Course ID: | EHSC 4200. 3 hours. |
Course Title: | Global Climate Change and Public Health |
Course Description: | Global climate change is the environmental issue that will define the 21st century. Addresses the intricacies of the science, environmental and human impacts, economics, amelioration technologies, and regulatory solutions to climate change from a public health perspective. Comparison of information from the mass media and the scientific literature. |
Oasis Title: | Glob Clim Change Pub Health |
Pre or Corequisite: | EHSC 3060 or EHSC 3060E or permission of department |
Grading System: | A-F (Traditional) |
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Course Objectives: | 1. Examine historical evidence from natural and model experiments that illustrate the cause and consequences of global climate change
2. Compile the evidence for anthropogenically induced climate change
3. Assess the environmental consequences to date on public health due to global climate change
4. Describe and quantify the impacts of climate change on human health, the environment, public health, and societies
5. Delineate IPCC working group II assessments (impacts, adaptations, and vulnerability)
6. Develop a plan using current technology combined with regulations (nationally and internationally) for reducing emissions that lead to global climate change
7. Analyze successful and failed efforts to address climate change in the U.S. and abroad
8. Determine the inequitable effects and environmental justice issues associated with climate change and their effects on public health
9. Describe the role of climate change as an environmental determinant of health
10. Organize scientific information to communicate actions to be taken to reduce climate change to a variety of stakeholders, especially those related to public health impacts; compare information from the mass media and the scientific literature to increase the understanding of climate change and its effects on public health
11. Predict the feasibility of proposed technologies to combat climate change
12. Compare and contrast mitigation efforts versus adaptation with regard to climate change, and their effects on health
13. Explore environmental activism from a historical perspective and determine its effectiveness, as well as the disparity in human health effects from climate change from an environmental justice perspective |
Topical Outline: | Topic 1: Overview of climate change science (definition, early discoveries, history of paleoclimate)
Topic 2: Natural and Anthropogenic causes of climate change, greenhouse gases, radiative forcing, biogeochemical cycling of carbon
Topic 3: Climate modeling and climate change feedbacks: linking atmosphere, oceans, biosphere, and cryosphere to human health, consequences of climate change on the environmental and human health
Topic 4: Impacts of climate change on health: food safety/quality, water resources, air quality, extreme events and disasters, human migration, mental health, and well-being (following IPCC working group II assessments)
Topic 5: Environmental justice and differential effect of climate change on the health of underserved populations
Topic 6: Mechanisms to slow climate change, solutions on the horizon, and mechanisms for adaptation and resilience to existing and predicted climate change
Topic 7: National and international treaties that address climate change (United Nations Framework), summary for policymakers |