You’re invited to attend on April 29th when Ecology Ottawa teams with the University of Ottawa Centre on Governance to bring you the panel discussion Sick of Climate Change? Local Health Impacts in a Warming World
- Councillor Diane Holmes, Chair, Ottawa Board of Health
- John Stone, Adjunct Professor, Carleton University and Lead Author for the IPCC Working Group II Report
- Dr. Curtis Lavoie, Emergency Physician, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario
- Alice Hutton, former Community Health Planner, Centretown Community Health Centre
- Sir Michael Marmot, Chair, World Health Organization Commission on the Social Determinants of Health
- Dr. Rosamund Lewis, Associate Medical Officer of Health, City of Ottawa
- Frank Welsh, Director of Policy, Canadian Public Health Association
- Prof. Matthew Paterson, University of Ottawa School of Political Studies, and lead author, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Your Turn to Talk:
This won’t be one of those events
where you sit and listen for hours!
You’ll have lots of time to talk to
your colleagues about how
climate change affects your work,
and what you can do about it.
- Health Canada has produced Human Health in a Changing Climate: A Canadian Assessment of vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacity.
- The US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has produced A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change.
- The March 31 release of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report included a chapter on the human health impacts of climate change.
- You can also see an infographic of how climate change intersects with health here.
The health impacts of climate change go beyond heat waves – though heat waves have killed tens of thousands elsewhere – flash floods aren’t unknown in Canada and not only bring contaminated water and occasional drownings but when people’s homes are damaged there are often lasting problems such as mold causing reparatory illness. Warmer winters in Ottawa bring more freeze-thaw cycles and freezing rain which in turn cause more slips and falls with resulting injury. Warmer winters also mean insect borne disease like Lyme disease that has moved into the Ottawa region. To add to the difficulties, during large natural disasters like the flooding in High River, Alberta last spring, hospital facilities are sometimes knocked out of service just when they are needed most.
These are all predictable results of climate change. They’ll all call for a smart, coordinated response from health professionals.
And Ottawa is already seeing the early signs that climate change is upon us.
But the good news is that Ottawa is a part of the solution. In Q2 of 2014 the City of Ottawa will bring forward its new climate change action plan for council approval.
This is your chance to:
- Hear from top experts on the health impacts of climate change
- Weigh the City’s draft plan against what you’ve learned
- See what difference you can make on climate change in your own health care workplace.
Join us for a fast-paced event that will change the way you think about climate change and what you can do about it.
April 29, 2014 at 7pm – 9pm
WHERE (right beside the OC Transpo transitway at Laurier)
The Desmarais Building at the University of Ottawa, 12th floor
55 Laurier Ave E
Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5
Add this event to your Google Calendar