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100 things to save the planet 006
Apr. 23rd, 2012 10:11 amHappy El Día de la Rosa!
I am currently reading Karen J Warren's Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters. Unless it takes a left turn in the back half of the book, I highly recommend it.
Things I've learned from Warren: in many countries, women spend hours upon hours collecting water, and because these women spend so much time exposed to water, it's these women who are most at risk from contaminated water. US, Canada, Australia, Europe, all the water is cleaned before it gets to us. Not necessarily cleaned well, but well enough that we don't have to boil every drop before we drink it. In India and Nepal, women spend hours upon hours cooking with wood fires or other biomass fires, indoors with crappy ventilation, so that those of these women who don't smoke have lungs as poor as their neighboring men who smoke a lot. In the US et al, indoor pollution is pretty much only a worry in the houses of smokers and people with allergies. These are feminist issues; these are also environmentalist issues.
What to do about these issues, I'm not sure. water.org and the like help, of course. But beyond that, I don't know.
I am currently reading Karen J Warren's Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters. Unless it takes a left turn in the back half of the book, I highly recommend it.
Things I've learned from Warren: in many countries, women spend hours upon hours collecting water, and because these women spend so much time exposed to water, it's these women who are most at risk from contaminated water. US, Canada, Australia, Europe, all the water is cleaned before it gets to us. Not necessarily cleaned well, but well enough that we don't have to boil every drop before we drink it. In India and Nepal, women spend hours upon hours cooking with wood fires or other biomass fires, indoors with crappy ventilation, so that those of these women who don't smoke have lungs as poor as their neighboring men who smoke a lot. In the US et al, indoor pollution is pretty much only a worry in the houses of smokers and people with allergies. These are feminist issues; these are also environmentalist issues.
What to do about these issues, I'm not sure. water.org and the like help, of course. But beyond that, I don't know.