Book Nook: COOL - Women Leaders Reversing Global Warming

 Women and girls all over the world are using intelligence, creativity, energy, and courage to help stop global warming. Designed for young and old alike, COOL: Women Leaders Reversing Global Warming documents their inspiring work and invites you to join them.

Women are especially effective leaders when it comes to combating global warming. A report from architects of the 2015 Paris Agreement found that:

• Nations with more women in positions of power have smaller climate footprints

• Women legislators vote for environmental protections almost twice as frequently as men

• Women who lead investment firms are twice as likely to make investment decisions based on how companies treat their employees and the environment

• Companies with women on their executive boards are more likely to invest in renewable energy and develop products that help solve the climate crisis

COOL is the first and only book to document the work of women climate leaders globally. It is also award-winning author-photographer Paola Gianturco’s seventh book that tells compelling and uplifting stories about women around the world. Paola  and her 12-year-old granddaughter and co-author, Avery Sangster, set out to document the work of the women using intelligence, creativity, and courage to combat climate change. Through impassioned interviews and evocative photographs, the authors map a journey across 10 countries as they accompany some of the world's best known—and unknown—women leaders and women-led organizations on their quest to reduce and reverse the effects of global warming.

COOL tells their important, inspiring stories in their own words and suggests action steps so you can join them on this existential journey. Here are just a few of the women trailblazers COOL turns the spotlight on:

• Nelleke van der Puil, Vice President of Materials at LEGO, is developing plastic made with plants instead of oil, transforming her company’s products.

• Fifteen thousand Sri Lankan women raise and plant “miracle trees,” mangroves, which sequester five times more carbon dioxide than tropical trees in the Amazon Rain Forest.

• Clover Moore, Lord Mayor of Sydney, Australia, has vowed to reduce city government emissions by 70% by 2030; already, she’s made Sydney the first carbon neutral city in Australia.

• Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Inuit activist, sees her indigenous people as climate change sentinels for the world and levers their observations, experience, and knowledge of the Arctic to benefit people everywhere.

From the US, UK, Sweden, Denmark, Tanzania, Australia, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Canada, and India come countless more stories of female activists, politicians, scholars, corporate executives, presidents of nonprofits, and heads of grassroots organizations leading the charge against climate change. 

Paola Gianturco, author-photographer, has documented women's issues in 62 countries for six powerHouse Books. Grandmother Power: A Global Phenomenon (2012) won four first place literary awards in categories as diverse as multicultural nonfiction and women's studies. Wonder Girls: Changing Our World is third in a triptych: Women Who Light the Dark described women activists; Grandmother Power told about grandmother activists; and now, girl activists. Paola's images have been exhibited at the United Nations, UNESCO, the US Senate, The Field Museum in Chicago, The Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, The Grand Rapids Public Museum, and more. She lectures internationally, presented a TED talk in Dubai, and has been a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, NPR, and Voice of America programs, among others. Paola serves on the advisory boards of two nonprofits: Rise Up/Let Girls Lead (which empowers girls to advocate for policy change) and Global Grandmothers (who support children in need internationally). In 2013 Paola was listed among "40 Women to Watch Over 40," and in 2014, Women's e-News named her one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century. 

Avery Sangster, age 12, is Paola’s granddaughter and co-author. Avery interviewed and photographed women leaders across the United States and Tanzania. She is used to thinking about global issues; she and her sister created a children’s program at an annual international poverty conference, and led it for seven years. Avery is passionate about reversing global warming. She mobilized her sixth grade girlfriends to create an environmental website, Grey2Green.org. "Avery’s Call to Action," the final chapter of this book, is a powerful invitation for all of us to engage with the issue.

A partial preview is available here: COOL: Women Leaders Reversing Global Warming

Visit the website here.

Global Warming & Climate Change / Women's Studies / Photoessays & Documentaries
Hardcover, 7.875 x 10 inches, 192 pages
ISBN: 978-1-57687-954-2, $39.95 US / $53.95 CA

High-res scans to your specification are available upon request; scanning from the book or lifting images from the mechanical file are strictly prohibited. Mandatory credit line: From COOL: Women Leaders Reversing Climate Change by Paola Gianturco and Avery Sangster, published by powerHouse Books.

 

 

COOL: Women Leaders Reversing Global Warming is available to order now through our website and book retailers.