Substitute CDC Climate And Health Conference Paints Increasingly Bleak Picture For Warming World
ATLANTA—In a gathering impacted by presidential politics, an all-star cast of public health experts largely stuck to their own bleak script: Climate change is poised to unleash an unprecedented, global public health crisis. Not even former Vice President Al Gore, who served as the day's emcee, waded into the political swamp. He presented a half-hour, health-themed version of his much-lauded slide show.
While Gore summarized the gobsmacking array of climate impacts—heat stress, water supplies, food security, mental health, respiratory and infectious diseases, allergens, and weather disasters—he left room at the end for some more convenient truths: The world, he said, is more than able to shift to a clean energy economy, reduce CO2 emissions, and blunt the worst impacts of climate change.
Harvard internist Ashish Jha discussed the climate-related spread of pathogens, and provided one of the conference’s few direct political jabs: “Walls,” he said, “will not keep these pathogens out.” Activist and philanthropist Laura Turner Seydel gave an impassioned pitch to participate in the April 22 Scientists’ March in Washington, and to resist the anticipated science and environmental rollbacks of the Trump Administration.
But much of the day focused on overwhelmingly bad news for the world. Harvard’s Sam Myers presented potential impacts on the global food supply that go beyond the links between extreme weather and crop failure. Research shows that increased CO2 actually decreases nutrients in certain food crops, he said. Rising temperatures, he added, encourage some forms of plant blight, and could also make the backbreaking outdoor work of food production impossible in regions like northern Africa.
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http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2017/feb/critical-condition-public-health-officials-sound
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