Every day, we read more news stories and reports telling us that the polar ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising, mass extinction is imminent, and we only have a certain number of years to amend our environmental desecration before the damage is permanent and we submit to a future of deranged seasons, extreme natural disasters, overpopulation, and misery (cue: dramatic music). However, most people do not—by no fault of their own—understand the variety of ideas and solutions to address climate change, and they often believe the task insurmountable, which makes it terribly hard to pursue or enact any of them. Therefore, let’s try to break it down so that we can ascertain the most logical, and understandable, policy paths towards its achievable reversal.
To begin, the main contributors to climate change that politicians and the public often focus on are fossil fuel emissions and overpopulation. However, there is no easy way to alleviate both, and changes to either need to be profound. To that end, we must focus policy on their greatest source—the crux of the matter, and it is poverty. Many acknowledge that impoverished people are more at-risk during climate change-related disasters, but beyond that less fortunate countries also directly contribute to global warming, overpopulation, and the environmental catastrophes that continue to devastate their people. Indigence seems like an impossible challenge to tackle, but it must be lessened for the sake of those affected by it and the planet as a whole.
The impact of poverty on the globe is something that can be difficult to fully grasp, so organizations like the Borgen Project provide firm reasoning as to why their charitable missions to end poverty can benefit the environment as well. The Project describes how deforestation is practiced regularly and extensively by poorer countries, removing trees that are vital for storing carbon and producing oxygen, and therefore contributing to climate change. Additionally, their methods of production are oftentimes not as efficient, so they have been known to damage their natural resources simply because they do not have the information or money to avoid such calamities. Poverty aggravates global warming, and those snared by its vices find themselves unknowingly contributing to it even as they are stuck at the brunt of its environmental consequences—in need of rescue and rehabilitation.
So then, the logical question is how do we decrease poverty and therefore save the planet simultaneously? The School of Leadership, Afghanistan (the SOLA) provides real-life experience to address that question. SOLA is Afghanistan’s first all-girls boarding school, so you might logically be wondering what a classroom full of girls has to do with climate change. Its co-founder Shabana Basij-Rasikh explains this in a piece for TED wherein she cites a study from Project Drawdown which found that educating girls, who are often otherwise denied education in non-industrialized countries, is the sixth most effective, available solution to climate change: above even solar panels and electric vehicles. But why is this? Why are girls so important for the future of the planet? Project Drawdown clarifies that “women with more years of education have fewer and healthier children,” while women without that advantage contribute to the rapid population growth that stresses resources and often leaves them jobless. Disadvantaged women are more likely to become members of the world’s poorest classes, so providing them with the tools to earn a living can improve their economic state. Schools like Basij-Rasikh’s offer opportunities not just for women, but for a better future for all of us; and it all begins by educating girls.
When enacting policy, it is also important to remember that many people judge the practicality of progress based solely on its price tag. Fortunately, Basij-Rasikh’s method succeeds in this aspect as well because educating young girls around the world is extremely cost-effective. For instance, the price of installing a 5-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system for an average American household is about $25,000-$35,000, according to the Solar Power Authority. In contrast, Aid for Africa cites that the cost to send a girl to school in East Africa is only $650. Therefore, about 53 African girls could attend school for the price of one solar roof installation for a single American family. Since it can be easy to underestimate the impact of those 53 girls in comparison to the world’s massive population, Aid for Africa also cites that women who have jobs return 90 percent of their income to their families, while men with jobs only contribute about 40 percent. That means that if each of those 53 African girls had a family, there would be 53 more families likely to be lifted out of poverty because of the support of educated women. A country with a stronger base of workers supporting their families is a country that can start paying greater attention to converting business and infrastructure to more environmentally sound practices. With more education comes more wealth; so, when the two combine, the possibilities are endless.
Environmental activists across the globe have come to see the truth in the value of young women for our future. Not only would such an initiative increase widespread education, it would also improve the economy and living circumstances for millions, and gradually the state of the earth itself. Funding a venture like this one, besides the moral and humanitarian benefits, would serve to benefit the future of mankind. Let’s put our money into people and programs that will generate demonstrable results. By funding the education of girls around the globe, we do so much more than just fighting climate change: we empower people, we lift economies, we change the world, and it all starts in a classroom.