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I must be missing something. I am in Washington D.C. but am not able to find a single event to commemorate Earth Day! They must be all doing secret activities or something. There was a large exhibit on the National Mall on Sunday, to which N and I dropped into but it was a bit disappointing from what I expected D.C. to be hosting. Last year it poured cats and dogs but there were so many more exhibitors than this year.
I did attend though a very interesting talk by Dr. Maria Neira from WHO, who shared the WHO's strategy on Climate Change and Health. How they are promoting the strong link between Climate Change and Public Health. She briefly summarised the results from the report released on Public Health & Climate Change.
And what is a WHO talk without the statistics. But it is really sad that every year over 3.5 million children die from undernutrition, 2.2 million (mostly children) die from diarrhoea, and 900 thousand die from malaria. The report that is soon to be released at their upcoming meeting in Geneva at their next World Health Assembly will show the link between these incidents and changes in climate (some directly and some indirectly). She shared the objectives from the report create awareness, generate more evidence, and strenghtening existing health systems.
I sound/feel a bit cynical/skeptical. I am reading Laurie Garrett's Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health. And it's too heavy for the optimist to read. N recommended this book when I asked him for non-fiction suggestions. I have been ending my daysreading this book and it's definitely informative on how precarious our systems really are and there's so much that is needed to be done. So, with this in the back of my mind, sitting through the talk made me really wonder the impact of it all.
N promises the next book suggestion will be a positive one. something to look forward to! And in the meantime, US EPA made headlines last week finally acknowledging that greenhouse gas emissions are dangerous to the environment! oh what enlightenment!
One of the questions asked in the talk was who could possibly take leadership in the problems facing Climate Change & Public Health issues. The speaker first commented that commitment and leadership was needed from all nations as diseases and climate have no boundaries. She went on to say that the emerging countries have the opportunity to take on the lead, being Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa. Or maybe even USA with the recent admission of dangers of greenhouse gases.
It's not anything new, but I do believe that whoever finds a way to deal with this issue will be the one with the competitive advantage.
I am turning off my PC, TV, and am off to the library on foot to share the resources there for Earth Day! And it's a cold day in D.C. - if this is not a sign of climate change, I don't know what else is!
I did attend though a very interesting talk by Dr. Maria Neira from WHO, who shared the WHO's strategy on Climate Change and Health. How they are promoting the strong link between Climate Change and Public Health. She briefly summarised the results from the report released on Public Health & Climate Change.
And what is a WHO talk without the statistics. But it is really sad that every year over 3.5 million children die from undernutrition, 2.2 million (mostly children) die from diarrhoea, and 900 thousand die from malaria. The report that is soon to be released at their upcoming meeting in Geneva at their next World Health Assembly will show the link between these incidents and changes in climate (some directly and some indirectly). She shared the objectives from the report create awareness, generate more evidence, and strenghtening existing health systems.
I sound/feel a bit cynical/skeptical. I am reading Laurie Garrett's Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health. And it's too heavy for the optimist to read. N recommended this book when I asked him for non-fiction suggestions. I have been ending my daysreading this book and it's definitely informative on how precarious our systems really are and there's so much that is needed to be done. So, with this in the back of my mind, sitting through the talk made me really wonder the impact of it all.
N promises the next book suggestion will be a positive one. something to look forward to! And in the meantime, US EPA made headlines last week finally acknowledging that greenhouse gas emissions are dangerous to the environment! oh what enlightenment!
One of the questions asked in the talk was who could possibly take leadership in the problems facing Climate Change & Public Health issues. The speaker first commented that commitment and leadership was needed from all nations as diseases and climate have no boundaries. She went on to say that the emerging countries have the opportunity to take on the lead, being Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa. Or maybe even USA with the recent admission of dangers of greenhouse gases.
It's not anything new, but I do believe that whoever finds a way to deal with this issue will be the one with the competitive advantage.
I am turning off my PC, TV, and am off to the library on foot to share the resources there for Earth Day! And it's a cold day in D.C. - if this is not a sign of climate change, I don't know what else is!
