On my first tour of a Cambodian minefield in 2010, the demining supervisor of the platoon of deminers brought me through a tapioca field where heavily armored men and women stood in lines. I was not allowed beyond the bright red signs with skulls and crossbones. Wearing bulletproof helmets, masks, and aprons, they slowly and tediously walked through the field, using a metal detector to sweep the ground in front of them, the sun reflecting off the long plastic visor. To avoid the heat of the Cambodian sun, they began their work early in the morning. In the golden hour of sunrise as dawn gilded the fields, the sounds of a distant Buddhist temple surrounded us with chanting. I commented on how beautiful it was.

The significance of the Biden-Harris administration for the world’s women and girls cannot be overstated. The current status of women and girls is grim. The COVID-19 pandemic and four years of dangerous policies designed to strip women and girls of their reproductive and economic autonomy and punish them—first for their biology, and second for their gender—have slowed and even reversed decades of progress toward gender equity. Systemic racism and policies meant to further exclude and disenfranchise minority communities have targeted women of color with tragic results.

The United States is in the midst of a maternal health crisis. Indigenous and Alaska Native peoples are 2.3 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than their white counterparts. In Alaska, unequal socio-economic status, lack of access to hospitals and quality health services, systemic racism, and a history of colonization drive these disparities in maternal health outcomes. “Weathering”—the deterioration of communal health outcomes caused by persistent socio-economic disadvantages—contributes to many poor maternal health outcomes for Alaska Native women. On top of these systemic problems, climate change impacts threaten to widen the existing disparities for Alaskan Native women.

At this time of year, in Russia’s far north Laptev Sea, the sun hovers near the horizon during the day, generating little warmth, as the region heads towards months of polar night. By late September or early October, the sea’s shallow waters should be a vast, frozen expanse.

But not this year. For the first time since records have been kept, open water still laps this coastline in late October though snow is already falling there.