Several organizers, including former Vice-president Al Gore, have revived the CDC’s meeting scheduled for next month. The CDC canceled the climate change and health summit just days before the Trump inaugural without explanation, according to CTV News Canada.
The summit will still be held in Atlanta, Georgia, but at the Carter Center instead of the CDC. It will be a one-day conference on February 16, 2017. Al Gore will still be one of two keynote speakers, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
Dr. Benjamin, the other keynote speaker said, “It’s going to be on climate and health and in many ways, it’s going to be a very different meeting,” reports ABC News.
The American Public Health Association, Climate Reality Project, Harvard Global Health Institute, and the University of Washington Center for Health and the Global Environment are hosting the meeting that is supported by the Turner Foundation, media giant Ted Turner’s environmentally focused foundation.
Event organizers say the “condensed version” of the meeting will preserve the intent and focus of the CDC version and will be a substantive working session.
“The evidence is clear that climate change is a major threat facing the public’s health,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, according to E&E News. “Openly discussing these scientific issues will help us prepare for this looming challenge and better protect the American people.”
As Digital Journal reported on January 23, the CDC has a long history of backing away from hot political issues. Howard Frumkin, former director of the CDC Center for Environmental Health and a professor of environmental health at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health said, “Sometimes the agency is subject to external political pressure; sometimes the agency self-censors or pre-emptively stays away from certain issues. Climate change has been that issue historically.”
