U.S. News: The Case for Climate Action

The EPA says taking on global warming will improve public health.

In perhaps the last great rebranding effort before the president leaves office in January, the administration is recasting its campaign to slow climate change not merely as an economic imperative, not only as a national security priority, but perhaps above all, an issue of public health.

Since January, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy has stepped up her visits to medical colleges and schools of public health during stops in Boston, Seattle, Chicago and Cincinnati.  In April the White House released a lengthy report on health and global warming, bringing together decades of research on everything from asthma and lung cancer to contagious diseases like the West Nile virus.

"I don't want people to think that EPA is just about big rules, or that climate change is just about polar bears," McCarthy says.  "It really is about direct public health issues like asthma and kids, like cardiovascular and pulmonary disease associated with air pollution."

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