Only Feminism Can Prevent Global Warming

By Wesley J. Smith

Friday, December 27, 2024

 

About a month ago, some bioethicists claimed that bioethics should prevent climate change. My eyes had finally stopped rolling when lo and behold, I learn from three UN Women researchers –in Scientific American, no less — that feminism holds the real key to preventing the planet from cooking.

 

As you would expect, the opinion piece is a godawful mess that attacks capitalism and the use of fossil fuels, in other words, its authors disdain prosperity. From “How Feminism Can Guide Climate Change Action:”

 

The current economic system that underpins that status quo is rooted in the extraction of natural resources and exploitation of cheap or unpaid labor, often done by women and marginalized communities. This system therefore drives the climate crisis while perpetuating inequalities based on gender, race and class. It prioritizes the interests of corporations, governments and elites in positions of power and wealth, while destroying the natural environment that poor and marginalized people depend on the most.

 

Okay, if that’s your story, you stick to it. But how does feminism fit into this? Radically:

 

Feminism offers an analysis of how inequalities structure our world and therefore drive the climate crisis, among other global concerns. We believe that it provides a vision of a better climate future, and a practical approach for moving towards it. That sound future is not just about ending fossil fuel–based economies—though that is urgent and necessary—but a more fundamental transformation of our economic and political systems.

 

In other words, socialism and “equity” authoritarianism.

 

So, how would feminism ameliorate global warming?

 

A feminist climate justice approach elevates their voices and values their contributions to understanding the climate crisis and charting a new way forward. For example, women from Indigenous and local communities have used their traditional knowledge of tree species to lead sustainable forestry initiatives in Colombia; and in Bangladesh, during extreme floods, women relied on traditional rural cooking methods to provide food in remote affected areas.

 

Oh, good grief. Local conservation efforts — as worthwhile as they might be — are not going to do anything substantial in a world populated by more than 7 billion people. Nor are rural cooking methods going to feed the multitudes if unwise climate policies cost us ready access to electricity and inexpensive cooking fuels.

 

This piece lacks simple realism. Good environmental practices require abundance and prosperity. But the feminist authors instead invoke the wisdom of indigenous people, which is becoming a constant trope in radical climate change activism:

 

These new systems would prioritize the well-being of people and the planet, over profits and elite power, to enable a more sustainable, resilient, inclusive and equitable future. This feminist vision builds on thinking from a diversity of cultural contexts and growing interest in “well-being economies.” For example, the Buen Vivir (Living Well) paradigm that underpins the development strategies of Bolivia and Ecuador is inspired by Indigenous knowledge and values that promote harmonious relationships between humans and nature.

 

Perhaps the authors don’t care, but Bolivia and Ecuador are very poor nations. Moreover, indigenous peoples did not live in industrial societies. Their cultures were not scientific, their methods completely unsuited to the modern world of massive cities, international travel, industrialization, and information economies. Nor will indigenous wisdom lift destitute developing societies out of squalor. That requires modernism and the technological innovation produced by free markets.

 

The authors then promote female dominance:

 

We must redistribute resources away from male-dominated, environmentally harmful economic activities towards those prioritizing women’s employment, regeneration and care for both people and ecosystems. The idea of a just transition, which is gaining prominence on the climate agenda, must extend beyond providing new jobs for men laid off from fossil fuel industries to address the longstanding economic disadvantages women and marginalized groups face: persistent wage gaps; vast inequalities in land ownership, labor force participation, access to education, training and technology; and inadequate or absent social protection.

 

Most of which has very little to do with the climate.

 

An endnote states that the opinions expressed in the piece are not necessarily those of Scientific American. I’ll believe that when the once respectable magazine publishes counter opinions about climate issues such as those of Bjorn Lomborg. Then, a real conversation about these issues could be had. Until then, these authors are just writing for each other and their fellow travelers.

 

But hope springs eternal. Perhaps with the editor in chief having resigned for some unwise tweets about Donald Trump’s election, new leadership will return Scientific American to its role of popularizing actual science rather than promoting left-wing politics, stifling non-establishment views on scientific public policy, and invoking woke ideology. But I am not holding my carbon-infused breath.