Clean Air Council Joins Women’s March on Philadelphia to Demand Climate and Gender Justice

When: Saturday, January 21, 2017
March: 10am Logan Square to Eakins Oval
Rally: 12pm – 3pm at Eakins Oval

Pennsylvanians who care about environmental and social justice have the opportunity to set the tone for the future of our country by standing together as progressives over the next four years. On Saturday, January 21st at 10:00 AM, Clean Air Council will join the Women’s March on Philadelphia because staff and members can’t afford to miss this opportunity to unite with our neighbors in common cause to make a powerful statement on the connected issues of air quality, climate change, and women’s health and rights.  March organizers recently released a sweeping progressive policy platform.

“According to the Centers for Disease Control, compared to male asthma patients, women with chronic asthma also face extra challenges due to menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and menopause,” says Caroline Edwards MSN, CRNP, Neonatal Nurse Practitioner at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Nemours Hospital for Children. “Changing estrogen levels can lead to an inflammatory response, which can bring on asthma symptoms. Recent research has also suggested that women with asthma may have greater difficulty becoming pregnant than women without the respiratory condition.”

“The faith community is deeply concerned about the well-being of women,” says Rev. Linda Noonan, Senior Pastor at Chestnut Hill United Church, Philadelphia. “Our country’s reluctance to act on climate change disproportionately harms the most vulnerable – people living in poverty, women, children, the medically-fragile, and people of color. Our climate ties us in, as Dr. Martin Luther King says, ‘a single garment of destiny.’ All our lives depend on environmental justice.”

“Climate justice is gender justice,” says Eva Roben, Senior Climate Change Outreach Coordinator at Clean Air Council. “Women are overrepresented among the world’s poor, who are the least able to cope with the challenges of a changing climate, from accessing healthcare as the threat of vector-borne disease and heat-related illness increases, to overcoming food and water insecurity. Fighting for climate and gender justice together means doing everything in our power to curb climate catastrophe while improving economic and social conditions for women so that they are better equipped to deal with the warming that has already begun.”

###