After three of Earth’s hottest days ever measured, the United Nations called for a flurry of efforts to try to reduce the human toll from soaring and searing temperatures, calling it “an extreme heat epidemic.”
Along with allies in universities and organizations across the U.S., the University of Washington’s Health Alliance International (HAI) developed a policy resolution last year for the American Public Health Association (APHA) condemning the growing problem of violent attacks on health workers in war zones.
Sometimes you have to spend money to save money — and a major new report finds that spending $1.8 trillion on climate adaptation projects would result in $7.1 trillion in total net benefits. The report predicts that the most impressive returns will come from investments that strengthen early warning systems for disasters like storms and floods.
By Bobbi Nodell, Health Sciences NewsBeat
UW professor of global health Kristie Ebi has attended United Nations climate-change conferences since 2000. The agreement reached at the Paris conference in December, she said, was nothing short of monumental.
“It showed that world governments agree climate change is a serious problem and they are committed to addressing it,” Ebi said. She’s an expert on the health risks of climate change and how humans adapt to it. She addressed conference attendees on Dec. 5 and 11.