Women Need a Greener Nation

By Majora Carter

When it comes to our dirty energy economy, it's the poor who pay the price.  If our transport, argi-business, waste handling and energy infrastructure was located near well-off people as quickly and easily as it ends up near poor people, we would have had a clean and green economy decades ago.  But we don't; and as we go further down the climate-change trail, we see that the vectors for environmentally borne diseases like asthma, obesity, type-2 diabetes, typically affect women the hardest.

That's because children are the most sensitive to toxins. And when a child goes to the ER at 2:00 am with an asthma attack, it's Mom who is most likely to be less productive or late for work the next day. She might be sidelined, denied a raise, or fired. Proximity to fossil fuel emissions has been directly linked to learning disabilities in non-smoking households in a 2006 Columbia University study. Who is most likely to deal with the school, tutoring resources, or the stress this situation creates? Mom. A working mom. And, statistically, poor kids who do poorly in school, go to jail. Two thirds return to jail within two years of release. Many people understand that the U.S. has five percent of the world’s population but produces 25 percent of the world's waste and green house gas emissions. Fewer people know that we also have 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population — right here in the land of the free. That means more single moms burdened by bad environmental decisions. We subsidize these problems directly with our corporate welfare dollars, and pay for them again indirectly through increased law enforcement, public health, incarceration, and educational costs.

Transforming the dirty energy and infrastructure that currently supports our modern lifestyle, gives us an opportunity to fix these high local costs, and stems the flow of green house gasses into the atmosphere. Where does the money to fight global warming come from? From the savings we'll realize through greater female-worker productivity, happier families, and by sending less dollars to certain oil producers - some of whom pose national security risks. Our heroic defense department spends billions to contain these threats. Coincidentally, women don't fare so well in many of those same nations.

The civil rights movement of the mid 20th century, the abolitionist campaigns of the 19th century, and the American democracy movement of the 18th century were resisted as too disruptive and therefore too costly. In every case, our nation grew stronger as a result of the broader economic power that fully enfranchised citizens enjoy. Environmental enfranchisement? Clean air and water as a civil right. What would that mean to all of our costs and benefits over the next 100 years?

I want to find out, and not just because it will mean greater equality for women. There are a lot of problems in front of us: economic, environmental, political and inequality. A green economic transformation holds the promise for many benefits, and women are proven to be the more reliable stewards of everything from micro-loans to day-to-day effeciency. All of us have important reasons to work towards a victory for equality. It will be another in a long line of victories we can trace back on our ancestors' loving journey to the future.