SES Seminar - Dr. Rebecca Saari

We welcome Dr. Rebecca Saari as a speaker for our SES Seminar series to talk about "Future Air Pollution Alerts under Climate Change: Implications for Health and Health Equity". Rebecca Saari is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Global Change, Atmosphere, and Health, and an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

Abstract

Air pollution is the leading environmental risk factor for early death. Alerts guide people to stay indoors when air quality is poor. Climate change can worsen air quality over this century. Our work finds that this creates conditions for rising air quality alerts, with alerts quadrupling on average in the United States by the end of this century. Rising alerts disproportionately affect racialized, unhoused, and poorly housed populations. Relying on people to protect themselves likely offers minimal benefits compared to reducing emissions; however, boosting adaptation can offer additional health benefits even under stringent climate policy. New policy could, for example, compensate people for moving indoors, and improve access to clean indoor air. This talk presents this work, including its implications for how to equitably protect health under climate change, presenting levers for action against an increasing, unfair burden of air pollution.

Bio

Rebecca Saari is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Global Change, Atmosphere, and Health, and an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Her research advances the field of health impact assessment by using coupled human-natural systems (CHANS) models to identify policies – for mitigation and adaptation – that robustly and equitably protect health from air pollution under a changing climate. Her work appears in top journals like Nature Climate Change and the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. Dr. Saari has been invited by the World Health Organization, Health Canada, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy to set guidelines for climate impacts research. Her findings have been requested by White House staff, quoted by the head of the USEPA in the press (including CBC, NBC, and the New York Times), cited in over 80 policy documents, and used to support major climate legislation in U.S. federal court.

Learn more about this research on Dr. Saari's website.