In the United States, there is a lot of talk about the ever-increasing price at the pump. However, media outlets and everyday people still tend to overlook the hidden costs of our nation’s dependence on oil.
The price we pay for our addiction to oil is often reflected in its global impact on health, environment and climate change. The Union of Concerned Scientists stated that “Many of the environmental problems our country faces today result from our fossil fuel dependence. These impacts include global warming, air quality deterioration, oil spills, and acid rain.” Image Source:http://populationaction.org/
Climate change is a big issue, and it affects everyone. Here in the United States, the reality of Climate Change is still being hotly debated despite the fact that " 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change." However, elsewhere in the world some of the poorest people on the planet do not have the luxury of denial. A new short documentary film entitled Weathering Change - Stories About Climate and Family from Around the World by Population Action International (Featured Below) attempts to acquaint us with the stories of three women from Ethiopia, Nepal, and Peru as “they struggle to care for their families, while enduring crop failures and water scarcity.”
Aregash Ayele of Ethiopia laments, “today, any problem we have is linked to the changing weather…even though the land is green, it is not fruitful. It has never been like this.” Radhika Poudel of Nepal has a similar story: “because of the lack of rainfall, everything withers and dies. No matter what we plant, the seeds are just dying.”
One blogger, Lori from Feministing, explains why this is such a powerful and important film: “I think it does a great job of showing the disproportionate effects of climate change on women and their families in the global south, without being sensationalist or relying on alienating statistics.”
For more information on this or related issues, be sure to visit the Population Action International website.
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