Columbia scientist to speak on climate change, air quality

How could climate change affect air quality and human health in the future? A Columbia University scientist who is exploring this question in the nation’s largest city will speak at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, March 6, at UW–Madison.

Patrick Kinney, associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, will lecture on the “Climate Change, Air Quality, and Public Health” at 1325 Health Sciences Learning Center, 750 Highland Ave. A reception will follow. The event is free, and the public is welcome.

Kinney leads the New York Climate and Health Project, which is developing and testing computer models to assess potential future air quality and health effects of climate and land use changes in the New York City metropolitan area.

An epidemiologist who studies the impacts of air pollution on human health, he has investigated the effects of ozone and particulate matter on children’s lung function and on daily death rates in large cities. Recently, he has focused on exposures to indoor allergens, diesel vehicle emissions, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and other air toxins in underprivileged neighborhoods of New York City.

Kinney’s presentation is the fourth in a series of Roy F. Weston Global Distinguished Sustainability Lectures this year at UW–Madison. Weston, an alumnus of the university, founded Weston Solutions Inc., an international environmental and redevelopment firm.

The Weston lectures are sponsored by the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (part of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies), the department of civil and environmental engineering, the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy, and the Global Environmental Studies Research Circle.

For more information, visit http://www.sage.wisc.edu/pages/news.html or contact the series coordinator, Claus Moberg, at ccmoberg@students.wisc.edu.