The climate crisis impacts everyone. During Climate Week at Penn, which will be held from Sept. 18-22, everyone is invited to find their place in the climate movement. A campus-wide effort, Climate Week is supported by many schools and offices and overseen by a core organizing committee with faculty, staff, and student membership, Richter included. The Environmental Innovations Initiative, part of the Office of the Provost, serves as administrative lead of the decentralized effort, which this year entails 30-some events offering varied opportunities for cross-campus collaboration and climate discussions.
The climate emergency is a health emergency. On Tuesday, Sept. 18, from 12-1:30 p.m. at College Green, a deans’ roundtable discussion, “Collaborating on Climate and Health,” will highlight the ways in which the climate crisis is impacting health and health education, as well as ways in which health professions could improve their practices to reduce their environmental footprint.
“Issues of sustainability and global health affect all of us and future generations,” says Mark Wolff, the Morton Amsterdam Dean of the School of Dental Medicine. “Dental practice creates a significant waste stream and has a significant carbon footprint. We need to engage our profession and our students in changing that footprint.”
The roundtable will feature leaders from Penn’s five health schools—the Perelman School of Medicine, the School of Veterinary Medicine, the School of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, and the School of Social Policy & Practice—and is open to the entire Penn community.
“The deans’ roundtable is a great opportunity to share interconnections across health sectors, including health impacts, health disparities, adaptation strategies, and opportunities to reduce the carbon footprint of our respective health sectors,” says Dean Andrew Hoffman of the School of Veterinary Medicine. “This is an important moment to develop curriculum across the health schools to empower the next generation, and this will be advanced more efficiently if the health centers work together given the commonality of the problems and solutions.”
Read the full story of Climate Week.
PRCCEH Climate Week Event
We will be hosting our own Climate Week event in partnership with the Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology, titled, Impacts of Heat on Health in Early Life. This 60-minute panel session will feature Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia physicians, Sharon McGrath-Morrow, MBA, MD and Timothy D. Nelin, MD. This panel will be moderated by Marilyn Howarth, FACOEM, the Director of the Community Engagement Core at the Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology and the Deputy Director of the Philadelphia Regional Center for Children’s Environmental Health. Register here