The Resilience Series 2024: Climate and Health in the Spotlight
With the recent extreme heat wave in Summer 2023, climate has been on everyone’s mind and rightfully so. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tells us that past energy and land use practices have caused global warming such that an increase of 1.1 degrees C was experienced in 2011-2020 over the period 1850-1900 and a 1.5-degrees C increase is projected for the first-half of 2030. The predicted global temperature increases will intensify natural hazards in all regions of the world and will have widespread adverse impacts and damages to nature and people. As evidenced by the escalating number of natural disasters over the past two decades, everyone has begun taking notice. Literally, in every part of the US, we are seeing resilience and climate action planning efforts developing. We also see strong activation towards addressing environmental justice gaps and reducing disparities especially in underserved communities in rural and urban areas. Addressing climate challenges is not an easy task by any means, especially since climate change will have the most profound impact on ecosystems and human health both directly and indirectly. Such impacts are not as well understood and have yet to be fully investigated and mitigated.
In the upcoming segment of HuRRI’s Resilience Series for Spring 2024, we team up with UH Population Health and orient the series towards climate impacts on ecosystem and human health. The Series places Climate and Health in the spotlight and addresses strategies for mitigation and adaptation that can improve health outcomes, reduce risks and alleviate disparities, and ensure a sustainable and equitable environmental quality and quality of life for all.
We invite you to participate in the series and join the conversation on how we can mitigate and adapt and become more resilient to climate individually and collectively in neighborhoods and communities.