Is Anyone Listening?

Our Climate Crisis and Hopeful Ways Forward

19 November 2024

16:00 Tuesday

A213 WENYUAN Building

John D. Spengler

Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation, Recipient of The Heinz Award

Director of the JPB Environmental Health Fellowship Program Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Moderator

Lan Wang, Dean of CAUP, Chair Professor, Tongji

Jie Yin, Assistant Professor of CAUP, Tongji

Abstract: Evidence for a changing climate is even more compelling than we thought likely a few years ago. Dread and despair need not impede commitment, action, innovation, and hope. There are pathways to transition. The presentation shares many of the promising efforts to mitigate and adapt to our new reality of a warmer planet.

Prof. Spengler has over 40 years of experience in environmental health and exposure science, characterizing the exposure to and effects of contaminants in outdoor and indoor environments. Through studies of homes, office buildings, schools, and transit systems. His research has investigated design, materials, maintenance, and behaviors that mitigate exposure to harmful contaminants. Several recent studies have looked at health and the built environment and the well-being benefits of exposure to nature, including using Virtual Reality to explore the physiologic and cognitive effects of exposure to nature in indoor and outdoor settings. For the past

decade, his teaching and research have increasingly focused on issues related to climate change and sustainability. Motivated by the urgency conveyed by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), his team has formed collaborations with professional organizations, NGOs, and companies to affect evidence-based decisions more rapidly in other sectors of society.