Bella Abzug (1920–1998) was a lifelong advocate for women’s rights and the environment. An advocate of civil rights and a critic of McCarthyism, she devoted her life to helping others. In 1985 she organized a panel called “What If Women Ruled the World?” for the U.N. Women’s Conference in Nairobi, Kenya. The outcome of the event was that she and other activists founded the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) in 1990. Related to this, she gave an address that year titled “Women and the Fate of the Earth” before the World Women’s Congress for a Healthy Planet at the Center for Our Common Future in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The speech stressed the importance of women’s leadership in tackling pressing global concerns such as climate change and other environmental issues. Abzug argued that the women’s rights and environmental justice movements were deeply intertwined. She encouraged women to be the leaders of environmental preservation and contended that to accomplish this, women need to be connected to Earth, define their roles and share their experiences with the environment, and take an international feminist approach.