Global Warming and Health: American Association for the Advancement of Science Plenary Session

Join journalists and health experts via livestream at a plenary session for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting, “Toward Science Without Walls.” The plenary session on February 16, 2024, will be focused on the interconnections between climate change and health and is based on Pulitzer Center-supported reporting in a special issue of Science magazine. 

Grantee Meredith Wadman, one of the lead journalists in the series, will moderate the conversation, which also will include another series journalist Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar. The plenary session is available in-person and via livestream.

The consequences of climate change are already becoming clear—not just for the planet, but for our own health. 

A warmer climate favors the mosquito that spreads dengue and may already be fueling a worldwide surge in the debilitating disease. Warming may also have enabled malaria-carrying mosquitoes to flourish in Africa’s cooler highlands and ticks that carry Lyme disease. Then there are the direct effects of heat on the human body. 

Thousands die every summer in worsening heat waves, and chronic kidney disease has killed thousands of outdoor laborers, including Central American sugarcane workers. Pregnant women, such as those who toil outdoors in sub-Saharan Africa, and their fetuses are also highly vulnerable to heat because of reasons that researchers are only beginning to probe. 

However, adaptation is possible, even in countries where air conditioning and window screens are scarce.

In addition to Wadman and Chandrashekhar, panelists include: 

• Ana Bonell, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• Jason Glaser, La Isla Network, Alpharetta, Georgia
• Erin Mordecai, Stanford University, Stanford, California
• Adelaide Lusambili, Africa International University, Nairobi, Kenya

Click on these links to learn more about the plenary session and the AAAS Annual Meeting.