New York University

New York University

The Office of Public Affairs

Monday, May 04, 2009

n-437, 2008-09

Is climate change truly a matter of life and death? On Tuesday, May 5, 2009, NYU Master’s Program in Global Public Health, NYU Environmental Studies program, and the NYU Steinhardt PRIISM Center will present “Weather & Death in India: Mechanisms and Implications for Climate Change,” a provocative discussion about the effect of global climate change. The event, featuring the acclaimed economist Dr. Michael Greenstone, will begin at 4:15 p.m. at the NYU Kimmel Center, Room 914 (9th Floor), 60 Washington Square South, New York, N.Y.

This event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Greenstone will discuss revelatory new research on the impact of variations in weather on well-being in India. Results indicate that high temperatures dramatically increase mortality rates; for example, 1 additional day with a mean temperature above 32° C, relative to a day in the 22° - 24° C range, increases the annual mortality rate by 0.9% in rural areas. This effect appears to be related to substantial reductions in the income of agricultural laborers due to these same hot days. Finally, the estimated temperature-mortality relationship and state of the art climate change projections reveal a substantial increase in mortality due to climate change, which greatly exceeds the expected impact in the US and other developed countries.

Dr. Greenstone is the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings. He is a member of the Environmental Economics Advisory Committee of EPA’s Science Advisory Board. In 2004, Professor Greenstone received the 12th Annual Kenneth J. Arrow Award for Best Paper in the Field of Health Economics.

To RSVP to this event, please visit, www.nyu.edu/mph/events.

This event is co-sponsored by the Global MPH program, the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, and the NYU Environmental Studies program. Presented as part of the ongoing series Statistics in Society, organized by the Steinhardt PRIISM Center.