As the effects of climate change increase, so, too, will its effects on human health. “Heat waves [in America],” Dr. George Luber notes, “kill more people every year than all other extreme weather combined, more than flooding, more than hurricanes, more than tornadoes.”
Luber, who has researched subjects including heat stress in urban environments and harmful algal blooms, climate change will “increase the potential for the transmission of disease” as well as directly affect human health through an increase in severe weather events, including heat waves.
Luber is an epidemiologist and the chief of the Climate and Health Program in the Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects at the National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has also served as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer and staff epidemiologist at CDC.
Additionally, Luber is a co-chair of the Climate Change and Human Health Interagency Workgroup at the US Global Research Program and a member of the American Anthropological Association’s Presidential Task Force on Climate Change. He is also a convening lead author and member of the Federal Advisory Committee for the US National Climate Assessment and a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Fifth Assessment Report.
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The Climate 25 is a digital media and television experience featuring interviews with the world’s 25 most compelling voices on one of the most pressing issues of our time – the impact of climate disruption on human security.