Wisconsin Academy: Academy Evenings presentation explores effects of global climate change on Wisconsin environment, health

Contact: Jason A. Smith, communications director

MADISON—Explore the links between global warming, the environment, and public health at the next Academy Evenings presentation, Heat Waves and High Water: Climate Change, Public Health, and the Wisconsin Landscape. University of Wisconsin–Madison professor Jonathan Patz, director of Global Environmental Health, will discuss research that indicates a relationship between the rise in global temperatures and the degradation of our natural environment. Patz, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning scientist and lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will explain how sea-level rise, changes in the landscape, and cycles of flood and drought could deliver new and unexpected health risks to the Great Lakes region.

A continuation of the Wisconsin Academy’s “Wisconsin 2050: Pioneering the Future” series and in partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum as part of its 75th anniversary celebrations, Patz’s Academy Evenings presentation will be held on November 15, 2009, at 2:30 pm in the Arboretum’s Auditorium, 1207 Seminole Highway, Madison. The presentation is free and open to the public. Seating is first-come, first-served. Doors open at 2:00 pm.

Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH, is Professor and Director of Global Environmental Health at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He co-chaired the health expert panel of the U.S. National Assessment on Climate Change and was a Convening Lead Author for the United Nations/World Bank Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. For the past fifteen years, Patz has been a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the organization that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Patz is President of the International Association for Ecology and Health, and has written over 85 peer-reviewed papers and a textbook addressing the health effects of global environmental change. He has been invited to brief both houses of Congress, served on several scientific committees of the National Academy of Sciences, and currently serves on science advisory boards for both CDC and EPA. In addition to his sharing in the 2007 Nobel Prize, Patz received an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellows Award in 2005, shared the Zayed International Prize for the Environment in 2006, and earned the distinction of becoming a UW–Madison Romnes Faculty Fellow in 2009. He has earned medical board certification in both Occupational / Environmental Medicine and Family Medicine and received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University (1987) and his Master of Public Health degree (1992) from Johns Hopkins University.

Thank you to the UW–Madison Arboretum for hosting this special Academy Evenings presentation as part of its 75th anniversary celebration. The “Wisconsin 2050: Pioneering the Future” Academy Evenings series is sponsored by the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, University of Wisconsin–Madison, M&I Bank, the Evjue Foundation, and Isthmus Publishing Company.

About Academy Evenings

Academy Evenings engage the public in a wide variety of topics of public interest and feature Wisconsin’s leading thinkers, scholars, and artists. These free forums are intended to encourage public interaction with these leaders in an intimate atmosphere designed to foster discussion and build community. The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters sponsors Academy Evenings regularly in Overture Center for the Arts in Madison and at other venues across the state. For more information on Academy Evenings in your area, visit wisconsinacademy.org .