The Wabash doctor who waged a long and ultimately successful battle against smoking sees global climate change as an exponentially greater threat to global\u00a0public health.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Wednesday in Baxter Hall during the College\u2019s observance of Earth Week, Dr. Stephen Jay \u201963\u2014 who is\u00a0Professor of Health Policy and Management at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis and in 2010 received a lifetime achievement award from the Indiana Public Health Foundation\u2014called climate change \u201cone of the grand challenges in the history of humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n
He quoted World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan:\u00a0\u201cFor public health,\u00a0climate change is the defining issue for the 21st century.”<\/p>\n
He called the science on climate change \u201creally, really, compelling\u201d and noted disturbing similarities between the \u201cdoubt propaganda\u201d put forth by tobacco manufacturers in the1960s and the tactics of nay-sayers on climate change.<\/p>\n
“Evidence of global climate change is all around us,\u201d said Jay, who recently helped lead the data-driven effort to shut down a coal-burning power plant in Indianapolis due to its impact on the health of residents in the area.\u00a0\u201cMy wife and I were\u00a0recently riding our bikes in the Everglades, and we saw firsthand evidence of climate change. We saw water running across trails that had previously been dry forever. We\u2019re seeing the tremendous intrusion of saltwater into the ecosystems in South Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmericans are already suffering from the impacts of climate change. In \u00a0the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska, you find people struggling to\u00a0survive on what remains of their island being engulfed by that sea.\u201d<\/p>\n