Human Origins Destroys Core Fascist Mythology
19-06-2026 ~ How deep history challenges fascist myths of purity, hierarchy, and identity.
The deeper we explore humanity’s past, the harder it becomes to sustain some of the most powerful political myths of the modern world.
For more than a century, authoritarian ideologies have sought legitimacy in origin stories: pure people, ancestral homelands, primordial hierarchies, and civilizational destinies. Fascism, in particular, has always been obsessed with beginnings. Whether in Nazi fantasies of Aryan ancestry, myths of ethnic continuity, or contemporary narratives of demographic replacement and civilizational decline, the past is transformed into a source of authority. History becomes destiny. Origins become a source of legitimacy.
Yet archaeology, anthropology, genetics, and evolutionary science increasingly tell a different story. Research across these fields has challenged older assumptions about purity, hierarchy, and human nature. Deep history reveals migration rather than isolation, cooperation rather than perpetual conflict, and experimentation rather than inevitability.
Few 20th-century thinkers saw this more clearly than Georges Bataille, who observed that competing visions of the past often conceal varying perspectives of humanity.
Better known today for his writings on eroticism, sacrifice, and transgression, French philosopher Bataille was also one of the first major European intellectuals to recognize that prehistory could serve as an antidote to fascist mythology. During the 1930s and 1940s, when fascist movements were mobilizing myths of origin on an unprecedented scale, he turned to cave art, ritual, and the earliest traces of human life, immersing himself in the latest archaeological, anthropological, paleontological, and sociological research.
His writings on prehistory drew extensively on the discoveries and debates of his time, delving into philosophical, anthropological, and political interests at once. What distinguishes humans from other animals? How did symbolic thought emerge? What forms of community existed before states, nations, and organized religions? These questions acquired a particular urgency during the rise of Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany, when competing visions of humanity became a matter of life and death.
Studying cave art and the discoveries emerging from sites such as the Lascaux Cave in France, Bataille became fascinated by a simple fact. The artists who painted the walls left no names. They founded no dynasties. They erected no monuments to rulers or conquerors. But they created some of the most extraordinary images in human history.
For Bataille, the lack of names was not a footnote; it was the point.
The caves revealed forms of collective creation that preceded authorship, ownership, and sovereignty. Art appeared not as an expression of individual genius or political authority but as a shared symbolic activity through which a community understood itself and its place in the world.
Instead of fascism’s cult of leadership, Bataille discovered a humanity whose earliest masterpieces emerged from participation rather than domination, anonymity rather than glory, and collective creation rather than the cult of personality.
The political implications of these observations became increasingly difficult to ignore during the rise of the totalitarian regimes that would engulf much of Europe and Asia. In his 1933 essay “The Psychological Structure of Fascism,” Bataille analyzed the attraction to sovereignty, authority, and charismatic leadership. In 1936, he founded Acéphale, an anti-fascist intellectual group whose symbol was a headless human figure.
The image was deliberately provocative. Against the Führer, Il Duce, Stalin, and every cult of leadership, Bataille proposed a humanity without a head. The figure was less of a political statement than a symbolic reversal of the principles celebrated by totalitarian movements. Against sovereignty, he imagined forms of collective existence that could not be reduced to a single authority. Against hierarchy, he emphasized participation, reciprocity, and shared experiences.
Prehistory became important not because it provided an alternative mythology, but because it revealed a past that resisted mythological simplification. Bataille turned to caves such as Lascaux as they seemed to preserve traces of human existence before nations, before states, and before centralized authority. What he found there was not an original people or an ancestral race, but forms of collective life that escaped the categories through which modern politics often tends to understand itself. Read more
How Agave Agroforestry Can Restore Drylands And Strengthen Climate Resilience
06-17-2026 ~ The agave-powered agroforestry and livestock management system is an example of how native desert plants, cultivated as part of an agroforestry system, can regenerate drylands and provide inexpensive animal feed, taking pressure off overgrazed rangelands.
Sixty to seventy percent of Mexico’s terrain is classified as arid or semiarid desert, typically with no rain for eight to nine months a year. La pipa, the water truck, brings enough water to supply farms for a day or two at most. Meanwhile, 86 percent of Mexican farmers lack a well and are unlikely to have one. In arid and semiarid drylands, deep irrigation wells are very expensive, water rights are hard to obtain, and many, if not most, underground aquifers are overexploited. This makes it very difficult to provide livestock with forage during the dry season.
Purchasing hay and alfalfa is expensive, especially given the low-to-nonexistent market for livestock products produced by subsistence farmers. Many traditional dryland farmers are still planting corn at the beginning of the rainy season—in June or July—but the lack of a dependable irrigation system, droughts, and unpredictable rainfall mean that the country doesn’t even get mature mazorcas or corncobs most years. The harvest, usually limited to corn stalks or rastrojo, can be fed to animals during the dry season, but it requires considerable work and expense for what is ultimately a low-quality feed supplement.
Typically, only large landowners or agro-export farms have irrigation wells, while smaller farms must rely mostly on rainfall. In addition to the high costs of buying water rights and drilling down 650 feet or more to hit water, most aquifers in the regional La Independencia watershed are depleted and/or contaminated with heavy metals.
In the mid-2010s, the 75-acre Vía Orgánica Agroecology Center and research farm prided itself on maintaining its greenhouses and gardens, pastures, and wooded nature refuge area without a well. However, after expanding the market gardens and milpa (corn, beans, and squash) and starting to reforest the land, the organization began spending several thousand dollars a week during the dry season on water truck deliveries just to stay afloat. Geographers and climate scientists have described the prolonged drying of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico as a climate-driven “megadrought,” with some studies concluding the region is experiencing its driest conditions in at least 1,200 years.
The costs of organic grain (for the poultry and pigs) and alfalfa and hay (for the other animals) during the long dry season are unsustainable. It has led many farmers in our area to largely abandon their corn fields or milpas. Their main agricultural pursuit is to put their routinely malnourished animals out to fend for themselves on the sparse vegetation of their shared (eroded and badly overgrazed) communal rangelands (ejidos).
More than half of Mexico’s 450-million-acre land base is composed of communally owned ejidos, a transformation that occurred after the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920, when most of the large colonial plantations or estates were broken up and distributed among the nation’s small farmer communities. Most of Mexico’s 28,000 ejidos, however, are situated on semiarid and arid lands—deforested, eroded, and overgrazed, usually with no year-round water sources or irrigation. Overgrazing on the brittle lands has created a vicious cycle of degradation—fewer plants, less forage, high runoff and low water retention, soil erosion, and fewer vital minerals —amplified by climate change. Read more
Why Wild Bats Matter To Agave, Tequila, And Desert Ecosystems
Reynard Loki – Independent Media Institute
06-16-2026 ~ Bats pollinate wild agave plants, sustaining desert ecosystems and preserving the genetic diversity that supports tequila and mezcal production.
Bats move through desert night skies with a purpose that is easy to overlook and difficult to replace. As they travel from plant to plant, feeding on nectar, they are also performing one of the most important ecological services in arid landscapes: pollination. For agave plants—long-lived, slow-growing succulents that define much of Mexico’s desert ecology—bats are not just occasional visitors. They are essential partners in reproduction.
This relationship is a classic example of mutualism, in which two species depend on each other for survival. Nectar-feeding bats gain a high-energy food source in agave that sustains their long-distance movements. In contrast, agaves rely on those bats to transfer pollen between flowers, ensuring fertilization and genetic diversity. The consequences of this exchange extend well beyond the desert; it helps shape ecosystem resilience, influences the future of agriculture, and even affects the production of tequila and mezcal.
The Interdependent Relationship Between Bats and Agave Plants
Agave plants are adapted to environments where water is scarce, and weather conditions can be extreme. Many species store energy in their thick, spiny leaves for years, sometimes decades. When the agave plants are ready to reproduce, they send up a single flowering stalk that can tower above the surrounding landscape. This bloom is both spectacular and final. After flowering and setting seed, the plant dies in most agave species.
Because each agave has only one opportunity to reproduce, successful pollination is critical. The flowers open at night, when temperatures are cooler, and there is less evaporation. They are large, pale, and highly visible in low light, and they release a strong, musky scent that can travel long distances. These traits are not random. They are signals evolved specifically to attract nocturnal pollinators—most importantly, bats. “Bats are one of the only ways wild agaves can reproduce—plants exposed to bats produce nearly 3,000 viable seeds for every seed made by a plant that wasn’t,” states a blog by FoodPrint.
Among the key species involved are the lesser long-nosed bat and the Mexican long-nosed bat, both of which migrate seasonally across Mexico and the southwestern United States. A bat approaches a flowering agave, guided by scent and visual cues. These bats have evolved physical traits that align closely with the structure of agave flowers. Their elongated snouts and tongues allow them to reach deep into the blooms, accessing nectar that other animals cannot easily reach. As they feed, their bodies come into contact with the flower’s reproductive structures, picking up pollen that will be carried to the next plant.
The mechanics of this process are straightforward but highly effective. When the bat brushes against the anthers where pollen is produced, it sticks to its fur, especially around the face and chest. When the bat moves on to another agave, some of that pollen is deposited onto the stigma of the next flower, completing the process of fertilization.
This repeated movement between plants enables cross-pollination, which is essential for maintaining genetic diversity. Genetic variation allows agave populations to adapt to changing environmental conditions, including drought, disease, and climate shifts. Without it, agave plants become more uniform and more vulnerable to stress.
In desert ecosystems, where resources are limited and environmental pressures are high, such resilience becomes especially important. The bats that pollinate agave are often described as keystone mutualists—species whose ecological roles disproportionately affect their environment. By supporting agave reproduction, bats help sustain a wide range of other organisms that depend on these plants for food and habitat. Read more
Over 160 Years After Abolition, Anti-Black Racism Still Structures US Economy
06-15-2026 ~ Scholars Michele Holder and Jeannette Wicks-Lim share their analysis of the formation of US anti-Black racism.
More than 400 years have passed since the first white colonists arrived in North America to establish a settlement, and more than 160 years since slavery was abolished, yet structural racism is still alive and kicking in the U.S. In the interview that follows, two economists, Michele Holder and Jeannette Wicks-Lim, co-authors of a new book titled The Political Economy of Racism: The Persistence of Anti-Blackness in the United States, discuss how anti-Black racism developed and the role that it continues to play in the contemporary United States. Michelle Holder is professor of economics at the City University of New York’s John Jay College, and Jeannette Wicks-Lim is research professor at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
C. J. Polychroniou: Systemic racism has shaped the history of the United States. That’s a well-documented fact despite current attempts by President Donald Trump and his political acolytes to whitewash U.S. history. In that context, the publication of your new co-authored book The Political Economy of Racism: The Persistence of Anti-Blackness in the United States could not have come at a better time. It examines how anti-Black racism in particular developed and sheds light on how it works to promote the interests of a politically dominant social group. May I start by asking one of you to discuss the construction of race in the United States? Also, does it differ from other case studies of racism?
Jeannette Wicks-Lim: I really appreciate this question because it gets at a key takeaway of our book: that race is a social construction. What we mean by this is that race is only loosely — and inconsistently — related to superficial biological markers such as skin tone and hair color, and that its real meaning comes from how society uses it to put people into different social groups. Really, the entirety of the book is our effort to explain the political and economic rationale for why the nation we live in — the U.S. — chose, and continues to choose, to organize itself around this social concept, “race,” and anti-Black racism, in particular.
That’s why we dive right away, in Chapter 2, into tracing how the concept of race developed out of political and economic choices made by English colonists of the “New World,” starting in the 17th century. In particular, they made the choice to enslave people from Africa. We document how these colonists turned to enslaving people because they couldn’t get free workers or indentured servants to do the type of grueling labor that the colonists wanted for their commercial enterprises. And, to maintain their practice of enslaving people, the colonists withheld virtually any legal rights from the primary supply of people colonists had access to enslave: people from Africa. Colonists also supported this practice by imbuing profound meaning to superficial physical differences between African and English people, and attached this meaning to the concept, “race.” In other words, race developed into a crucial social marker for the legal status of slave — a legal status that this society maintained for more than 200 years.
In terms of your second question — I want to steer it in a somewhat different direction because my knowledge of how racism operates outside the U.S. is thin. Instead, I want to talk about different types of racism within the U.S. Take, for example, racism and Asian Americans — a topic I’m exploring in current research. The premise of my research is that while racism may operate for, or against, different groups in different ways, it serves the same purpose: it’s a political device that socially defined groups use to influence how economic, political, and social advantages and disadvantages in a society are created and doled out. I would expect this basic feature of racism to be the same in case studies of other countries. How racial groups are defined, characterized, and positioned in a country’s social hierarchy, on the other hand, are ways I would expect racism to differ across countries.
My thinking reflects the basic tenets of stratification economics — a relatively new approach in economics. In a nutshell, stratification economics examines how social groups compete with each other in order to gain greater access to social, political, and especially, economic resources — that is, to achieve favored positions in a social hierarchy.
Do you understand the particular brand of racism explored in your book as a consequence of the role of slavery in the U.S. economy, or is anti-Blackness simply ingrained within white supremacist thought?
Michelle Holder: As Jeannette’s response suggests, throughout the book we draw lines directly linking anti-Black racism to the institution of slavery. We believe that contemporary anti-Black racism in the U.S. evolved out of negative ideas about Africans promoted by American colonists to justify Black enslavement, as well as to ameliorate guilt whites may have felt at benefiting from the peculiar institution of slavery or tolerating it. In response to a part of the question as it is posed, we believe that white supremacist thought implies anti-Blackness. However, from our perspective, one need not be a white supremacist to engage in anti-Black behaviors. Indeed, Justice Clarence Thomas is a prime example of a Black person whose work on the Supreme Court repeatedly involved rulings which are contrary to the interests and needs of the Black American community.
While we do not dispute the notion that discrimination against and stereotypes about Black people existed prior to founding of the U.S., the present-day brand of anti-Black racism in the country has traceable roots that lie primarily in the implementation of slavery, and, with the abolishment of slavery, the desire of white Americans to preserve privileges that were exclusive to their racial group in antebellum America, in line with the tenets of stratification economic theory. In addition, discrimination against and stereotypes about many racial and/or ethnic groups exist throughout world history, so such experiences are not exclusive to Black Americans.
How does anti-Blackness stratify the U.S. economy?
Holder: Anti-Blackness stratifies the U.S. economy by the assignation of a positive value to a white identity alongside the assignation of a negative value to Black identity. These value assignations have been crafted and culturally cultivated over centuries, initially to justify the enslavement of Africans in America while imbuing whites with the notion that they were divinely chosen by a creator to control other groups.
After emancipation, the value assignations continued to be propagated by whites to preserve their primacy in an American racial pecking order. Contemporary audit studies conducted to assess the existence and extent of anti-Black racism in the U.S. labor market have repeatedly shown that white job applicants are preferred more than Black job applicants, all else being equal. As such, a Black identity appears to place a job applicant at a disadvantage with regard to income-generating employment.
In addition, policies implemented upon the end of slavery further limited the ability of Black individuals and families to accumulate wealth, as the enslaved could not accumulate wealth. Contemporary income and wealth inequality in the U.S. tracks very closely with race, with Black Americans in the least favorable economic position compared to whites. This places the Black community at a disadvantage regarding equitable access to educational attainment, good health care, home ownership, safe and environmentally sustainable communities, as well as the ability to influence policy change given the power of money in elections. These constraints on the Black community make it harder for Black families and individuals to attain economic mobility to the degree that white families and individuals have for generations, thus resulting in continuing economic stratification along racial lines in the U.S.
Can you elaborate a bit on how anti-Blackness applies in particular to the education and employment arenas?
Wicks-Lim: Let me start with education since Michelle has already talked a bit about employment and because I want to highlight how stratification economics is particularly useful in understanding how anti-Blackness operates in education.
As I said earlier, the main focus of stratification economics is how social groups compete with one another to gain access to resources, especially economic resources, in a hierarchical society. Education is arguably one of the most coveted resources in U.S. society — not only because of the social status which educational credentials impart, but also the economic opportunities that educational credentials help to unlock.
U.S. history and its current education system is full of examples of how white Americans actively sought ways to bar Black Americans access to educational resources. Most people with any familiarity with U.S. history are well aware of the racial animus that animated these efforts. What might be less well-known are the efforts of Black people to access educational resources — even those who were enslaved during the antebellum period. We document these efforts, including how newly freed Black Americans basically organized the Southern public school system into existence after the Civil War. Stratification economics shines a light on these processes: how social groups in the U.S. have competed with one another to control — or gain access to — educational credentials and to use these credentials to obtain economic resources for in-group members.
Turning now to the role of anti-Blackness in the labor market — this is hard to miss when you see the connection between the widely recognized racist hoarding practices among white Americans of educational resources and the racial disparity in access to good jobs. Conventional economists still tend to view the well-documented racial disparities in the labor market as being due to something other than racism. The late, great, economist Bill Spriggs poked fun at this theoretical position by calling it the “the two-bus theory” because it effectively requires busing out the people making obviously racist decisions about education (and housing!) and busing in new actors to make all other economic decisions, such as on jobs. Read more
Do Organic Farms Use Pesticides? How Organic And Conventional Farming Differ
06-15-2026 ~ Many consumers assume organic food is pesticide-free. In reality, both organic and conventional farms use pesticides, but the types of products, regulatory standards, and pest-management strategies differ significantly.
Many consumers assume that food labeled organic is grown without pesticides. The reality is more nuanced. Organic farmers can and do use pesticides, but the types of pesticides they use, the circumstances under which they use them, and the regulatory standards governing their use differ significantly from those in conventional agriculture.
Understanding those differences matters because pesticides affect more than the crops on which they are applied. They can influence the health of farmworkers and rural communities, the quality of soil and water, the well-being of pollinators and other wildlife, and the amount of pesticide residue that remains on food.
Pesticides are substances designed to prevent, destroy, repel, or control pests. Because they are intended to affect living organisms, they can also pose risks to people and the environment. Reducing those risks while maintaining productive farms has become one of the central challenges of modern agriculture.
The differences between organic and conventional farming offer two distinct approaches to that challenge—and reveal why pesticide use remains one of the most debated issues in modern food production.
What Are Pesticides?
When you think about pesticides, probably insecticides come to mind first. These are products designed to kill insects. But legally, “pesticides” have a much broader definition. In the US, pesticides are substances intended for “preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest, or intended for use as a plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant, or any nitrogen stabilizer.” Weed killers, rodenticides, and products to control plant diseases are all examples of pesticides.
US farmers use large quantities of pesticides each year. Most government estimates are outdated, but total pesticide use on US farms is about 600 million pounds per year. Some pesticides are used on both organic and conventional farms, but the types of pesticides that may be used, the circumstances under which they may be applied, and the rules governing their use differ significantly. Organic growers do not use synthetic pesticides or fertilizers unless approved through a comprehensive public process. All pesticides are used according to a plan approved by an organic certifier. Overall, current research suggests that organic farms use significantly less pesticide than conventional farms—about 30 percent less, according to a 2021 study. Organic growers may also use certain “natural” pesticides, with ingredients derived from naturally occurring plant, animal, or mineral sources rather than the synthetic chemicals found in most conventional pesticides. Understanding those differences requires a closer look at how pesticides are used in conventional agriculture.
Conventional Farming’s Reliance on Synthetic Pesticides
Pesticide use has been controversial since Rachel Carson’s landmark Silent Spring was published in 1962. Yet pesticides remain a central feature of modern industrial agriculture. Farmers use them to control insects, weeds, plant diseases, and soil-borne pests that can reduce yields and damage crops.
Supporters of pesticide use argue that these products help farmers produce large quantities of food efficiently and economically. However, critics point out that pesticide-dependent farming systems can create risks for farmworkers, nearby communities, wildlife, pollinators, soil health, and water quality.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), plant pests and diseases reduce global crop yields by 20 to 40 percent each year, despite global agricultural pesticide use of approximately 3.7 million metric tons of active ingredients in 2023—roughly double the level recorded in 1990. At the same time, the FAO recognizes pesticide hazards as a global concern and promotes less hazardous approaches to pest management. The organization also notes the growing role of organic agriculture, which now includes millions of farmers worldwide.
Conventional agriculture relies on several major categories of synthetic pesticides:
– Insecticides are used to kill insects that damage crops. Common examples include chlorpyrifos, malathion, imidacloprid, permethrin, carbaryl, and spinosad. Many insecticides have been linked to concerns ranging from impacts on pollinators and aquatic ecosystems to developmental and reproductive effects in humans and wildlife.
– Herbicides are designed to control weeds that compete with crops for sunlight, nutrients, and water. Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide worldwide, while atrazine, 2,4-D, dicamba, and glufosinate are also widely used. Concerns associated with herbicides include contamination of waterways, damage from chemical drift, and possible links to cancer, endocrine disruption, and other health effects.
– Fungicides help protect crops from molds and plant diseases. Common examples include chlorothalonil, mancozeb, captan, and propiconazole. While these products can reduce crop losses, some have been associated with cancer risks, reproductive harms, and toxicity to aquatic organisms.
– Fumigants are among the most intensive forms of pest control. Products such as methyl bromide, chloropicrin, and metam sodium are used to sterilize soil or storage areas before planting or storing. Because fumigants are designed to kill a broad range of organisms, they often pose significant risks to farmworkers and nearby communities if not carefully controlled.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) establishes allowable residue limits, known as tolerances, for pesticides used on food crops. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) help enforce these standards. Some public health and environmental advocates argue that the pesticide regulatory system does not always adequately address cumulative exposures, vulnerable populations, or emerging evidence about long-term health effects. Read more
Women Face The Greatest Climate Risks But Are Critical To Climate
Ruhi Bhasin – Photo: LinkedIn
06-14-2026 ~ Women and girls are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis, yet women’s leadership and local knowledge are critical to building more resilient communities.
The climate crisis is worsening many of the economic and social inequalities already faced by women and girls, making it harder to access health care, education, employment, and other necessities. Women in rural communities are especially vulnerable because many depend directly on agriculture and natural resources to support their families. As extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, these existing pressures are becoming harder to navigate.
As the United Nations has noted, the climate crisis is not “gender neutral.” Women, girls, and children are 14 times more likely to die during extreme weather disasters than men, facing higher rates of displacement and structural inequalities that limit their access to information, mobility, and resources. “An estimated 4 out of 5 people displaced by the impacts of climate change are women and girls. Acute disasters can also disrupt essential services, including sexual and reproductive health care, compounding the negative impacts for women and girls,” stated the United Nations.
How the Climate Crisis Is Affecting Women and Girls
Extreme weather disasters push many women and girls into increasingly precarious situations almost overnight. The torrential rains in Pakistan in 2022 claimed 1,700 lives and affected millions of people. This “extreme weather condition,” resulting from climate change, led to widespread damage and loss but affected women like Sajida severely, robbing many like her of their dreams and aspirations.
Recounting the ordeal she and her family went through, she told UNICEF, “We had nothing to eat for 15 days. My whole family got malaria, and we couldn’t access medicines or hospitals as Khairpur was drowned.” Unable to keep up with her studies after returning to school, she did poorly in her exams and failed to advance to the next class. “Her parents did not have enough funds to help her repeat another school year. … she wanted to grow up to be a doctor, but poverty and repetitive climate catastrophes have robbed her of these aspirations, turning her into a refugee seeking shelter from the battering rains,” stated the UNICEF blog.
In Pakistan, the floods didn’t just rob women and girls of education opportunities but also left almost 650,000 pregnant women without access to health care and forced them to give birth without any medical help. Moreover, research has shown that “extreme heat increases incidence of stillbirth, and warming global temperatures are helping to spread vector-borne illnesses such as malaria, dengue fever, and Zika virus,” stated a UN Women article.
Natural disasters resulting from climate change also lead to more child marriages as families seek to lessen the burden of having to provide for a girl child when resources are already scarce. Those already struggling face greater instability and debilitating poverty after a climate crisis, leading to more cases of conflict-related sexual violence and human trafficking.
“Humanitarian programmes tend to be heteronormative and can reinforce the patriarchal structure of society if they do not take into account sexual and gender diversity,” pointed out Matcha Phorn-in, a lesbian feminist human-rights defender.
Exacerbating the inequalities women and girls struggle to overcome, the climate crisis makes it even harder for them to access the support, stability, and resources needed to recover and adapt during weather catastrophes.
Gendered Perspectives Need to be Part of the Climate Solution
For climate policies to have an impact, women’s equality and empowerment need to be integral to the policy consideration. This requires giving women a seat at the table when important decisions are taken about the climate crisis and ensuring that they have better access to resources.
“By integrating gender considerations into national climate plans, countries can address the distinct needs and adaptive capacities of women and men and ensure equitable access to and sharing of benefits,” stated the UNDP.
Women make up a significant share of the agricultural workforce in many developing countries and produce up to 80 percent of the food supply. Yet despite this central role, many women farmers still lack equal access to resources, technologies, services, and information about adaptation measures, cropping patterns, and weather events. According to the UNDP, these inequalities contribute to lower productivity and wages while leaving women more exposed to the impacts of climate change.
Providing greater access to agricultural resources and information for women can help build more resilient solutions to the climate crisis, especially at the community level. Ensuring that women, especially Indigenous women, are more involved in forest governance can result in more “effective and lasting solutions to deforestation and climate change impacts.”
Women Are Integral to Resolving the Climate Crisis
Any meaningful response to the climate crisis requires the equal participation of women, as they are not only the most affected by the issue but also have the tools and knowledge that hold the key to offering sustainable solutions. “Higher women’s political participation has been shown to lead to improved environmental sustainability. … Moreover, women’s local knowledge of sustainable resource management and their community leadership play a critical role in advancing climate change mitigation and adaptation. They are also important for recovery and resilience across sectors, from water management and food security to nature-based solutions and circular economy,” according to the UNDP.
For instance, Paran Women Group, an Indigenous women’s organization that brings together members of the Maasai and Ogiek communities in Kenya, has cultivated dryland and generated livelihoods through sustainable agriculture, beekeeping, and Indigenous tree nurseries.
Women are also responsible for 70 to 80 percent of all purchasing decisions in wealthy countries and are more likely to recycle, minimize waste, and save water and energy at home. “By leading behavior change and consumer attitudes, women can drive change across sectors. At the political level, research shows clear linkages between women’s leadership and action to tackle climate change. For example, studies have found that countries with higher proportions of women in parliament are more likely to ratify international environmental treaties and have stricter climate policies. … It is time to invest in women as a strong force for change, leading the way to a more sustainable future,” stated the UN.
As climate instability worsens, women’s involvement in environmental decision-making and local resilience efforts is becoming essential—not just for representation, but for building climate solutions that reflect the realities communities are actually facing.
Right from the rural women in the Himalayan region in India who participated in the Chipko movement or “tree-hugging” movement in the 1970s to prevent 2,000 trees from being felled to the Indigenous women activists and allies protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016, women have been on the frontlines of protecting and nurturing the environment, being “deeply embedded in the history and practice of climate justice.”
By Ruhi Bhasin
Author Bio: Ruhi Bhasin is a senior journalist and features editor with the Independent Media Institute. She previously worked for The Times of Indiaand The Indian Express, where she covered politics, law, and social issues.
Credit Line: This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.