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Speaker 1: From House Towards dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: This is Molly and I'm Kristin and Kristen. There has
Speaker 1: been a lot in the news lately about the green economy.
Speaker 1: The green economy is going to save us, get us
Speaker 1: out of this trouble, keep the world from ending. Like
Speaker 1: the green economy is paramount. Yeah, exactly. It's Uh. By
Speaker 1: green economy you mean all of the industry surrounding green
Speaker 1: products such as building solar panels, or um nuclear power plants, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Renewable resource, renewable resources. Yeah, this has become a huge industry.
Speaker 1: According to an article I read in the New York
Speaker 1: Times a couple of weeks ago, I think twenty eight
Speaker 1: states have already said quotas for um having renewable sources
Speaker 1: of energy, and billions and billions of dollars are now
Speaker 1: being poured into this industry. And lobbyists was just knocking
Speaker 1: down the doors of congressmen trying to trying to get
Speaker 1: their piece of the renewable energy pie. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's pretty much nothing a president can do without garnering criticism.
Speaker 1: And one of the criticisms that's been lobbied at this
Speaker 1: new green economy, the formation of green jobs, is that
Speaker 1: women are not going to be adequately represented. That the
Speaker 1: jobs that are in the green econmoy primarily construction jobs,
Speaker 1: the kinds of jobs that women just stay away from, right, Molly,
Speaker 1: there are some initiatives going on right now to first
Speaker 1: of all, train more women to be able to contribute
Speaker 1: to the green economy and get these so called green
Speaker 1: color jobs. And also people who are trying to think
Speaker 1: of more ways to include more female dominated industries because,
Speaker 1: like you said, a lot of these engineering, um and
Speaker 1: technological industries actors that make up a lot of the
Speaker 1: green economy are comprised mostly of men. And it's especially
Speaker 1: important because, you know, researchers think that the green economy jobs,
Speaker 1: like most construction jobs, are gonna pay a lot more
Speaker 1: like this is a really good opportunity for women to
Speaker 1: get in make some higher wages. So one of the
Speaker 1: steps that's being taken, especially on college campuses I've been
Speaker 1: reading is just an education program like here are green jobs,
Speaker 1: here's I get them because you know, green's become such
Speaker 1: a cliche. We all think we know what it means,
Speaker 1: but what does it mean in our own lives? Right? Uh?
Speaker 1: I gotta say, you know, when you think about sustainable resources,
Speaker 1: renewable energy, it's not something that is constantly on my mind.
Speaker 1: I mean, do I feel good about taking the train
Speaker 1: to work instead of having to drive my car five miles? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: But um, it's not something that that really impacts my
Speaker 1: day to day life. And since, like you said, green
Speaker 1: has become kind of a cliche, it's just sort of
Speaker 1: something where you you, you know, pat yourself on the
Speaker 1: back when you go by a you know, a reusable
Speaker 1: grocery bag and things like that. And um, I thought
Speaker 1: it would be interesting to to take a different view
Speaker 1: of what renewable resources mean, um, for women, especially outside
Speaker 1: of the United States, because it is linked to a
Speaker 1: lot of other huge issues, right right. I mean, we
Speaker 1: primarily think about renewable resources in terms of our pocketbooks,
Speaker 1: like can we afford to put solar panels on a house? Um?
Speaker 1: But in the developing countries, climate change, renewal resources, gender inequality,
Speaker 1: and poverty are all inextricably linked. In really interesting ways.
Speaker 1: So we thought this would be a really good food
Speaker 1: for thought about how we can think about renewal resources
Speaker 1: and women all around the world in a united way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and keep in mind, this is Molly and I are
Speaker 1: going to kind of give a high level view of
Speaker 1: of women in developing countries especially and the impact of
Speaker 1: renewable resources. We're going to throw in a few specific examples,
Speaker 1: but um yeah, Christians, right, not gonna have time to
Speaker 1: do country by country how every single set of woman's effective.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna give a high level inner overview first though,
Speaker 1: Christian the question at hand, what is a renewable resource?
Speaker 1: Renewable resource is uh, it's pretty self explanatory, Molly. It
Speaker 1: is a resource, a source of energy if you will, um,
Speaker 1: that is can be replenished naturally, and by that I
Speaker 1: mean solar energy. The Sun is there, it is going
Speaker 1: to continue to give us energy for a long time.
Speaker 1: There is wind, there is tidal wave of energy. All
Speaker 1: of these things that do not uh, that don't have
Speaker 1: a finite limit, such as fossil fuels. True, there are
Speaker 1: also not just renewable energy sources, but renewable materials. For example,
Speaker 1: you can farm in a way that's sustainable. Sustainable our culture,
Speaker 1: forest products, lumber, plywood, paper, they can all be renewable
Speaker 1: resources when you produce them with sustainable forestreet techniques. So
Speaker 1: it's really a combination of these products and energy sources
Speaker 1: that affect women in the developing world. Let's take water. Okay,
Speaker 1: in the developing world, water obviously a paramount necessary resource.
Speaker 1: Guess who spends all the time gathering water, carving it
Speaker 1: back and forth. I'm going to guess women and women
Speaker 1: and girls. Yes, you are correct. So studies have been
Speaker 1: done that showed that in developing world, women have the
Speaker 1: most knowledge about how water needs to be sort of
Speaker 1: delivered to a village, how it works for them, but
Speaker 1: their opinion has often overlooked when parties are coming in
Speaker 1: and trying to design new systems for these people, so
Speaker 1: that they eventually put in things that don't work. About
Speaker 1: an example of that real quick free Christian There was
Speaker 1: this project in Nepaul and the women, Uh, they put
Speaker 1: in this new tap, but the women didn't like it
Speaker 1: because the stands were like right on the roadside, which
Speaker 1: didn't put their needs at all, because they need to
Speaker 1: like have room to wash clothes, bathe and as a result,
Speaker 1: they didn't even use this new tap that was put in.
Speaker 1: They were going even farther to find more water sources. Right.
Speaker 1: Sounds like the people who were designing these tabs weren't
Speaker 1: going to the primary stakeholders, if you will, you like
Speaker 1: that um to find out the optimum place to put it.
Speaker 1: And well, when you when we think about renewable resources,
Speaker 1: it just to me sometimes it just seems like such
Speaker 1: a individual subject. It's just the environment. We're just talking
Speaker 1: about the earth. But uh, in in the developing world especially,
Speaker 1: you know, there's such a complex interplay of all of
Speaker 1: these different factors that you were talking about, just in
Speaker 1: that one example in nepal. Um there's a source from
Speaker 1: Canadian woman's studies that says that eradicating poverty, expanding income
Speaker 1: earning possibilities, increasing gender equity, improving education and health status,
Speaker 1: and protecting and regenerating the environment are all related to
Speaker 1: equitable access to energy. Like you're talking about, like just
Speaker 1: being able to go and and get the water, clean
Speaker 1: safe water and bringing it back. Something as simple as that.
Speaker 1: We don't think of education, healthcare and all of those
Speaker 1: other factors all being combined with this one issue and
Speaker 1: it's something that a lot of NGOs and nonprofits are
Speaker 1: looking to tackle. Kind of killed two birds with one stone,
Speaker 1: if you will. They're trying to tackle this renewable resource
Speaker 1: problem and also at the same time creating more gender
Speaker 1: equality in these communities and adding more um social equality
Speaker 1: for these women. Yeah, it's that's pretty a powerful way
Speaker 1: to think about it. That just you know, by doing
Speaker 1: something we need to do any way to keep our
Speaker 1: earth in viable shape, we can you know, knock out
Speaker 1: a lot of this poverty. Uh. We were looking at
Speaker 1: some UN reports that of the one point three billion
Speaker 1: people living in conditions of poverty or women and so
Speaker 1: that's sort of why they're not on this equal level.
Speaker 1: There's obviously a lot of cultural social norms playing into it.
Speaker 1: Just to continue with this water example, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're not spending your entire day walking to find a clean,
Speaker 1: renewable source of water, then you'll have more time to
Speaker 1: take care of your family at races health rate, at
Speaker 1: have more time for education, and you can really start
Speaker 1: to break the cycle of poverty exactly. And you were
Speaker 1: talking about these studies that are coming out of the
Speaker 1: U N and UM. This whole issue of gender equality
Speaker 1: and renewable resources is actually part of some of the
Speaker 1: Millennial Development Goals that the UN has established. UM. The
Speaker 1: Millennium Declaration states that gender equality is both a goal
Speaker 1: in and of itself in a condition to combat poverty, hunger,
Speaker 1: and disease and achieve all of these other goals. Like
Speaker 1: you were talking about. You know, if you if you
Speaker 1: solve one of these problems of just say water or
Speaker 1: having to go collect firewood for fuel, um, then you
Speaker 1: can then you can target all of these other goals
Speaker 1: as well. And UM, I thought it'd be nice to
Speaker 1: toss in one of these examples of success, uh that
Speaker 1: that the U n um use and it is of
Speaker 1: women in Nigeria who are able to collectively come together
Speaker 1: and actually effectively shut down a natural gas company in
Speaker 1: the country that was just burning all this natural gas,
Speaker 1: all these natural gas flares coming out of the ground
Speaker 1: and it was really dangerous for these these women having
Speaker 1: to go back and forth. And UM, they were able
Speaker 1: to really come together, UM, both in Nigeria and then
Speaker 1: abroad I think in um in the UK, and with
Speaker 1: all of their collective actions, they were able to lobby
Speaker 1: strong enough to to get the parent company of the
Speaker 1: natural gas, UH affiliate to to shut down. And so
Speaker 1: the thing is, it is possible, Like it sounds kind
Speaker 1: of pie in the sky for us to say, well,
Speaker 1: let's you know, let's put a water tap in the
Speaker 1: right place and you know, solve the world's problems. But
Speaker 1: in fact it can make a huge, a huge difference
Speaker 1: because now that these women have seen probably that they
Speaker 1: can come together as a cohesive unit and enact change,
Speaker 1: probably gives them a little more power in their own
Speaker 1: communities as well. And it's more than just water. I mean,
Speaker 1: these women are basically creating food for entire populations exactly. UM.
Speaker 1: According to once again going back to this, the United
Speaker 1: Nations Millennial Development Goals UH, it states that rural women
Speaker 1: in less developed countries are the principal basic food producers.
Speaker 1: So they're the ones who are out in the fields
Speaker 1: tending a lot of these crops that are going back
Speaker 1: and feeding the men and children. And so if these
Speaker 1: women don't have as much access to information about let's
Speaker 1: just say, like incoming storm patterns and um droughts and
Speaker 1: things like that that are going to directly impact the
Speaker 1: crop production, UH, it's going to have a ripple effect
Speaker 1: in the community. And so that's yet another reason why
Speaker 1: creating these uh bring more access to renewable resources and energy.
Speaker 1: UM to create more sustainable agricultural practices are going to
Speaker 1: be so important specifically for these women, right. And you
Speaker 1: were talking about not having that knowledge, not being able
Speaker 1: to walk around because you know, a culture dictates that
Speaker 1: you kind of stay close to home. You can't get
Speaker 1: the information. UH that can have really damaging effects in
Speaker 1: terms of how climate change affects women. Women are actually
Speaker 1: the population that can be most affected by that drought
Speaker 1: or by something like a tsunami that rips through a
Speaker 1: village as a result of climate change. UM. We were
Speaker 1: reading about tsunami and Sri Lanka, and because the women
Speaker 1: are never taught how to climb a tree the way
Speaker 1: that boys are, many of them perish because they couldn't
Speaker 1: get away from the rising tides. Right. And then when
Speaker 1: you have these natural disasters or even rampant disease it
Speaker 1: might break out in communities. The women are the ones
Speaker 1: who are going to be um taking care of the
Speaker 1: children and the men who who are most affected by it.
Speaker 1: And then you have issues like in in Nepal, women
Speaker 1: suffer from bladder problems associated with carrying large amounts of
Speaker 1: firewood after they become pregnant because they're having to go
Speaker 1: farther and farther distances, you know when when you use
Speaker 1: more and more firewood. So basically sort of, I guess
Speaker 1: the takeaway that would be awful nice if everyone would
Speaker 1: just sort of ask the women where they're coming into
Speaker 1: create programs for them about what exactly would serve them.
Speaker 1: But right now a lot of these programs are very
Speaker 1: gender blind. So that's why we got organizations like i
Speaker 1: U c N and the u N going and trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how they can have a two pronged
Speaker 1: approach to this problem of gender inequality and climate change
Speaker 1: or renewable resources. Right there's also an organization Molly UH
Speaker 1: that was started up fairly recently called energea looks like
Speaker 1: Energy a UM that is totally devoted to UH looking
Speaker 1: at the link between these gender issues we were talking
Speaker 1: about and renewable resources and finding out how to how
Speaker 1: to approach them and solve them as well. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot going on. I was really surprised when we
Speaker 1: were thinking about talking about renewable resources and how it
Speaker 1: might affect women UH to find out that there's this
Speaker 1: whole other segment of it that we just really don't
Speaker 1: think about. We don't think about it. But you know,
Speaker 1: the problem I have when we are researching this Christian
Speaker 1: was just how hard it was to kind of wrap
Speaker 1: my head around it. It It seems like such a huge
Speaker 1: problem them, you know, on its own, renewable resources seemed like,
Speaker 1: you know, just this huge mountain to climb. Then when
Speaker 1: you add developing world on top of that, seems monumental.
Speaker 1: Gender in equality seems monumental, and it becomes so frustrating,
Speaker 1: I think, with all these uh, individual examples. But then
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this movie that we saw a
Speaker 1: few months ago called A Powerful Noise, which was about
Speaker 1: how women in developing countries have sort of you know,
Speaker 1: it gave a few examples of how women to be
Speaker 1: able to rise up, create some better quality, create some
Speaker 1: income for themselves, and how that sort of impacts their
Speaker 1: entire community. And one thing we walked away from that
Speaker 1: movie with was the importance of micro loans. And so
Speaker 1: that to me is one way that we can all
Speaker 1: take sort of, you know, a concrete approach to solving
Speaker 1: this problem for ourselves, right, and the and the movie
Speaker 1: that you were reverencing, I think we should say was
Speaker 1: produced by the organization Care, which focuses on poverty and women,
Speaker 1: and research continually shows over and over again in developing
Speaker 1: countries the people who you should target if you want
Speaker 1: to create change in those societies are the women, because
Speaker 1: they're the ones who are taking care of the children.
Speaker 1: They're responsible for the education, for the health care, for
Speaker 1: going and getting the food, for even growing the food
Speaker 1: and bringing it back and uh, they've made huge strides
Speaker 1: in um even in the example that I mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: about the Nigerian women. There's a lot that can be done.
Speaker 1: It seems overwhelming. There have just been some really heartening
Speaker 1: examples recently, as you know, in that movie that we
Speaker 1: saw and in uh this U and literature that we've
Speaker 1: been reading about how women are really taking advantage of
Speaker 1: those assets that they have in their communities and in
Speaker 1: using it to improve the lives of their children and
Speaker 1: their husbands and their families. So I think at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, it is an overwhelming problem, but
Speaker 1: there is definitely uh silver lining to yeah. And I
Speaker 1: think that if you know, you want to look for
Speaker 1: a way where you yourself can make a concrete difference
Speaker 1: this whole big issue. A micro loan is something to
Speaker 1: consider instead of you know, another reusable grocery bag. Yeah,
Speaker 1: check out micro loans flly, No, we should do We
Speaker 1: should maybe do a podcast on micro loans. Perhaps we shall. Yeah, well, guys,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening to us talk about renewable
Speaker 1: resources if you want to learn more about them. How
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com has a whole section on green science,
Speaker 1: so you can read to your heart's content about that.
Speaker 1: And Molly and I actually have a new blog on
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. It's called how to stuff,
Speaker 1: where we tell you how to do stuff. If there's
Speaker 1: anything that you would like to learn how to do
Speaker 1: that it's just been just plaguing you and you can't
Speaker 1: figure out how to do it, please send me in
Speaker 1: Molly and email and we will maybe tackle that problem
Speaker 1: for you on the blog to the best of our ability.
Speaker 1: And of course, as always, if you have any questions
Speaker 1: or comments for me and or Molly, send specially me,
Speaker 1: especially Molly. So yeah, just use an email, simple address
Speaker 1: small stuff how stuff works dot com for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
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