Climate change is a puzzle in urgent need of a solution. Joni Seager, Professor and Chair of Global Studies at Bentley University, says that without gender analysis, a crucial piece is missing.

Seager outlined a gendered approach to climate change at the UMB Campus Center on September 16th in her lecture entitled Really Inconvenient Truths: Gender, Climate Change and Environmental Security. The lecture was the first of four in UMass Boston’s Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights Fall 2010 Speaker Series.

Seager has done work on gender and the environment in Mongolia and Mozambique, and has been a consultant to a group of the UN Division of Economic & Social Affairs since 2008. She has authored 10 books and more than 3 dozen other publications, including the Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, which is currently a required text for the UMB course Women in Global Perspectives.

The lecture drew a crowd of over 70 people, including UMB students, faculty, and professionals. At least one third of the audience was students, several of whom attended as part of assignments for the UMB courses Women in Global Perspectives and Seminar in International Relations. The post-lecture discussion was lively, and Seager’s point of view raised both praise and debate from students, faculty and professionals alike.

“We should have something like this every month. Students need to know,” said International Relations student Koeje Agblekpe after the event. Hassane Camara, another International Relations student, remarked that for him, the gender issue “hit home”. “It made me realize there are some things I need to research,” said one African Women’s Studies student.

Seager contested the “two degree target” often used in climate change analysis, which states that a global two degree temperature increase is tolerable. “Why two degrees? Why so precise?” she asked. Seager outlined the dire consequences of a two degree increase: rises in malaria, water shortages, decreased crop production, and millions of human deaths. “The complacency of two degrees is based on the confidence that impacts will fall earliest and heaviest on Africa, low latitudes, tropics, small islands, the arctic, and women,” she explained. “Why not above two degrees?” she asked. Seager reported that above a 2 degree increase, the entire globe will be affected rather than specific regions. “It’s when ‘them’ becomes ‘us’,” she stated.

Drawing on her work in Mozambique and Mongolia, Seager urged for climate change analysis to “start with people”. “[The 2 degree target] sets a tolerance for human caused deaths,” said Seager. She brought a human face to the grim reality of climate change with photos of local people she had met during her work overseas. “If climate change continues, these people will die,” she stated.

Seager urged for people to use the small scale and consider the reality of gender roles when helping people adapt to climate change. In Africa, a suggested adaptation method for water shortages is to use four-legged animals to help carry water long distances, said Seager. In Mozambique, women are responsible for getting water, however custom dictates that they are not allowed to be in charge of four-legged animals, so it is not a real solution for them.

Seager also warned that we must not fall into the trap of treating gender as insignificant when including it in policy making. “Gender analysis won’t save the planet, but I don’t think we can save the planet without it,” she concluded.

For more news and events related to UMB’s Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights and the Fall 2010 Speaker Series, visit http://www.genderandsecurity.umb.edu/