Josiah Kephart

To me, climate justice acknowledges that climate change isn't solely a climate science problem, but a social problem. There are huge disparities in which communities are suffering the worst impacts of climate change. Conversely, these communities are often not the same communities that have received the greatest benefits from two centuries of burning fossil fuels. Climate justice is a framework that tries to acknowledge that the benefits and harms of fossil fuels are not distributed evenly, and that this has worsened existing social disparities.

My research focuses on how climate change is contributing to health disparities in cities across the Americas. I am part of SALURBAL-Climate, examining how climate change and climate mitigation/adaptation policies impact health across nearly 400 cities. Specifically, I study how extreme heat, air pollution, and climate-sensitive disasters (e.g. floods and tropical cyclones) impact health in cities, and how the urban environment and social context can buffer or exacerbate the population health impacts of climate change. My goals are to quantify the burden of climate change on health to provide rigorous evidence for communities and policymakers to bring health and health disparities into the decision making processes surrounding climate change mitigation and adaptation.

I am the instructor for "Public Health Impacts of Global Climate Change," the main graduate-level course on climate change and health in the School of Public Health. Climate justice is a central theme of the course, from discussion of climate science and the historical causes of climate change, to specific examination of vulnerable subpopulations for climate-related health impacts, to framing climate change as a health disparities amplifier. I also teach an intensive week-long course for non-academics entitled "Climate Change for Urban Health Researchers" at the Urban Health Collaborative's Summer Institute, whose participants are primarily from local public health departments.