Former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy thinks that society is at a watershed moment regarding climate change.
In a September 23, 2019 interview with Scientific American, McCarthy, director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE) at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said that she sees greater public awareness, more understanding, better science, and more solutions about climate change.
McCarthy, who led the EPA under President Obama, cited the involvement of young people in fighting global warming. “They’re seeing that it is their future that is at stake,” she said. The presence of more intense and frequent storms makes it clear how the climate is changing, she added. “It’s very hard to ignore it and to think it’s anything like business as usual,” she said.
She talked about how working to reduce reliance on fossil fuels could help American businesses be competitive in a global market that is turning increasingly to cleaner energy sources.
She also discussed C-CHANGE’s efforts, such as working to analyze how policies aimed at reducing transportation-related carbon emissions could slow climate change and improve health.
On September 20, McCarthy was keynote speaker at a UMass Boston forum on climate change’s effect on public health.
Read the Scientific American interview: Are We at a Climate Change Turning Point? Obama’s EPA Chief Thinks So
Read a Patriot Ledger article about the UMass Boston climate forum: In Boston, climate change forum gets personal