Woman scholar leads the fight against climate change 

News Desk

From sinking islands to drought-ridden deserts, women bear a disproportionate burden of the global warming crisis, largely because of the gender-based inequalities and imbalances in society.

In many parts of the world, women are the primary caregivers in families and therefore greater bears of the consequences of flooding, droughts and other natural disasters. The UN estimates 80 percent of people who have been displaced by climate are women.

However, the traditional roles of women are being transformed. We are seeing more and more women in positions of power and influence. This is no less so in the global drive for climate change. They are showing leadership and initiative to affect the desired change.

One such example is that of Dr Sadia Khalid, a PhD scholar in Education, from Pakistan. Her “Climate Worriers” programme is precisely designed to enable the country to mitigate the challenges and the drawbacks of the climate crisis. “We need warriors because the situation emerging due to climate change and global warming is more than a war,” said Dr Sadia.

Dr Sadia takes the view that the climate crisis will soon form a serious threat to the biodiversity of our existence thus requiring urgent measures to counter this. The ‘Climate Warriors’ initiative is one such initiative to help the country to effectively overcome these challenges, “We have to take it in the same way by fighting for protection and survival,” she stressed.

She said that we are weak and ill prepared for the ferocity of nature, for example, when there are heavy rains causing floods.  Similarly, when the heat wave intensifies, it also takes lives. Extreme weather conditions take a toll on humans, animals, birds, and forests alike.

Dr Sadia maintains that the climatic crisis will become a serious full blown threat to humans, animals, wildlife, forest, plants and flowers alike.

Dr Sadia explained that to raise the public awareness , especially teachers and students, about the climate challenges ahead ,  “I’m working to highlight messages contained in 13, 14 and 15 numbers of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set by the United Nations, calling for action for protection of marine life and life on earth including wildlife respectively,

Dr Sadia said that she is also imparting training online to educate people at an international level about SDGs goals. ”This is my personal initiative to form a force of ‘climatic warriors’ through educating people about threats posed by climate change and mitigation measures being adopted by every one for safety”.

She added that being an educationist, she was concentrating on teachers who could play a very effective role by educating their students and sensitizing them about the severity of threats posed by climate change.

Apart from teachers, we are also engaging youngsters by arranging different awareness programs online and field trips to different areas.  Social media is also used for promoting the concept of ‘Climate Warriors’ by creating pages on different platforms, she explained.

On Facebook, Sadia said the ‘climate warrior’s page has membership of more than around 2000 people, mostly students and teachers who are sharing awareness messages.

Similarly, `Climate Education Warriors’ whatsup is also established for information for members about different programmes of the group and other stakeholders engaged in climate change activities.

Announcements from national and international organizations on different events like world forest day, water day, wildlife, air pollution are shared on whatsapp group to apprise all members about activities taking place in their country and abroad.

Climate related programmes like `Climate Stories, Dialogue on Youth Empowerment in Climate Action, Social Fiction Design, Champions of the Earth are shared for encouraging youth to participate and get themselves involved in creating awareness about environmental issues, she added.

Dr Sadia said that her organization was also arranging painting competitions for students on the environment with the objective of educating students about the impact of climate change on life and threats to people.

“I’m also contributing research based articles on different websites and her recent work was on the psychological impact of smog in the minds of people,” she informed.

The organization is also preparing video messages for mobile users on hazards of environmental degradation and its impact on human health. She added that female activists should urge masses to realize the severity of the climate crisis and take initiatives at local levels for awareness, mitigation and protection. APP