Climate Change: A Gendered Experience

Abstract Climate change focuses on long-term weather patterns, not the daily fluctuations of weather. Concern over the burning of fossil fuels to undermine weather stability by warming the earth’s atmosphere, is longstanding. Eunice Foote first raised the issue in 1853. Other scientists followed – John Tyndall, and Svante Arrhenius, who was awarded the 1908 Nobel prize for chemistry for his work on the climate. These brilliant scientists did not differentiate the experiences of the impacts of climate change on different groups in the population, and thus the gendered experiences of climate events were not examined by them. In this article, I want to consider gender relations or the differentiated impact of climate change on men and women, while acknowledging that these also differ for those with other social attributes, including disabilities. These differences are significant, if under-researched, as is addressing climate change, urgently. How can communities be facilitated by climate change activists and experts to reduce gendered health and livelihood inequalities currently associated with the climate crisis in contemporary societies.