When a team of students from Pasadena’s Polytechnic School set out to drive from Texas to Palmdale in a solar-powered car they’d built, student/driver Julian Harrison said a passion for racing cars lured him to participate. For Kai Herman, he said it was an interest in mechanical engineering.
But team captain Aria Wang? She cited a desire to help protect the planet.
“My future goal is probably pursuing clean alternative energy sources,” said the 17-year-old climate enthusiast, who’s headed to Yale University this fall.
It’s just one anecdote. But a growing body of research shows females, overall, are more concerned about the effects of climate change than are males. They’re also more willing to take personal action, and to support public policies, to fight it.
In a Public Policy Institute of California poll released last month, some 86% of women surveyed said addressing global climate change is a top concern or one of several top concerns, while just over three-quarters of men felt the same. That divide isn’t as pronounced in Southern California, though the poll shows local men are still more likely than women to dismiss climate issues as a serious concern.
This phenomenon is established enough to earn its own moniker: the “eco gender gap.” And women active around climate change issues in Southern California say they continue to see this dynamic play out firsthand.
While men do lead some of the more than 40 organizations that are part of the Orange County Climate Coalition, steering committee member Ayn Craciun said more are piloted by females, and many of their most active partner groups, such as the League of Women Voters North OC chapter, are entirely women-focused.
“Also, most of the elected officials leading on climate policy in OC identify as female,” Craciun said.
Statewide, an analysis of the current session found that female legislators were a bit more likely to author legislation that mentions climate change than were…
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