🌏Our Planet - Visions for the Future

FemWealth Issue #7 - Earth Day

Apr 25, 2021

Welcome to FemWealth Issue #7!

To adress our climate emergency, we must rapidly, radically reshape society. We need every solution and every solver. As the saying goes, to change everything, we need everyone. What this moment calls for is a mosaic of voices - the full spectrum of ideas and insights on how we can turn things around.
The climate crisis is a leadership crisis. For far too long, far too many leaders have been focused on profit, power and prestige; and many of those commited to change have been ineffective […]
To transform society this decade - the clear task science has set before us - we need transformational leadership. We need feminine and feminist climate leadership, which is wide open to people of any gender. This is were posibility lives - posibility that we can turn away from the brink and move toward a live-giving future for all. - All We Can Save TRUTH, COURAGE, AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson

In an ingenious experiment in the 1850s, Eunice Newton Foote identified the greenhouse effect for the first time. Overlooked by history, recent accounts show that she was the first to recognize and warn that an atmosphere with more CO2 would lead to a hotter Earth.

At the time, the Industrial Revolution and, in particular, fossil fuel-based manufacturing were on the way to become global. Few could foresee the effects these processes would have on the planet’s climate systems.

Scientific evidence on anthropogenic global warming is abundant and alarming by now. Calls for climate action are galvanizing social movements (primarily online these days) worldwide, and political will for tackling climate change seems to reemerge.

This week, the EU member states agreed on the European Climate Law, reinforcing the EU’s political commitment to becoming the 1st climate-neutral continent by 2050. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, envisions the current decade as the “roaring 20s for climate action” and an opportunity for economic growth.

Building and keeping momentum for climate action still in the mid of the coronavirus pandemic will undoubtedly be challenging. Only there is no time to lose. Climate action and justice, and as climate activist Brianna Fruean put it, “addressing the intersections the crisis has with already existing global and social issues,” should be center stage in the recovery plans. Increasing the resiliency of the most vulnerable countries and populations needs to take precedence.

Solutions exist, and investments will spur technological innovations. Bold visions and climate commitment will set the tone. How do you envision your and our planet’s future?

Take inspiration from these exceptional climate action leaders:

Nerilie J. Abram, Climate Scientist, Professor at the Australian National University

Professor Abram’s scientific work has taken her to Antarctica, Indonesia, and Greenland. She focuses on how the “Earth’s climate has behaved over the last millennium, and what that tells us about the climate changes we are seeing now.” The climate records that she develops come from corals, caves, and ice cores, which she combines with climate model data to study climate changes.

Together with an international team of researchers, Professor Abrams attempted to answer the question, “when did global warming begin?”. Relying on data collected by thousands of scientists worldwide, they determined in 2016 that humans started changing the climate in the 1830s when manufacturing using fossil fuels on a global scale was just starting off.

Her varied expertise includes Palaeoclimatology, Oceanography, Geochemistry, and Atmospheric Sciences. Her main research interests are tropical climate research (corals and speleothems) and polar climate research (ice cores). Outside of work, Professor Abram is also a mother of three children and encourages women to excel in scientific careers.

🎥 Coral paleoclimate research

📰 Early onset of industrial-era warming across the oceans and continents

🎧 FORECAST: CLIMATE CONVERSATIONS WITH MICHAEL WHITE | EPISODE 37: NERILIE ABRAM

Lubomila Jordanova, Co-founder and CEO of Planet A and Co-founder of the Green Tech Alliance

One of the most powerful voices in ClimateTech in Europe, Lubomila Jordanova, is the co-founder and CEO of Berlin-based startup Plan A. The company developed the first software that enables businesses to monitor and reduce their emissions while improving their ESG performance. Plan A has recently started a petition against greenwashing (you can sign it here)

Jordanova is also the co-founder of the Green Tech Alliance, an organization that connects the stakeholders who are true to the vision of a sustainable future and work tirelessly for our planet and its communities.

🎥 The Fortune of Misfortune: Learnings from the Climate Crisis | Lubomila Jordanova | TEDxESMTBerlin

Nzambi Matee, Inventor, Founder and CEO of Gjenge Makers

Let's turn trash into cash!

A materials scientist, Matee is the Young Champion of the Earth 2020 Africa winner of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

She and her team built a prototype machine that turns discarded plastic into paving stones. The bricks made of plastic mixed with sand are more robust and affordable than concrete. Furthermore, their production also positively impacts the environment and the local communities.

The company's vision is to provide sustainable and affordable alternative building materials - while creating job opportunities for youths and women - and to promote a recycling and upcycling culture in Kenya and Africa.

📰 Building blocks for a greener Nairobi

🎥 Plastic bricks in Kenya - NZAMBI MATEE - Young Champion of the Earth 2020 for Africa

Henrietta Moon, Co-Founder, and CEO of Carbon Culture

A serial entrepreneur, Henrietta Moon has vast international management experience, including being the youngest person in Finland to be a Board member in a publicly traded company. She met her co-founder Chris Carstens at the NASA Ames Research Center in 2013 as part of Singularity University's Global Solutions Program. They founded Carbon Culture, a large-scale CO2 removal startup, in 2017. Their mission is to remove a gigaton of CO2 by 2030. Carbo Culture's patented process transforms woody waste from agriculture and forests to functional biocarbons at an extremely high temperature, "locking" the carbon into a sort of charcoal that won't degrade for 1,000 years.

📰 Large-scale CO2 removal startup Carbo Culture raises $6.2M Seed led by True Ventures

Brianna Fruean, Climate Activist and Pacific Island Warrior, Samoa

What is felt at sea is felt on the land.
I am tired of mainstream media painting these big nations like they are the "climate leaders" who will save us when it is the young people, activists, movement organisers and indigenous communities that are showing true climate leadership.

A native of the Pacific Island Samoa, one of the countries most threatened by climate change, Briana’s activism focuses on a “just transition to renewable energy, a transition that centers workers, communities and civil society.”

Her grassroots activism started at age 11 when she became a founding member of the Samoan chapter of the climate organization 350.org and the youngest 350.org country coordinator. She is a youth representative on the Council of Elders for the Pacific Climate Warriors and advocates for bringing young Pacific voices into the climate space.

📰 Opinion: Real climate leadership rests with hardest hit indigenous communities

🎥 DROWNING ISLANDS - The Sea Swallows Samoa

🎥 #betd21 Brianna Fruean & Vanessa Nakate - Young Keynotes

Worldwide there are countless men and women committed to climate action. In the following issues, FemWealth will continue to shine a light on leaders such as Mary Robinson (first female President of Ireland), Ellen MacArthur (retired sailor and advocate for a circular economy), Sofia Hmich (investor, founding partner of Future Positive Capital), and Stella MacCartney (fashion designer) a.o. Stay tuned!

And let's remember, every day is Earth Day. Stay informed and take action. Some excellent sources of information on climate action and climate tech are the newsletters HEATED by Emily Atkin and Sifted Sustain by Sarah Drumm and Connor Bilboe.