Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Winner | Be A Hummingbird

“I will be a hummingbird’ | Wangari Maathai

Kenyan environmentalist and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai died late Sunday from cancer. At 71, Mrs Maathaid was one of the most widely respected women in Africa, wearing many hats as an environmentalist, feminist, politician, rabble-rouser, human rights advocate and head of the Green Belt Movement.

Wangari Maathai was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize

Born into a progressive-thinking family near Nyeri, in the Central Highlands of Kenya, Wangari Maathal attended Loreto Girls’ High School in 1959, at a time when the majority of girls in Kenya were not educated. Her elder brother Nderitu insisted that she become an exception.

Upon graduation, the young woman became part of the “Kennedy airlift,” a scholarship program of the U.S. government and the Kennedy family that took her to Mount St. Scholastica (now Benedictine College) in Atchison, Kansas, where she completed a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences. writes Green Belt

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Will Women Have a Defined Voice in a Copenhagen Climate Treaty?

CARE, with anti-poverty programs in 65 countries worldwide, has negotiators in Copenhagen, pushing to give women equality in all levels of policy-making leading to a final climate treaty.

The organization pushes a new topic into the Copenhagen talks, gender balance and a ‘demand’ for firm language about women’s role in determining how funds are spent, especially in developing countries. (With women representing only 16% of Congress, I’m wondering if the language might present challenges in our own instutitions.)

Women in a flood-prone community in Gaibandha, Bangladesh, gather once a week to share ideas about how to adapt to worsening climate and rising seas. Photo: GMB Akash/Panos PicturesChristina Chan, a CARE senior policy analyst cites a recent United Nations Population Fund report that shows women in poor, less developed countries are bearing the brunt of climate change.  The report says women are the most at risk because of traditional roles of tending to the family, cooking, collecting water and farming.

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World Bank Report Predicts Adversarial, Crippling View of Climate Change on Economic Development

One of the main water sources outside Moyale in Kenya runs dry. Photograph: Sarah Elliott/EPAThe World Bank’s annual World Development Report, issued Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2009, defines its clearest warning to date that the development efforts of poor countries will be derailed, without a “huge increase in funding for climage change mitigation and adaptation efforts.” via Guardian UK

Even if the G8 countries countries achieves their target of limiting global warming to two degrees above pre-industrial levels (which is dubious, based on new G8 assessments of the challenge), developing countries will suffer.

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