The Fossil Fuel Industry is Disproportionately Harming Low-income and Minority Women
“Women, in all of their diversity, must be at the center of climate and energy decision-making.”
Black, Latine and Indigenous women are disproportionately suffering from the fossil fuel industry in North America, according to a new report.
The report, published by Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), analyzed existing research about fossil fuel extraction and related facilities to explore the unequal impacts on women of color in North America. WECAN identified nine regions that appeared most frequently, including the Gulf Coast, to focus additional research. From this, the group highlighted six issues that appeared most often in research associated with the fossil fuel industry: environmental racism, increased caretaking responsibilities, pollution, fertility and reproduction impacts, “man camps” and mental health effects. Impacts were either related to race, income status, gender identity or a combination of these three.
“This is an egregious list, and these [fossil fuel] activities must be stopped,” Osprey Orielle Lake, report author and executive director of WECAN, told EHN.
The report highlights an “indisputable connection” between the fossil fuel industry’s practices and negative impacts to Black, Indigenous, Latine, and low-income women’s health, safety and human rights.
The report points to fossil fuel pollution links to infertility and pregnancy complications, as well as rising temperatures’ links to preterm births, stillbirths, gestational diabetes, hypertensive disorders and endocrine dysfunction.
For example, in the Eagle Ford Shale region of Texas, flaring was more likely to occur near Latino residents and women living within three miles of the agle Ford shale basin had a 50% higher chance for preterm births than those living farther away, according to a 2020 study. 09-17-24
