THE NEXT GLOBAL CRISIS

Droughts, Disasters, and Disease: The problem of climate change and how it impacts relief and development work
September 6, 2007

This session addresses the basics of climate change and beyond, taking a more in-depth look at what the current and potential future impacts on humanitarian and development work are, as well as what steps organizations are taking to respond.

SPEAKERS:

Amanda Staudt, PhD

Dr. Amanda Staudt provides scientific expertise for the National Wildlife Federation’s activities on global warming. Prior to joining NWF, Dr. Staudt was a senior program officer at the National Academies, where her work focused on climate change, air quality, and weather impacts on transportation. As a key liaison between the scientific community and the federal agencies that support climate change research, she directed the National Academies Climate Research Committee and helped author more than a dozen reports on topics including the U.S. strategy for supporting climate change research, radiative forcing of climate, past records of surface temperature, and practices for effective global change assessments. In graduate school, Dr. Staudt developed a global model to investigate how long-range transport of pollutants from fossil fuel burning and forest fires affects the atmosphere above the remote tropical Pacific. She holds a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences (2001) and an A.B. in environmental engineering and sciences (1996) from Harvard University. She is a member of the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Cindy Parker, MD, MPH

Dr. Cindy Parker is on the faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences where she teaches the graduate course "The Global Environment and Public Health." She is also on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness where she focuses on crisis communication during a disaster as well as developing curriculum and providing training for the public health workforce in disaster preparedness. Her research interests include global environmental topics such as climate change and sustainable development, mental health and disaster preparedness, and risk communication. Prior to joining the faculty at Hopkins, Dr. Parker was the Environmental Health Consultant to Physicians for Social Responsibility where she provided expertise on risk communication of environmental health issues to physicians, policy makers, the media, and the general public, focusing on climate change, air quality, energy policy, and the use of antibiotics in agriculture. Dr. Parker received her MD from the University of Arizona and her Masters in Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is board certified in Public Health and General Preventive Medicine.

Dory McIntosh, MBA, BSc

Dory McIntosh currently works in Climate Change - Policy and Coordination for Mercy Corps; one of the largest global humanitarian aid agencies.  She is part of the Climate Change unit which is helping Mercy Corps to address climate change in three ways: adopting a range of in-house measures to reduce the agencies’ carbon emissions and improve its “footprint”; conducting research into appropriate adaptation measures for communities in countries most at risk and piloting a range of market driven solutions to what is a market based problem.  Prior to working with Mercy Corps Dory McIntosh was the Executive Director of a UK NGO which had a heavy em phasis on environmental programming and was involved in the development of  international standards such as the  Forest Stewardship Council and the equivalent standards for fisheries and marine products. She was the Company Secretary of a not-for profit trading organisation dealing in FSC certified timber, volatile oils and ethically sourced plants with pharmaceutical potential. She has a degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Aberdeen and an MBA from the University of Edinburgh.

For details on Sessions 2 and 3 of this series, click here.

For more information, email Kimberly Darter.