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As climate change increasingly becomes a fact of daily life, the health hazards of rising sea levels, catastrophic storms, water and food shortages, respiratory and vector-borne diseases, and temperature extremes are coming into sharper focus. Military leaders are warning that climate change could result in a refugee crisis of “unimaginable scale,” and some experts believe...
Cities are responsible for 70 percent of global carbon emissions, and by 2050, two out of every three people will live in one. Fortunately, cities are getting serious about environmental footprint — New York announced its own Green New Deal, Melbourne aims to be carbon neutral by 2020, and Los Angeles will use 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. Mayors are often more nim...
Health systems contribute significantly to the forces driving climate change, given the vast quantities of energy they consume and the enormous volumes of waste they generate. In the US, the health sector produces eight percent of the nation’s total emissions, while Brazilian hospitals account for 10 percent of that country’s energy use. Health systems can reduce their car...
As secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres led the global adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015. But she was not always so hopeful, and recalls a turning point as she consciously shifted her attitude from despair to stubborn optimism. Jeff Goodell, author of The Water Will Come sits down with Figueres to reve...
As the United States leaves the Paris Agreement, how will the leadership vacuum be filled? Will China continue to surge ahead, tackling air pollution and investing in renewable energy? Will India soon abandon its commitments, favoring coal development over clean air? If choices that individual countries make in regard to their energy mix have planet-wide consequences, does...
Can a transformative solution built on the conservative principles of free markets and limited government save the planet? Now that the United States is backing out of the Paris climate accord, many believe that any significant reduction to greenhouse gas emissions must be led by the business community. Can such a business-led effort to promote carbon dividends — carbon ta...
The impact of climate change is dire: floods, drought, fire, hurricanes, deforestation, degraded water systems, agricultural devastation, and refugee crises. No one will escape the health effects, as respiratory, cardiovascular, and infectious disease rates rise, water and food shortages widen, and mental health harms escalate. But communities with weak infrastructure, fra...
With crop production increasingly threatened by unpredictable weather and a world population expected to grow 30 percent by midcentury, how are we going to feed everyone? The race to reinvent the global food system is on, and solutions you’ve probably never heard of are already in play. One company is tackling problems around industrial agriculture by growing cell-based me...
The recent leaps of science—sequencing the human genome, advancing the world-changing technology of CRISPR, deepening knowledge of the brain—owe much to Francis Collins’s brilliant mind and steady hand. Who better, then, to talk about what transformative discoveries come next? Genomics, immunotherapy, precision medicine, new uses for mRNA technology, and other interdiscipl...
Many experts argue that massive government mobilization on the scale of World War II deployment is needed to address the catastrophe of climate change. Such is the scope of the Green New Deal, a policy calling for 100 percent renewable energy by 2030, universal health care, living wages, and jobs guarantees. But some economists argue it could cost between $51 trillion and...
How can we unlock the power of entrepreneurship to widen access to health care, close gender disparity, and increase prosperity in the global South? Hear from expert voices and innovators on tools to address social, economic, and environmental challenges in developing economies.
Social entrepreneurs Anne Kelly of Ceres and Rebecca Onie of Health Leads discuss how they’ve made unlikely allies in unlikely places, despite working on hot-button issues in a difficult political climate. By meeting people, practitioners, policymakers, and leaders where they are, Ceres and Health Leads have made considerable progress on two of the most urgent and universa...
Despite the worthy intentions of government and corporate leaders, the Paris Agreement targets of holding global warming to near 1.5°C may not be met, and many organizations say they don’t have plans and data to actually reach climate goals. This session will discuss strategies needed to design a net-zero future. Presented by Deloitte
Can we end the HIV epidemic in the next five years? President Trump pledged in February to do just that, but it will take vigorous research, aggressive outreach, new global commitments, better access to evidence-based treatment, attitude changes — and resources. Although the viral infection has drawn less attention in recent years, some 37 million people still live with HI...
Since the 1989 release of Bill McKibben’s landmark book, The End of Nature, little has been done to tackle climate change. But McKibben says we’re finally in a moment when voters, media, and political leaders are paying attention. From school strikes to the Green New Deal, young people around the world have opened a window for action. His plea is this: Seize the opportunit...
From academic pressures to classroom shootings, economic uncertainty to climate change, young people are facing more stressors than ever, and it’s surfacing in some terrible ways. In the past 12 months, 62 percent of college students said they had felt overwhelming anxiety at some point, 41 percent were so depressed that it was difficult to function, and 11 percent had ser...
If you want to make an omelet, you’ve got to deal with a broken food system—one that is a massive contributor to climate change, that leaves populations hungry or full of non-nutritious calories, and that exploits land, labor, and species. Award-winning food writer Mark Bittman has a plan to provide affordable, nutritionally and environmentally sound food for everyone, cre...
Inequitable and untimely responses to COVID-19 and other pandemics. Disproportionate health impacts of climate change in Africa. Unequal financing mechanisms. Lack of reliable data and information. A dearth of leadership guided by human-centered values. These are a few of the many challenges that stand in the way of global health and development systems that work for all....
The health effects of climate change sound a clarion warning that we must attend to a rapidly deteriorating environment. Polluted cities, severe droughts and flooding, and devastating storms are portents of a world in which risks to the health of the planet and the health of families are closely linked. We urgently need visionary and strategic leaders who can identify and...