Climate Change: Effects More Than the Global North

While in student led discussions today, a very interesting point caught my attention from the group who based their presentation on Ariel Salleh, “Ecological Debt: Embodied Debt”. When they brought up the statement “The global North is assumed to be the only area affected by climate change” it made me think of how Western climate change and global warming is. Climate change does not only affect the global North, it has lasting and most often, negative affects on all parts of the world. These effects suffered by all places in the world do not all largely contribute to climate change, like the global North does, but all countries feel the lasting effects of climate change.

            The relation of ecology and climate change is principally studied in the global North, and the North often portrays themselves as the victims of this change. Yet the North is not suffering form climate change in such a negative capacity as other countries. As a result of climate change, many countries are facing famine and drought, which is having lasting negative effects. These effects are mostly suffered by third world countries, who do not have the resources to sustain themselves against climate change and its lasting effects.

            Countries, such as Africa, face the effects of climate change on a daily basis, but unlike the global North, gender has a large role in the suffering. In these countries, it is often the women’s job to go and retrieve, in which she has to walk miles a day. Now, as a result of droughts, caused by climate change, these women sometimes have to walk even further to get water for their families to survive. These women, often mothers, know the consequences that will take place if they do not continue to sustain their families (Salleh, 17). To the best of my knowledge, this type of situation, or anything close to it, does not take place in the global North. Walking large distances is not the only problem these women face as a result of climate change, many women farm to try and sustain a livelihood for their families and do numerous ecological jobs that are changing as a result of climate change.

            In my opinion, the above statement is false. The global North seems to be one of the least areas affected with climate change, with looking into third world countries and the difficulty they have with the changing climate. The ecologies that those people were and are use to is drastically changing, which has a large effect on gender in he poorer countries, especially in relation to women.

Ariel Salleh “Ecological Debt: Embodied Debt”, 1-39.