At Howard University's College of Medicine today, President Obama will ask Americans to think of climate change as a threat not just to the environment, but also to their health. The president is set to announce a series of steps that corporate entities like Google and Microsoft are taking to better prepare the nation's health systems for the effects of a warmer, more erratic climate. This effort to link climate change to health comes as Obama works to build support for steps he's taken to curb US emissions that are opposed by business and industry, including strict limits on vehicles and power plants. Obama is relying on those cuts to make up the US contribution to a global climate treaty that he and other world leaders expect to finalize in December.
Obama is aiming to spotlight ways that climate change will affect the body, like more asthma attacks, allergic reactions, and injuries from extreme weather. He'll be joined today by Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and EPA chief Gina McCarthy. Examples he's expected to use of big business working to prep the nation:
- Microsoft, whose research arm will develop a drone prototype to collect mass quantities of mosquitoes—the goal is to create a system to provide early warnings about infectious diseases that could break out.
- Google has promised to donate 10 million hours of advanced computing time on new tools, including risk maps and early warnings for things like wildfires and oil flares using Google Earth Engine.
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