Welcome to the Climate Fwd: newsletter. The New York Times climate team emails readers once a week with stories and insights about climate change. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. (And find the website version of this week’s letter here.) |
 | | Clockwise from top left, KC Nwakalor for The New York Times; Max Whittaker for The New York Times; Brian L. Frank for The New York Times; NASA/OIB/Jeremy Harbeck. |
|
It’s been a year of crises: a pandemic, economic turmoil, social upheaval. And running through it all, there was climate change. |
Our 2020 climate coverage started with huge wildfires burning the coast of Australia, which had just marked its hottest, driest year on record. It was a running start. And the news never seemed to slow down. |
Over the course of the year, we covered much of the world. To single out just a couple of our big projects: We reported from California, which recorded its own worst fire season this fall, driven in part by hot, dry conditions. Huge infernos scorched the landscape, devastating magnificent trees and wreaking havoc in the lives of millions of Americans. We also went to South America, where quarter of the world’s largest wetland was also consumed by flames. |
As those fires raged, polar ice melted, temperatures soared and a record number of storms formed and made landfall in the United States — the most ever in one year. The climate disasters that followed were not equally felt, with poor people and communities of color often bearing a disproportionate share of the damage. |
In politics, President Trump’s administration continued to reverse and revise environmental protections, even on the way out of office. Joseph R. Biden Jr. ran on the opposite environmental platform from President Trump: to refocus on climate change and environmental justice. |
Now that he’s won, we’ll be watching to see what he’ll accomplish. Meanwhile, you can read more from our best coverage of the year. |
See you next week for the final newsletter of 2020, the New Year’s edition. |
 | | Asorahfaye Raybility, a student in Oakland, Calif., led a youth climate march in San Francisco last year.James Tensuan for The New York Times |
|
Women and climate activism: It’s not just Greta |
Next year will be critical for climate action. The coronavirus pandemic postponed climate talks sponsored by the United Nations in 2020, so delegates at the next meeting, in November, will have plenty to do. The United States will also return to the Paris Agreement next year. And, climate activists will be trying to make up lost ground. |
When they do, according to new research, you can expect to see a lot of young women. |
The newest generation of climate activists in North America and Europe is increasingly female and more likely to take concrete action to combat climate change, according to a new study published in the journal Energy Research & Social Science. The paper marks one of the first efforts to quantify the shifting demographics of the climate movement. |
Mark S. McCaffrey, one of the authors who is also the founder of Education, Communication and Outreach Stakeholders, a nonprofit group that aims to help people and organizations make informed climate decisions, noticed press coverage of tens of thousands of young people protesting in the streets of New York City in September of 2019 as part of Climate Week. Back in the 1980s, climate activists were predominantly white men. “I thought it would be an interesting opportunity to try to learn more about who the activists were because there’s very little research on who are climate activists,” Mr. McCaffrey said. |
The paper was based on voluntary survey responses from 367 people in 66 countries who identified themselves as climate activists. Of the respondents over 65 years old, just one quarter were women. The proportion of female activists grew steadily in younger age groups. For those under age 25, two-thirds identified as female. |
Many factors could be driving that demographic trend. Jean Boucher, a postdoctoral environmental sociologist at Arizona State University and another author on the study, said the women’s empowerment movement following the election of President Trump may have brought more politically engaged women into climate activism. |
“Most activists are already active in something else, like immigration, or in anti-torture,” Dr. Boucher said, citing earlier research. “When you know how to protest, and you know how to organize, you can just change the theme of the protest.” |
According to Lily Gardner, 17, a youth organizer for the Sunrise Movement in Kentucky, the increasing number of women in climate activism could be tied to a rejection of traditional power structures. She said she sensed an increasing recognition that outmoded colonial, imperialist and white supremacist beliefs had led to a “real feeling of domination over the earth.” |
“The current climate crisis and an extractive economy feel very connected, to me, to systemic patriarchy,” Ms. Gardner said. |
She said she had also noticed a shift in the climate movement away from preserving natural beauty for its own sake and toward valuing the health and lives of people. From her perspective, those concrete impacts of climate change are pulling young people into climate activism. |
“We have an entire generation who is forced to reckon with this as they think about their future and what the possibilities are,” Ms. Gardner said. |
| READ THIS WEEK’S TOP PICKS AND JOIN THE CLIMATE CONVERSATION | | | | | | | | |
We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. We read every message, and reply to many! Please email thoughts and suggestions to climateteam@nytimes.com. |
If you like what we’re doing, please spread the word and send this to your friends. You can sign up here to get our newsletter delivered to your inbox each week. |
|
