Responding to
climate change

The health effects of global warming, however, are already being felt. Extreme weather events such as wildfires, droughts, and flooding are becoming more frequent, resulting in more injuries, deaths, and relocations. Heat and air pollution are sending people with asthma and other respiratory ailments to the emergency room. Diseases carried by mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks are expanding their territory—dengue has become endemic in Florida, Lyme disease has worked its way up to Canada and over to California, and some fear that malaria may re-emerge in the U.S.

Tie these health burdens—which are only likely to worsen—with the current administration’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement and dismantle environmental regulations, and the call to action becomes more urgent. “The federal government’s actions might be a headwind from a funding perspective, but they are also very much a tailwind from an inspiration and motivation perspective,” says Daniel Rochberg, an instructor in environmental health who worked for the U.S. State Department as special assistant to the lead U.S. climate negotiators under presidents Bush and Obama. “As others have said, ‘We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change, and we are the last generation that can do something about it.’ We have to get busy doing something about it.”

Rollins has gotten busy. Faculty researchers are building the science of climate impacts, strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and approaches for increasing resilience to climate change. Climate@Emory, a university-wide organization of concerned students, faculty, and staff, is partnering with other academic institutions, industries, and governments to support education and climate remediation efforts. Through Climate@Emory’s initiative, Emory University is an accredited, official observer to the UN climate talks and has sent students and faculty to the climate conferences in Paris in 2015 and in Marrakech in 2016. And, of course, Rollins is educating the next generation of scientists who will be dealing with the fallout of today’s climate decisions.

“For environmental scientists, it’s a challenging climate,” says Paige Tolbert, O. Wayne Rollins Chair of Environmental Health. “That means we have to be creative, because we can’t step aside and wait four years. It’s more critical than ever that we keep moving forward and make whatever contributions we possibly can.”

That ascent requires teamwork and partnerships, which he is working to build through Climate@Emory. His goal—nothing less than finding a way to get past partisan politics and work collaboratively on climate change.

Part of that equation involves science—working with scientists from around the state to improve the collective understanding of what climate change means for Georgia and what can best be done to address it. In May, Rochberg was instrumental in hosting, along with University of Georgia and Georgia Institute of Technology, a two-day workshop to draft the “Georgia Climate Research Roadmap.” Scientists, researchers, and environmental experts from across the state gathered at Emory to define a set of key climate research questions that could eventually aid climate change-related decision-making and planning for Georgia policymakers, scientists, communities, and service organizations. “The idea is there are tons of experts around the state working on this issue. We can and should do a better job of pulling them together, working to advance our understanding of climate change, and putting forward ideas of how to respond to the challenges it presents,” says Rochberg. “The workshop was a great step in that direction.”

Another part of the equation involves changing the partisan nature of the conversation about climate change in Georgia. Toward that end, Rochberg has two projects in the planning phase. First, he is working with partners at UGA, Georgia Tech, and elsewhere to create “Georgia Climate Stories.” These will be two- to three-minute videos of people from all over the state and from all walks of life—ranging from peach farmers to children with asthma—talking about what climate change means to them. “Now you’re no longer talking about politics,” says Rochberg. “You’re talking about what is happening to you.”

Second, he plans to organize a workshop tentatively
called “Red, Climate, and Blue.” It would bring together about 50 students from all over the state, half Democrats and half Republicans, all concerned about climate change. The workshop would encourage students to listen across political divides and develop an action plan for creating healthier conversations on climate change in their communities. “Students see climate change through a very different lens than their parents,” says Rochberg.

The final portion of the equation focuses on finding solutions. Teaming with Georgia Tech’s Climate and Energy Policy Lab, Climate@Emory has hosted two town hall meetings under the banner “Choosing Our Energy Future.” Participants from academia, government, NGOs, utilities, and the private sector discussed what the state can do to move forward on clean energy regardless of where federal policy goes.

Cognizant of this, Tolbert has beefed up the environmental health department, more than doubling faculty and students in the past seven years.
“By having all the new faculty come on board, we are able to tackle climate change issues from so many sides,” says Tolbert. “We have experts in water and sanitation issues, air quality issues, chronic and infectious disease ecology, and policy issues. We’ve revised the curriculum, adding courses and shifting the focus of others. The department has been intentionally positioning itself to make a contribution on climate change because we think this is one of the most important issues of our time.”

Climate@Emory offers a way for students from across the university to engage with faculty and staff on climate-related projects through the Emory Climate Analysis and Solutions Team, or ECAST. Ten such projects are currently under way supporting climate-related efforts at Emory, Atlanta, and DeKalb County.

Ian Buller 17PhD and Sam Peters 19PhD are working with the City of Atlanta’s Office of Sustainability to identify health co-benefits of the city’s Climate Action Plan. Finding few studies that focused on Atlanta, they broadened their literature review to other cities and were able to identify four broad public health benefits of climate mitigation: reduction in health care and emergency department visits; fewer cases of infections and poisonings; improved physical activity, mental health, and nutrition; and improved birth outcomes and childhood cancer rates.

While they did not get to the point of quantifying benefits, they laid the path for future efforts. “Right now, we are just laying out the general supporting evidence that is out there and identifying research gaps,” says Buller. “It could be a jumping off point for a whole research plan for Emory or partnerships with other institutions.”

The project could also help the city sell its plan to businesses and citizens. Says Peters, “If we can move the message away from ‘We need to save the planet’ toward a personalized message like, ‘Your child might have a better chance of avoiding an asthma attack if we can reduce emissions,’ we may be able to engage people in the conversation.”

Through its varied efforts, Rollins is positioning itself to help advance the science and interventions surrounding climate change. “Global warming will be a defining issue in the lifetimes of our students,” says Tolbert. “We will continue to devote as many resources as we possibly can to make significant contributions in understanding and meeting the challenge.”