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“Women are the foot soldiers of climate change adaptation,” said Athukorala who heads the Network of Women Water Professionals, Sri Lanka (NetWwater) and the Women for Water Partnership…

However, despite their importance, women are still being largely left out of the decision making, according to a new report by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). The report - The Challenges of Securing Women’s Tenure and Leadership for Forest Management: The Asian Experience - found that gender discrimination is still rampant.

Arvind Khare, RRI’s senior director of country and regional programmes, said that women’s roles should not only be recognized but should also be enforced. He took the case of land rights in rural China, where women often find themselves losing land, due to cultural and social norms, despite laws that are gender neutral on paper.

“How can we look at climate adaptation and food security when those who do most of the work at ground level have no say?” he asked.

New government report: Rising Seas Threaten Hundreds of U.S. Energy Facilities. There was a senate hearing April 20, 2012 on sea level rise. Only one republican senator showed up. Interactive map, above. Excellent wrap-up from Climate Central: 

New Report: Sea Level Rise Threatens Hundreds of U.S. Energy Facilities (PDF) Interactive Map: Surging Seas, Sea Level Rise Analysis News: Senate Hearing Focuses on Threat of Sea Level Rise Watch: Archived webcast of Senate hearing Read: Ben Strauss’ Senate testimony Read: Senate testimony of five witnesses 

From migratory patterns to water rights, the shifts in the schedules of the seasons affects everyone on Earth.

As Asia’s monsoon season begins, leading climate specialists and agricultural scientists warn that rapid climate change and intensified droughts and floods could devastate Southeast Asia’s global dominance in rice production, posing a significant threat to millions of people across the region and affecting global food security.

Last year’s record flooding in Thailand and Southeast Asia was preceded by a record drought in 2010. These and many other extreme weather events have hammered global food prices, stretching their impact beyond the immediate personal and ecological tragedies. Climate change in South and Southeast Asia is expected to reduce agriculture productivity by as much as 50 percent in the next three decades, with a dramatic impact on stability and livelihoods.

South and Southeast Asia is home to more than one-third of the world’s population and half of the world’s poor and malnourished. Agriculture is the backbone of most economies in the region, and such plunging yields would shake countries to the core.

Since last year, AidData has been working with the Robert S. Strauss Center’s Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS) program at the University of Texas on a new mapping tool that is now available online (http://ccaps.aiddata.org).  The goal of the project is to shed light on the links between three major forces that play a role in shaping development in a number of countries in Africa: climate change, conflict, and development assistance.  Parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, southern Somalia, and South Sudan, for example, are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. CCAPS researchers are investigating the interplay of climate-related hazards and incidents of violent conflict, and the way conflict dynamics are changing over time and space.

T: November 1, 1979 - January 31, 1980

B: November 1, 2011 - January 31, 2012

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that climate change is real, which is the highest level in 2 years.

“The Girl Who Can, and Other Stories” by Ama Ata Aidoo is a series of short stories, each of them woven into the fabric of Ghanaian identity and told, always, from the perspective of a female protagonist.

An infographic depicting the percentage share of formal firms that are owned by women in Africa. Data from the World Bank.