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to stuff mom never told you? From

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Hey, and welcome to the podcast. This is Molly

0:19

and I'm Kristin and Kristen. There

0:21

has been a lot in the news lately about the

0:23

green economy. The green economy is

0:25

going to save us, get us out of this trouble,

0:28

keep the world from ending. Like

0:30

the green economy is paramount. Yeah,

0:32

exactly. It's Uh. By green economy

0:34

you mean all of

0:36

the industry surrounding green

0:40

products such as building solar

0:42

panels, or um

0:45

nuclear power plants, etcetera,

0:48

etcetera. Renewable resource, renewable

0:50

resources. Yeah, this has become a

0:52

huge industry. According to an article

0:55

I read in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago,

0:57

I think twenty eight states have already

0:59

said quotas for um

1:02

having renewable sources of energy,

1:05

and billions and billions of dollars

1:07

are now being poured into this

1:09

industry. And lobbyists was just knocking down the doors

1:12

of congressmen trying to trying to

1:14

get their piece of the renewable energy

1:16

pie. But you know, there's pretty

1:18

much nothing a president can do without garnering

1:21

criticism. And one of the criticisms

1:23

that's been lobbied at this new green economy,

1:26

the formation of green jobs, is that

1:28

women are not going to be adequately represented.

1:30

That the jobs that are in the green

1:33

econmoy primarily construction

1:35

jobs, the kinds of jobs that women just stay

1:37

away from, right, Molly, there are some initiatives

1:39

going on right now to first

1:41

of all, train more women to be

1:44

able to contribute to the green

1:46

economy and get these so called green

1:48

color jobs. And also people who

1:50

are trying to think of more ways to include more

1:53

female dominated industries because, like

1:55

you said, a lot of these engineering, um

1:57

and technological industries

2:00

actors that make up a lot of

2:02

the green economy are comprised

2:04

mostly of men. And

2:06

it's especially important because, you

2:08

know, researchers think that the green economy jobs,

2:10

like most construction jobs, are gonna pay a lot more

2:13

like this is a really good opportunity for women to get

2:15

in make some higher wages. So one of the

2:17

steps that's being taken, especially on

2:19

college campuses I've been reading is just an

2:21

education program like here are green jobs,

2:24

here's I get them because

2:26

you know, green's become such a cliche. We all think

2:28

we know what it means, but what does it mean

2:30

in our own lives? Right? Uh? I

2:32

gotta say, you know, when you think about sustainable

2:35

resources, renewable energy, it's

2:37

not something that is constantly on

2:39

my mind. I mean, do I feel good

2:41

about taking the train to

2:43

work instead of having to drive my car

2:45

five miles? Absolutely, But

2:48

um, it's not something that that really

2:50

impacts my day to

2:52

day life. And since, like you said, green

2:54

has become kind of a cliche, it's

2:57

just sort of something where you you, you

2:59

know, pat yourself on the back when you go by a

3:01

you know, a reusable grocery bag and

3:03

things like that. And um,

3:06

I thought it would be interesting to to take a

3:08

different view of what renewable

3:10

resources mean, um, for

3:13

women, especially outside of

3:15

the United States, because it is linked

3:17

to a lot of other huge

3:19

issues, right right. I mean, we primarily

3:21

think about renewable resources in terms of our pocketbooks,

3:24

like can we afford to put solar panels on a house?

3:27

Um? But in the developing countries, climate

3:30

change, renewal resources, gender

3:32

inequality, and poverty are all inextricably

3:34

linked. In really interesting ways. So we thought this would

3:36

be a really good food for thought about

3:39

how we can think about renewal resources and

3:41

women all around the world in

3:43

a united way. Yeah, and keep

3:45

in mind, this is Molly and I are going to kind of

3:47

give a high level view of

3:50

of women in developing countries especially

3:53

and the impact of renewable

3:55

resources. We're going to throw in a few

3:57

specific examples, but um yeah, Christians,

3:59

right, not gonna have time to do country by country

4:02

how every single set of woman's effective. So we're gonna

4:04

give a high level inner overview first

4:06

though, Christian the question at hand, what is

4:08

a renewable resource? Renewable resource

4:11

is uh, it's pretty self explanatory, Molly.

4:13

It is a resource,

4:16

a source of energy if you will, um,

4:18

that is can be replenished naturally,

4:21

and by that I mean solar

4:23

energy. The Sun is there, it is going

4:25

to continue to give us energy for a long time.

4:28

There is wind, there is tidal

4:30

wave of energy. All of these things that

4:32

do not uh, that don't

4:34

have a finite limit, such as fossil

4:36

fuels. True, there are also not

4:38

just renewable energy sources, but renewable materials.

4:41

For example, you can farm in

4:43

a way that's sustainable. Sustainable our culture,

4:45

forest products, lumber, plywood, paper,

4:48

they can all be renewable resources when you produce

4:50

them with sustainable forestreet techniques.

4:52

So it's really a combination of

4:55

these products and energy sources

4:57

that affect women in the developing world.

4:59

Let's take water. Okay, in the

5:01

developing world, water obviously a paramount

5:04

necessary resource. Guess who spends

5:06

all the time gathering water, carving

5:09

it back and forth. I'm going to guess women and women

5:11

and girls. Yes, you are correct. So

5:14

studies have been done that showed that in developing world, women

5:16

have the most knowledge about how

5:19

water needs to be sort of delivered to a village,

5:21

how it works for them, but their opinion

5:23

has often overlooked when parties

5:26

are coming in and trying to design new

5:28

systems for these people, so that they

5:30

eventually put in things that don't work. About

5:33

an example of that real quick free Christian There

5:35

was this project in Nepaul and the

5:37

women, Uh, they put in this new tap, but

5:39

the women didn't like it because the

5:41

stands were like right on the roadside, which

5:43

didn't put their needs at all, because they

5:46

need to like have room to wash clothes,

5:49

bathe and as a result, they didn't even

5:51

use this new tap that was put in. They were going

5:53

even farther to find more water

5:55

sources. Right. Sounds like the people who were designing

5:58

these tabs weren't going to the primary

6:00

stakeholders, if you will, you like

6:03

that um to find

6:05

out the optimum place to put

6:07

it. And well, when you when we think about

6:10

renewable resources, it just

6:13

to me sometimes it just seems like such a individual

6:17

subject. It's just the environment. We're just talking

6:19

about the earth. But uh, in

6:22

in the developing world especially, you

6:24

know, there's such a complex

6:26

interplay of all of these different factors

6:28

that you were talking about, just in that one example

6:30

in nepal. Um there's a source from

6:33

Canadian woman's studies that says

6:35

that eradicating poverty, expanding

6:37

income earning possibilities, increasing

6:39

gender equity, improving education

6:42

and health status, and protecting and

6:44

regenerating the environment are all

6:46

related to equitable access

6:49

to energy. Like you're talking about, like just

6:51

being able to go and and get the water,

6:54

clean safe water and bringing

6:56

it back. Something as simple as that. We don't think

6:58

of education, healthcare and

7:00

all of those other factors all being

7:03

combined with this one issue and it's something

7:05

that a lot of NGOs and nonprofits

7:07

are looking to tackle. Kind of killed

7:09

two birds with one stone, if you will. They're trying

7:11

to tackle this renewable resource problem

7:15

and also at the same time creating more gender

7:17

equality in these communities and adding

7:20

more um social

7:22

equality for these women. Yeah, it's that's pretty

7:24

a powerful way to think about it. That just you know, by

7:27

doing something we need to do any way to keep our earth

7:30

in viable shape, we can you know, knock out

7:32

a lot of this poverty. Uh. We

7:34

were looking at some UN reports that of

7:37

the one point three billion people living in conditions

7:39

of poverty or women and so that's sort

7:41

of why they're not on this equal

7:43

level. There's obviously a lot of cultural

7:46

social norms playing into it. Just to

7:48

continue with this water example, you know, if

7:50

you're not spending your entire day walking

7:52

to find a clean, renewable source of water,

7:54

then you'll have more time to take care of your family at races

7:57

health rate, at have more time for education, and

7:59

you can really start to break the cycle of

8:01

poverty exactly. And you were talking

8:04

about these studies that are coming

8:06

out of the U N and

8:08

UM. This whole issue of

8:10

gender equality and renewable

8:12

resources is actually part of

8:15

some of the Millennial Development

8:17

Goals that the UN has established. UM.

8:20

The Millennium Declaration states

8:22

that gender equality is both a goal in

8:24

and of itself in a condition to combat poverty,

8:27

hunger, and disease and achieve all

8:29

of these other goals. Like you were talking

8:32

about. You know, if you if you solve one of these problems

8:34

of just say water or having to go collect

8:37

firewood for fuel, um, then you

8:39

can then you can target all of these other

8:41

goals as well. And UM,

8:44

I thought it'd be nice to toss in one of these

8:46

examples of success, uh

8:49

that that the U n um

8:51

use and it is of women in

8:54

Nigeria who are able to collectively

8:57

come together and actually

9:00

effectively shut down a natural

9:02

gas company in the country that was just burning

9:04

all this natural gas, all these natural gas

9:06

flares coming out of the ground and it was really

9:09

dangerous for these these women having to go back

9:11

and forth. And UM,

9:13

they were able to really come

9:15

together, UM, both in Nigeria

9:18

and then abroad I think in um

9:21

in the UK, and with

9:23

all of their collective actions, they were able to lobby

9:25

strong enough to to get the

9:27

parent company of the natural gas, UH

9:29

affiliate to to shut down.

9:32

And so the thing is, it is possible,

9:34

Like it sounds kind of pie in the sky for us to say, well,

9:37

let's you know, let's put a water tap

9:39

in the right place and you know, solve the

9:41

world's problems. But in fact

9:44

it can make a huge, a huge difference because now

9:46

that these women have seen probably that they can come together

9:49

as a cohesive unit and enact

9:52

change, probably gives them a little more

9:54

power in their own communities as well. And

9:56

it's more than just water. I mean, these women are

9:59

basically creating food for entire populations

10:02

exactly. UM. According to once

10:04

again going back to this, the United Nations

10:07

Millennial Development Goals UH, it

10:09

states that rural women in less developed

10:11

countries are the principal basic food

10:13

producers. So they're the ones who

10:15

are out in the fields tending a lot

10:17

of these crops that are going back and feeding the

10:20

men and children. And so if

10:22

these women don't have as much access

10:24

to information about let's just say,

10:26

like incoming storm patterns and

10:29

um droughts and things like that that

10:31

are going to directly impact the crop

10:33

production, UH, it's going to have a ripple

10:35

effect in the community. And

10:38

so that's yet another reason why creating

10:41

these uh bring more

10:43

access to renewable resources

10:45

and energy. UM to create more sustainable

10:47

agricultural practices are going to be

10:49

so important specifically for these women,

10:52

right. And you were talking about not having that knowledge,

10:54

not being able to walk around because you know, a culture

10:57

dictates that you kind of stay close to home. You

10:59

can't get the information. UH that can

11:01

have really damaging effects in terms of how

11:03

climate change affects women. Women are

11:06

actually the population that can be

11:08

most affected by that drought or

11:10

by something like a tsunami that rips through

11:12

a village as a result of climate change.

11:14

UM. We were reading about tsunami

11:16

and Sri Lanka, and because the

11:18

women are never taught how to climb a tree

11:20

the way that boys are, many of them perish because

11:23

they couldn't get away from the rising tides.

11:25

Right. And then when you have these natural disasters

11:28

or even rampant disease it might break out

11:30

in communities. The women are the

11:32

ones who are going to be um

11:34

taking care of the children and the men

11:37

who who are most affected by

11:39

it. And then you have issues like in in Nepal,

11:41

women suffer from bladder problems

11:43

associated with carrying large amounts of firewood

11:46

after they become pregnant because they're having

11:48

to go farther and farther distances, you know

11:50

when when you use more and more firewood.

11:53

So basically sort of, I guess the takeaway

11:55

that would be awful nice if everyone would just sort

11:57

of ask the women where they're coming

11:59

into create programs

12:01

for them about what exactly would serve them. But

12:03

right now a lot of these programs are very

12:05

gender blind. So that's why we got organizations

12:08

like i U c N and the u N going and

12:10

trying to figure out how they can have

12:13

a two pronged approach to this problem of

12:15

gender inequality and climate

12:17

change or renewable resources. Right there's also an

12:19

organization Molly UH that was started up

12:21

fairly recently called energea looks

12:23

like Energy a UM that is

12:26

totally devoted to UH

12:28

looking at the link between these

12:31

gender issues we were talking about and renewable resources

12:33

and finding out how to how

12:36

to approach them and solve them

12:38

as well. So there's a lot going on. I

12:40

was really surprised when we were thinking about

12:42

talking about renewable resources

12:45

and how it might affect women UH to find

12:47

out that there's this whole other

12:49

segment of it that we just really don't think

12:52

about. We don't think about it. But you know, the problem

12:54

I have when we are researching this Christian was just how

12:56

hard it was to kind of wrap my head around it. It

12:58

It seems like such a huge problem them,

13:00

you know, on its own, renewable resources seemed

13:02

like, you know, just this huge mountain

13:05

to climb. Then when you add developing

13:07

world on top of that, seems monumental.

13:10

Gender in equality seems monumental, and it becomes

13:12

so frustrating, I think, with all these uh,

13:14

individual examples. But then I was thinking

13:16

about this movie that we saw a few months ago called

13:19

A Powerful Noise, which was

13:21

about how women in developing countries

13:23

have sort of you know, it gave a few examples of

13:25

how women to be able to rise up, create

13:27

some better quality, create

13:29

some income for themselves, and how that sort of impacts

13:31

their entire community. And

13:34

one thing we walked away from that movie with was the

13:36

importance of micro loans. And

13:38

so that to me is one way that we can

13:40

all take sort of, you know, a

13:43

concrete approach to solving

13:45

this problem for ourselves, right, and the

13:47

and the movie that you were reverencing, I think we should

13:49

say was produced by the organization

13:52

Care, which focuses

13:54

on poverty and women, and research

13:57

continually shows over and over again in developing

13:59

countries the people who you should

14:01

target if you want to create

14:04

change in those societies are

14:06

the women, because they're the ones who are

14:08

taking care of the children. They're responsible for the education,

14:11

for the health care, for going and getting the food,

14:13

for even growing the food

14:15

and bringing it back and uh,

14:18

they've made huge strides in um

14:20

even in the example that I mentioned earlier about

14:22

the Nigerian women. There's a lot that can

14:25

be done. It seems overwhelming. There have just been

14:27

some really heartening examples

14:30

recently, as you know, in that movie that we saw

14:32

and in uh this U and literature

14:34

that we've been reading about how women are

14:36

really taking advantage of

14:38

those assets that they have in their communities

14:41

and in using it to improve

14:43

the lives of their children and their husbands

14:46

and their families. So I think at the end

14:48

of the day, it is an overwhelming problem,

14:51

but there is definitely uh

14:54

silver lining to yeah. And I think that if you know,

14:56

you want to look for a way where you yourself can

14:58

make a concrete difference this

15:00

whole big issue. A micro loan is

15:02

something to consider instead of you know, another

15:04

reusable grocery bag. Yeah, check

15:07

out micro loans flly, No, we should do We

15:09

should maybe do a podcast on micro loans. Perhaps

15:11

we shall. Yeah, well, guys,

15:13

thanks so much for listening to us talk about renewable

15:16

resources if you want to learn more

15:18

about them. How stuff works dot com

15:21

has a whole section on

15:24

green science, so you can read to

15:26

your heart's content about that. And Molly

15:28

and I actually have a new blog

15:30

on how stuff works dot com. It's

15:33

called how to stuff, where

15:35

we tell you how to do

15:38

stuff. If there's anything that

15:40

you would like to learn how to do that it's just been

15:43

just plaguing you and you can't figure out how to

15:45

do it, please send me in Molly and email and

15:47

we will maybe tackle that problem

15:49

for you on the blog to the best of our ability.

15:52

And of course, as always, if you have any

15:54

questions or comments for

15:57

me and or Molly, send

15:59

specially me, especially Molly. So

16:01

yeah, just use an email, simple

16:03

address small stuff how

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