"Women: The New Green Leaders"
Vicky Markham
Founder and Director
Center for Environment and Population
Vicky Markham, founder and director of the Center for Environment and Population (CEP), describes the rapidly emerging movement of women world leaders who are recognizing the powerful role of women in managing this Earth's natural resources and spearheading strategies for environmental preservation. As they are starting to address these issues, Markham says, they are helping us all to understand these issues better and mobilizing monetary and political support for them with increasing efficacy. In the Future Choices TV show airing November 2010, "Women: The New Green Leaders," she gives plentiful examples of this movement and provides links to the scientific research which
provides its firm foundation.
The Center for Environment and Population is an independent non-profit research and policy organization that addresses the relationship between human population and its environmental impacts. As the Center Director, Markham has dedicated herself to analyzing and condensing scientific research relating to the nexus of population and environmental issues so that we can all grasp its significance and powerful underlying message.
Getting the word out
• "Women: The New Green Leaders"
Appearing in the November 2010 episode of Future Choices on local cable TV in Westchester County, Markham argues taht issues fo women's empowerment and environmental preservation are irrevocably linked. The full video may be viewed online.
• Population and Environment: Linking MDGs 5 and 7
The Center coordinated a major panel discussion in connection with the UN MDG Summit in September 2010. This 'Side-Event" highlighted connections among population, gender, reproductive health, and environmental sustainability/ climate change issues. Panelists demonstrated the benefits of integrated approaches to achieving the MDGs, particularly MDG 5 (improve maternal health) and MDG 7 (ensure environmental sustainability). Panelists included:
- Musimbi Kanyoro, Director, Population and Reproductive Health Program, Packard Foundation: How Women, Reproductive Health and Environment Bridge MDGs 5 and 7
|
 |
|
 |
- Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Ashoka Fellow, CEO, Conservation Through Public Health, Uganda: Integrated Population, Health and Environment (PHE) Projects: Case Studies from the Field
|
 |
This event was coordinated in collaboration with Population Action International and Sierra Club. It also coincided with the Clinton Global Initiative's Annual Meeting: Empowering Girls and Women.
• Vicky Markham's Blogs on RH Reality Check Make the Connection between Population and the Environment
Renewed Commitment to Reproductive Health Has Implications for Global Environment
January 11, 2010
Secretary Clinton made a commitment to women and girls’ health and progress worldwide, which in turn will contribute to tremendous gains on global environmental and climate sustainability. |MORE
Copenhagen: Is US Population and Consumption the Missing Piece?
December 11, 2009
Americans represent 5 percent of the global population, consume 25 percent of the world’s energy, and generate five times the world’s average per-capita of CO2 emissions. |MORE
Obama's "Population" Moves: Also Good for the Environment
February 26, 2009
It is time for a new discussion about "family size" and how it relates to our unprecedented environmental impacts, here in this country and around the world. |MORE
• CEP Fellowship Program Focuses in 2010 on "Population, Climate Change and the Environment"
Fellows working with the Center for Environment and Population (CEP) in 2010 undertook cutting-edge research emphasizing empowerment of women and girls. The CEP fellowship grew out of a partnership with:
• Markham Touts Benefits of Family Planning to the Environment
In a March 2009 letter to the New York Times, Markham notes that:
There are many advantages to President Obama’s recent actions on family planning: They will help women of all incomes control their fertility. They will provide better education, economic, resource-use and family-raising opportunities. And they will help prevent abortions and unwanted pregnancies.
But there is additional value: They will aid in achieving environmental sustainability. |MORE
When is Future Choices aired in your community?
See Local TV schedule for time and channel in each participating community in Westchester County.
Growing evidence of the linkages between women's empowerment and climate change
RH Reality Check:
"Women get the connections between climate change, public health and economic growth, because climate change is disproportionately affecting women...
But women need not be victims of the climate crisis. A new generation of women entrepreneurs, leaders and civil society, have demonstrated the potential for being the solution to the climate crisis.
|MORE: "Women's Equality and the Climate Change Challenge" by Kathleen Rogers, President of the Earth Day Network.
Pathfinder:
"More than two hundred million women around the world want, but lack access to, contraceptives. It is a right that must be addressed and is now increasingly urgent as climate change accelerates ...Meeting this unmet need promotes women's empowerment, changes lives, slows population growth, and also addresses climate change." |MORE
Energy Collective:
"According to research done by the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the 
CEP's comprehensive "U.S. Population, Energy & Climate Change"Futures Group, simply by giving women the tools to plan the size and timing of their families, population growth will slow and global carbon emissions will be reduced by between 8 and 15 percent—the equivalent of stopping all deforestation today.
This is an extraordinary proposition. Empowering women to make critical decisions in their own lives can also contribute significantly to solving the biggest environmental and humanitarian challenge of our time." |MORE
US News & World Report
A new report from the Center for Environment and Population concludes that population growth must be addressed as a key part of the larger climate change issue because it is a "big multiplier" that "intensifies the rate, scale, and scope of both the root causes and effects of climate change." |MORE
Vicky Markham is the Founding Director of the Center for Environment and Population (CEP), an independent non-profit research and policy organization that addresses the relationship between human population and its environmental impacts. Markham has over 25 years of experience in the fields of environment and population science, policy and public outreach. She started...|MORE
|
