calling on businesses to incentivise cycling by providing better Cycle to Work schemes, improving facilities such as showers and relaxing the (often overly restrictive and gendered) workplace dress codes cycling in heels is hard!

Participants also pointed out local organisations, such as Bristols Lifecycle UK personally recommended by Denyer which can help you get back on your bike by providing training to boost your confidence.

Heather Mack, who stood as Green Party Parliamentary candidate for Bristol North West in Decembers election and is an expert in the sustainability of food system, explained: A womans place is not in the kitchen, but its probably still true across the UK population that women have more responsibility for shopping choices.

Mack discussed the link between food waste and food poverty, highlighting organisations such as Foodcycle and Fareshare which aim to simultaneously fight hunger and wastage by redistributing surplus food to those in need.

Turning to vegan diets, Mack explained that an average vegan diet is always going to be more sustainable than a high-meat or even medium-meat diet, but it is still possible to have a sustainable diet with meat in, if the meat is only a small part of your diet and is reared locally and sustainably.

Equally, its possible to have an unsustainable vegan diet if you eat a lot of imported food, especially avocados or almonds. So if youve chosen a vegan diet for environmental reasons, its a good idea to source your veg seasonally and locally, using projects such as the Sims Hill Shared Harvest cooperative veg box scheme.

The workshop participants also discussed the unsustainability of our whole food system, which Mack explained is partly because consumers do not have much power over how food is grown and produced, compared to consumers in some other markets. It was agreed that this industry-wide problem requires systemic change to solve it.

Addressing the environmental impacts of menstrual waste, Rhiannon Holder, Volunteer from City to Sea and the Womens Environmental Network (Wen), explained: Menstrual products are one of the most common types of litter found on beaches, and contain a lot of single-use plastic, which most people dont realise. A conventional box of menstrual pads contains around the same amount of plastic as five carrier bags.

Following Holders speech, participants discussed the importance of tackling period poverty by making free products available in public toilets, but stressed that these should include reusable or at least plastic-free options.

Holder also pointed out that not all menstrual cups are the same, and recommended the Put a Cup In It quiz, which can be used to identify which product is likely to suit you best.

You can find more information about the International Womens Day events on the Bristol Womens Voice website.

Excerpt from:
What women can do to tackle the climate crisis - Green World

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