Climate Change through the stories of 10 women and a girl

Written By Richard Erskine

Richard Erskine, our education lead in NailsworthCAN, gave a talk to Minchinhampton Ladies Luncheon Club on 18th November entitled ‘Climate Change: through the stories of 10 women, and a girl’.

“I had been asked to give a talk on climate change and was thinking of dusting off one of my standard talks when I had an epiphany: why not talk about 10 women in the climate story that have inspired me?

The choice of 10 women to talk about for just 40 minutes was very tough. Even in our local area of the Stroud valleys, we have several inspiring women connected to climate, and choosing just one was a struggle. This is very much a personal choice, but one over which I agonised.” 

You will see the diversity of stories here, from women who are scientists, artists, environmentalists, lawyers and activists. This by no means covers all the contributions women have made and are making to climate matters.

Throughout the talk various themes are woven into the narrative that springs from the stories of these women:

  • how we know what we know about current climate change;

  • the challenge of communicating about climate change;

  • why the arts and other disciplines are crucial;

  • the injustices that climate change exposes;

  • why 1°C of warming really is very significant and 3°C unthinkable;

  • the need to deal with extreme weather events even at current levels of warming.

Eunice Foote

Who has heard of her? Very few, but then how many women has history made invisible? She wasn’t the first, and won’t be the last, and we still don’t know what she looked like.

She was the first scientist to discover through experiments that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. An American, she submitted her paper to the American Association for the Advancement in Science in 1856. She went on to become a leading suffragette and disappeared from the world of science.

Only in recent years has her contribution been acknowledged.

Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson was a scientist, writer and environmentalist. She is most famous for her book ‘Silent Spring’ about the impact of pesticides, which gave birth to modern environmentalism.

Her first scientific passion was the oceans. In another book (The Sea Around Us) she said: “The sediments are a sort of epic poem of the Earth. When we are wise enough, perhaps we can read in them all of past history”, which was very prophetic, because cores in sediments and the ice sheets have indeed revealed knowledge of the past, and past climates.

The love of her life, Dorothy Freeman, warned her that in publishing Silent Spring, the free-marketers and polluters would go after her. She knew this but published anyway - she said it was her duty. They did, and people regularly try to dismiss her name. Effective regulation is something powerful forces resist and will play dirty to try to prevent or weaken.

However, within a few years of her premature death from breast cancer, sweeping environmental legislation was passed in the USA. She is an icon to environmentalists. She talked near the end of her life of writing about climate change.

Alisa Singer

Alisa Singer has helped in communicating the science of climate change through art, such as in her Environmental Graphiti exhibition. She says: “Art makes Science more accessible. Science makes the Art more meaningful”.

The talk includes her rendition of The Keeling Curve; it shows the recordings from the continuous measurement of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since 1958.

Her artwork also appeared on the cover of the 2021 sixth assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Many people feel excluded from the climate conversation because it can seem far too technical - both the climate science and many of the solutions - but in fact, we need a great diversity of ideas to envision a fairer and greener future. Art is perhaps the most powerful tool in providing a path into different and diverse conversations about change, that is accessible to everyone.

Emily Schuckburgh

Emily Schuckburgh’s is a mathematician and scientist who has made wide-ranging contributions to climate science, and the UK’s response to global warming.  She is Director of Cambridge Zero, the University of Cambridge's major climate change institution. 

She worked for more than a decade at the British Antarctic Survey where she led a UK national research programme on the Southern Ocean, and she has also advised the UK Government. She has worked on interdisciplinary research on extreme risks to cities like Cairo, which is key to building resilience.

She co-authored Climate Change, the most accessible book on the subject, with HRH The Prince of Wales and Tony Juniper.

We need scientists like Emily Schuckburgh prepared to step out of their comfort zone of the ‘lab’ and engage with civil society, Government and industry. We will only ‘decarbonise’ our economy by engaging creatively in interdisciplinary ways.

Emma Stibbon

Emma Stibbon’s work often focuses on the world of ice, which is increasingly impacted by global warming. She was a natural choice to work on the Ruskin, Turner & the Storm Cloud project, to explore the impact of climate change, particularly in the Alpine glaciers that Turner and Ruskin loved to paint.

Ruskin was one of the earliest people to note glacial retreat in the Alps.

Emma Stibbon’s work acts as a contemporary witness to accelerating changes.

We are all fascinated by the world of ice and it connects us to so many climate stories of the past, present and future. Emma Stibbon’s work is a powerful example of how art can make climate change accessible to those who find themselves excluded by the technicalities.

Katharine Hayhoe

Katharine Hayhoe is a climate scientist who has also become a foremost communicator on climate change.  She has worked on the US’s National Climate Assessment, which reflects the scientific work she has done on regional impacts. 

Professor John Abraham has called her "perhaps the best communicator on climate change."  In 2014, TIME magazine listed her among the 100 most influential people, and the American Geophysical Union awarded her its climate communications award.

Her Global Weirding website provides perhaps the best available resource for those wishing to learn about climate change.

But perhaps the most important contribution she is now making is showing how to engage with people on matters that they can relate to and explore why climate change is relevant to all of us.

When asked ‘what is the most important thing I can do on climate change?’, her response is “Talk about it!”.

Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg’s solo protest at the inaction of Governments on global warming initiated a worldwide youth movement of climate activists. She is an extremely well informed and articulate advocate for meaningful action on climate change. All the more impressive given that she was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome 

It is a measure of her importance that she has been the target of a lot of disparaging remarks and conspiratorial thinking from Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and many others.

She has received innumerable awards. In 2019, she became Time Person of the Year; the first recipient born in the 21st century and the youngest ever. She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for three years running.

Like Rachael Carson, it is a measure of how effective she has been that those same forces that have blocked effective action so far try to diss her ‘she is controlled by others’ etc. But no, she is her own woman who speaks her own words. No blah blah blah from her. An inspiring and powerful force for change.

Polly Higgins

Polly Higgins realised the Earth “needed a good lawyer”.

She worked tirelessly for the inclusion of Ecocide as a fifth international crime against peace in the Rome Statute. This would build on the existing crime of severe damage to the environment during armed conflict, whilst reflecting the fact that today, most severe environmental damage occurs during times of peace.

Sadly she died in 2019 aged just 50 from an aggressive cancer.

Her work to bring Ecocide into law continues, inspired by her.

Vanessa Nakate

Vanessa Nakate is a climate activist from Uganda who has become one of the most important voices for Africa on climate change.

She was effectively airbrushed from a photo of other (white) activists in a photo published by the Associated Press, and that inspired her to write a book.

She said on Oprah: 

“People don’t understand the urgency of the climate crisis ... we will never get to zero hunger or achieve gender equality or lift millions from poverty without addressing climate change.” 

Like many of her generation, she understands that the environmental crisis is connected to everything else.

Africa has contributed just 3% of global emissions, yet is disproportionality affected by climate change. With great advocates like Vaness Nakate, it is clear, Africa will not remain silent on the need for climate justice.

Friederike Otto

Friederike Otto is a climate scientist who has become very prominent in the media because of her work on extreme weather events. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at the Grantham Institute and co-founded the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group.

Climate scientists have known for a long time that a warming world will increase the chance of extreme weather events, but haven’t been able to attribute the extent that climate change has played in a specific event. Friederike Otto’s work has changed that, and this is revolutionary. 

In future, these studies could be used in a court of law to sue fossil fuel companies.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of this work.

Vinisha Umashankar

Vinisha Umashankar in an inspiring speech at COP26 in Glasgow said "Today I ask, with all due respect, that we stop talking and start doing. We, the Earthshot Prize Winners and Finalists, need you to back our innovations, projects and solutions, not an economy built on fossil fuels, smoke and pollution.”

Conclusion

The talk was very well received and the Q&A had eventually to be stopped because it went on so long. It was very pleasing to have such interest and engagement from the group.

In a thank you at the end of the Q&A, the host secretary said:

“It’s been really really good. It’s been helpful. I love the fact that some clever artists can bring art into climate change. Just basically, I’ve learned a lot. … I sit on my sofa most evenings and say ‘one degree of warming, that’s not very much’, and I’ve learned, it’s a lot! So thank you so much. And I loved the emotion that came into it. It was full of everything.”

If you would like to hear the talk and can organise a venue and group of 10 or more who would like to hear it, then Richard would be happy to find a mutually agreeable date to give the talk. A contribution to NailsworthCAN would be appreciated, which would help us in our work to engage with the community on positive initiatives.

Note: Other talks are also available including ‘Energy: Past, Present & Future’, and ‘Climate Change: A history of ideas and discoveries from 1800 to the present day’.

Writing by featured women:

Richard Erskine
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