Originally written by Dr. Adriane Leveen for Third Act Faith
On September 19, I find myself heading down 44th Steet in Manhattan toward the United Nations while the UN is in session. I am invited by my friend Rabbi Ellen Bernstein, a member of Third Act Faith and an inspiring 30-year climate activist, to join a unique climate gathering at the United Nations Church Center. As I head to 44th and First Ave. I navigate through packed streets of representatives from member states heading to their own meetings with an energy and vitality one could feel in the air, including a focus on climate. I am at the UN with the hope that 75,000 marchers on Sunday September 17th have made their boisterous presence felt, and their demand for urgent action on the climate emergency met. Signals remain mixed but the March reminds world leaders that we are still here, holding them to account. When I arrive at my destination, I find a gathering of women from the Global South, all leaders in various climate groups, who refresh my determination to carry on as a witness and participant in our own Third Act Faith as we search for common ground.
The meeting on September 19th is sponsored by a group called “Faith for our Planet” (FFOP). On one of their posters, this international faith-based NGO describes its focus on equipping faith leaders with the knowledge, networks and skills to inspire climate activism and mobilization in their local communities. As an example of their work, FFOP recently hosted training sessions with a particular emphasis on Global South nations that included Pakistan, Bangladesh, and The Gambia. FFOP relies on a crucial assumption – that religious leaders can inspire and incorporate their power and, crucially, the power of their faith traditions to act globally.
This particular women’s conference, “Faith in Her," took the group’s mission two steps further, raising the power and potential of female change makers focused on climate in the Global South and releasing a Declaration of Inclusivity at the end of the meeting. The organizer of the event, Farwah Gulamali Khataw, describes the Declaration as a series of “recommendations curated in consultation with a panel of women experts to enhance participation and representation of women of faith in the Global South” in climate leadership and international dialogue. One such example in the Declaration calls for an ecosystem of connection, another the expansion of meaningful representation for women of different ethnic and religious identities within decision making groups.
The idea of more meaningful representation is of particular interest to me ever since I met and read the work of Professor Christina Ergas, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Doctor Ergas’s data definitely made an impression on me. It shows that effective climate decisions are made when a gathering’s participants contain a meaningful representation of women.
Recent research on women in organizations demonstrates that in order for decision-making patterns to change, a critical mass of women in decision-making positions must be achieved. Women likely need to hold around one-third of decision making positions, otherwise their voices may be ignored, they may feel too intimidated to comment, or they may not be particularly representative of women in general, having been selected because their views were consistent with the men in the organization (McKinsey and Company, 2007; Buckingham, 2010). [1]
Simply put, things get done, progress is made when women are part of the decision making.
And here I was in a room full of such women, many of whom represented South Asia and Africa. Rabbi Bernstein eloquently captured the atmosphere:
I’m inspired by the opportunities that a conference particularly oriented toward women can bring to the climate crisis. Women have a special aptitude for nurturing relationship and communities and paying attention to the body and its intuitive wisdom.
“Faith in Her” dares to imagine a network of religious faith leaders from a range of religious backgrounds – Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish and Christian. The conference was exhilarating and often moving. I would like to briefly introduce Third Act Faith to some of the extraordinary women who are standing up for our planet.
We were welcomed by the Rev. Dionne P. Boissière, the chaplain of the U.N.’s Church Center. She spoke slowly and seemingly with difficulty due to a stammer. She had discovered that if she whispered or if she sang, the stammer went away. She did both. Listening to her clear strong voice in song I felt that her determination, flexibility and joy was exactly the combination we needed to continue this uphill battle to save our planet.
The Minister of Environment, Hon. Rohey John Manjang, from the Republic of the Gambia emphasized the importance of female leadership in her country and concluded her comments by addressing the fact that we were all from different faith traditions but “are all under one roof” –the same vast and threatened sky. We burst into applause at this metaphor for the gathering and its potential to build on our collective power.
Speakers on the panel that followed included Nana Firman, senior ambassador from GreenFaith who learned to use the Koran’s reverence toward our planet to help inspire and motivate Muslims to engage in climate work. Ambassador Ismat Jahan, former permanent representative of Bangladesh to the UN, has long worked for the elimination of Discrimination against Women. She offered examples of women who fought fiercely to keep their families alive when facing drought or floods, obviously made worse by climate change. She reminded us that women in the Global South are the frontline. A third member of the panel, Priyanka Srinivasa, focuses on equity, inclusion and belonging as a manager at the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks in New York. She is also a co-founder of #iWillGo Out – one of India’s largest protests against gender-based violence. Each of these women illustrate not only inspiring leadership but the ways in which gender and the repercussions of our rapidly warming planet are tightly entangled and call for creative solutions that will endure. Each speaker was inspired by their own faith backgrounds to work in climate, and yet the unity they felt for one another, and we felt with them, powerfully stood out.
Rabbi Ellen Bernstein, another example of powerful female climate leadership, as well as a representative of the Jewish tradition at ‘Faith in Her,’ gave a beautiful keynote speech. Since the conference was held between the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur Rabbi Bernstein beautifully conveyed a message ‘rooted’ in Judaism that also captured our shared global concern, ‘all of us under one roof.’
The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is the day that the earth and all the creatures were born; each year at this time, we and the whole creation are renewed. The language of awe and renewal helps to tune me into the earth and its seasons. The trees communicating with each other through vast mycelial networks, the planets running their circuits in the sky, the very miracle that I am a breathing, pulsating being in this body speaking to you all.
The Hebrew word for Awe, yira, also carries the meaning of fear, dread, terror. And indeed this is true of the English word awe — when you consider the word aw-ful. The space between awe and fear is thin indeed. And this combination of awe and dread is my natural state these days. I am simultaneously awed by the connectedness that underlies all life, and horrified by the imminent possibilities of destruction when those connections break down.”[2]
This conference illustrates just how those connections can be renewed and strengthened. May it be so.
By By Dr. Adriane Leveen, Member of Third Act Faith Member and JCAN NYC
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[1] Women’s status and carbon dioxide emissions: A quantitative cross-national analysis
Christina Ergas, Richard York in Social Science Research; journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ssresearch
Recent research on women in organizations demonstrates that in order for decision-making patterns to change, a critical mass of women in decision-making positions must be achieved. Women likely need to hold around one-third of decision making positions, otherwise their voices may be ignored, they may feel too intimidated to comment, or they may not be particularly representative of women in general, having been selected because their views were consistent with the men in the organization (McKinsey and Company, 2007; Buckingham, 2010). As an example of how more gender balanced representation can matter for the environment, a study for the European Commission found that local municipalities with a higher percentage of women in positions of authority have higher recycling rates than municipalities with fewer women managers (Buckingham et al., 2005).
Similarly, a number of cross-national studies have shown that having a significant number of women in positions of power does affect decision-making outcomes. One such cross-national study identified differences in nations’ environmental treaty ratification based on percentage of women in parliament, i.e. nations with higher proportions of women in parliament ratify a greater number of environmental treaties (Norgaard and York, 2005). Likewise, a United Nations Development Report (2007) that looked at the years 1990–2004 documented that among the 70 most developed nations in the world,18 had stabilized or reduced their carbon emission. Of these 18 nations, 14 had a greater than average percentage of women as elected representatives (Buckingham, 2010). In addition, Shandra et al. (2008) found that in nations with a higher proportion of women’s nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) per capita rates of deforestation are lower. Given these results,women’s participation in the decision-making process may prove invaluable for addressing climate change.
[2] For a fuller version of Rabbi Bernstein’s remarks see https://religionnews.com/2023/09/19/love-and-compassion-how-women-can-address-the-climate-crisis/