Pardee School Dean Talks Health & Climate at BUMC
Adil Najam, Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was invited to speak at the Boston University Medical Campus on Tuesday, June 9.
Najam delivered the lecture “Climate Change, Human Development and Human Security: Why Should We Care?“ at the Keefer Auditorium as part of the BUMC Provost Visiting Professor Lecture Series. He was introduced by Dr. Karen Antman, Provost of the Boston University Medical Campus and Dean of the School of Medicine.
The lecture reviewed the state of science and knowledge on global climate change and made the argument that because of our policy failures to implement strong mitigation measures, we are now living in what Najam calls, “the age of adaptation.”
Dean Najam said, “this does not mean that our responsibility of mitigate our carbon emissions has gone down, but it does mean that now we also have a responsibility to adapt to the impacts of global climate change.”
“The future of climate policy will be about the life sciences. We have to tackle not only issues of carbon mitigation, but the impact of the climate on human development and well-begin issues like food, water and disease,” Najam said. “These challenges are already impacting us, particularly in the developing world right now.”
He urged medical researchers and practitioners to begin preparing for this age of adaptation and argued that it will manifest itself most particularly in issues related to water: “Water is to climate adaptation what carbon was to climate mitigation,” Najam said.
While at the medical campus, Dean Najam also met professors and thought leaders from the Boston University Schools of Medicine, Dentistry and Public Health.
“I am very grateful to the Provost, Dr. Antman, and the medical community here for inviting me to visit and for taking the time to brief me on the impressive global activities and research taking place on the medical campus,” Najam said. “it is clear that the work we are doing on at the Pardee School and the global work being done by our colleagues in the medical field are deeply linked. I hope we will be able to build on these linkages to serve our students better.”