Climate Change: What Role for Clinical Medicine?

Monthly webinars co-hosted by the MGH Center for the Environment and Health, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and MGH Institute of Health Professions Center for Climate Change, Climate Justice, and Health.

Climate Change: What Role for Clinical Medicine?

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Featured Speaker:

Daniel Schrag, PhD
Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology Harvard University

Overview

Climate change may be the most challenging problem human society has ever faced as it is a global collective action problem that also involves very long timescales. Compounding the problem of collective action is the inherent inequality of climate change, as many people in many countries will suffer impacts while contributing very little to creating the problem. And the long timescales of climate change come from many aspects of the Earth system, but also from the nature of the world’s energy systems that remain crucial for modern economic activity. In the anticipation of how climate change will affect humans and ecosystems in the future, Dr. Schrag will discuss a path forward, including an examination of the potential role of hospitals and health systems in responding to the many ways that climate change will affect human health and well-being.