A PUBLICATION OF THE CLIMATE INSTITUTE

Computer Designers, Modelers, Im-pacts Managers Trade Views on How toImprove Handling of Disasters

St. Lucia Becomes aGreen Energy Leaderfor the World

In an historic statement, just anhour before the opening of theHigh-Level Segment of COPS inBonn in November 1999, St. Luciaannounced its intention to green itsenergy sector and become a sus-tainable energy demonstrationcountry for the Small Island Statesand the rest of the world.

St. Lucia, a Small Island State inthe Caribbean, is dependent onexpensive fossil fuel imports. "Bytaking leadership, we want to senda positive message to the Confer-ence of the Parties and urge theworld community to work towardlaying the groundwork for asustainable energy future, " saidMr. Bishnu Tulsie, head of the St.Lucian Delegation.

He mentioned steps to diversifythe country's energy sector andcreate an environment, encouragingrenewable energy and energy

(Continued on page 7)

Nasir Khattak, Bishnu Tulsie, JohnTopping at COPS in Bonn

One of the key climate changequestions today in the US andCanada is whether we will see manymore extreme events in the futureand what will be their impact. De-spite all the money that has beenspent on research, all the work onclimate impact assessment, it is stillhard to give a constructive answer.

Several colleagues in bothcountries decided to bring to-gether a group of experts to shapea complementary research agendalisting the pertinent questions andidentifying critical gaps in our un-derstanding of the probable fre-quency and severity and impactsof such happenings as floods,droughts, nor' easters, hurricanesand ice storms. The ultimate aimwas to assist policymakers andmanagers in the vulnerable com-munities which suffer the impactsand want to improve their abilityto handle them.

What do we know aboutdealing with climate changeand how can we use ourknowledge to improve ourability to adapt to it? RogerStreet of EnvironmentCanada asked. Bill Bolhoferof the National Oceanic andAtmospheric Administrationsuggested trying somethingthat had not been done be-fore, bringing together inone place the three scienceand policy "communities"

most directly involved to getthem to bridge the boundaries oftheir disciplines and find more ef-fective ways of dealing with ex-treme weather events. JoelScheraga of USEPA proposed set-ting priorities for research with atime limit of three, five or tenyears.

The three officials enlisted theClimate Institute~to 9rgani~e Cl. ~ __symposium of about 100 repre-sentatives of the computer archi-tecture, climate modeling and cli-mate impact communities to drawup an agenda examining how tosupply more effective assistanceto the people dealing with the im-pacts of climate change at the lo-cal, national and internationallevel. A major issue is how todeal with risk and uncertainty.The meeting was sponsored byEnvironment Canada, ClimateChange Action Fund (Canada),USEPA, the National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administrationand the National Weather Service.

Meeting in Atlanta in October1999, symposium members werein agreement that not only isthere no accepted definition of anextreme event or disaster in cli-mate terms, but also that new, ex-panded perspectives should beused in seeking causes.

"There are as many ways ofdefining extreme climate events

(Continued on page 3)

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CLiMATE ALERT

Year 2000 Climate Institute Clean Energy Award WinnersThe Climate Institute honors three who have shown excellent leadership

in advancing a clean energy revolution, a central theme of the Seattle Summitand of Earth Day 2000 celebrations worldwide.

Denis HayesEarth Day Network

David SuzukiDavid SuzukiFoundation

Sam WylyGreenMountain. com

Published periodically by theClimate Institute - © Copyright 2000ISSN 1071-3271

CLIMATE ALERT

Sir Crispin Tickell, ChairmanStephen Leatherman, Co-ChairmanJohn C. Topping, Jr., PresidentMark Goldberg, Publications ChairmanNancy C. Wilson, Editor-in-Chiej

3331/2 Pennsylvania Ave., SEWashington, D.C. 20003Phone: (202) 547-0104FAX: (202) 547-0111

E-Mail: ncwilson@climate.orgWeb: http://www.climate.org

Denis Hayes is chair and CEO The Institute has cited Dr. David A pioneer in computers andof Earth Day Network, the Suzuki particularly for the imagi- telecommunications, Sam Wyly hasorganizing body behind Earth native Climate Change Campaign invested more than any individualDay 2000. He is also president he has led in Canada. The Cam- in human history in renewableand CEO of the Bullitt Founda- paign has focused climate change energy development.tion, an environmental organi- discus~ion~ in Ca~ada on ~he Three years ago, Green Moun-za tiorrhased-in-Secrtt1-e. ----~p.o-ten~laLa-l~ah.t¥-bw:l~£I-t£-£ro.Il1------tairr-Errergy_ResouTces;-a-smat -

In 1970 Hayes was national red~cIng fos~I1 fuel bu~nIng. The Vermont-based energy firm,coordinator of the first Earth DaVId Suzu.kI ~our:datIOn, alerted invited Sam Wyly to support itsDay, an event often credited by the publIcahon In Lancet of a effort to become a nationwidewith launching the modern study led by Dr: Devra Davis of. green power marketer. Wylyenvironmental movement. WRI, covenng lIves saved from aIr plunged into this opportunityTwenty years later he was pollution deaths by the limitation (C' d 3)

of greenhouse gases, commI's- ontmue on pageinternational chairman of Earth

Day 1990 which enlisted 200 sioned several Canadian healthmillion participants in 141 scientists to examine the implica-countries. tions of climate change and air

An environmental lawyer by pollution for human health intraining, he headed the federal Canada, resulting in a report,government's Solar Energy "Taking Our Breath Away."Research Institute during the The Campaign also sponsored aCarter Administration. He has series of lectures in Canadian cities

been a professor at Stanford to accompany the release of aUniversity and the University of Suzuki Foundation film, "It's aCalifornia. His solar energy Matter of Survival" about climatebook, Rays of Hope, is available change and clean energy responsesin six languages. that could limit greenhouse gas

Hayes is chairman of the emISSIOns.Board of the Energy Foundation Dr. Suzuki, of course, is wellwhich is underwritten by the known for his broad overall recordRockefeller Foundation, in science broadcasting and twoMacArthur Foundation, Packard documentaries, "From Naked Ape toFoundation, Joyce Mertz Superspecies" and "It's a Matter ofGilmore Foundation and Pew Survival."Charitable Trusts.

Page 2

L1MATE LERT

Bill Hogg, Environment Canada, and ~i11Bolhofer, NOAA, a Symposium organizer

Wyly(Continued from page 2)

wholeheartedly and with his ownfunds and some from his familyinvested $100million in the newventure. The firm is now renamedGreenMountain.com, and Wyly hasbecome chairman. He has shifted thefocus into states with deregulatedelectric power markets such asPennsylvania and California and has

signed up over 100,000cust~mers forthe firm's green power offermg.Recently the firm persuaded Texas toderegulate its electric markets.

In the early 1960s,Wyly, only afew years out of business school,founded with his brother a firmnamed DATRANto construct analternative digital transmission ofcomputer data over phone lines.Over the next few years, he and hisfamily invested in a number ofcomputer software, energy, andretailing ventures, building a diversefinancial and business empire. He isnow focusing his energies on pro-ducing a global clean energy revolu-tion as profound as what we haveseen in telecommunications. He hasalso invested in Amory Lovins'efforts to build a "hypercar," de-signed to get 100mpg.

Atlanta Symposium(Continued from page one)

as there are investigators" of theevents, said W.D.Hogg of Atmo-spheric Environment Service, .Canada. The public, the impact SCI-entists, climatologists, regional ex-perts each have their own interpre-tations.

To an emergency management of-ficial, a description of a disaster isframed in the number of lives lost,houses destroyed, people in need offood, clothing, temporary shelter. Toan insurance official a disaster is fi-nally measured in monetary terms,with Hurricane Andrew classified asthe "worst" because itcaused the great-est financiallosswhile Hurricane Mitchinflicted much greater hardship andlong-term ecological damage to Nica-

ragua and Honduras.What aspects of ex-

treme events are essen-tial criteria: the size ofthe area involved? therarity of the event (50-year flood, 100-year icestorm)? the effect on thequality of life and esti-mated time for recovery?historical deviation fromtrends for annual mini-mums or maximums in:

temperature, rain, wind, snow,waves? quantified in past,present or future terms?

Furthermore, a disaster isnot entirely due to naturalcauses, many participantspointed out, but may resultfrom the zoning that allowsroads and hotels and powerplants to be built too close tothe shore, the design of houseswhose roofs blow off too eas-ily, the agricultural workerswho are pushed off flatlandsby developers of large planta-tions and forced to farm onsteep hillsides which erodeinto landslides.

Not only are disasters theresult of much more than unex-pected weather events, theyhinge on interactions amongthe physical environment, thesocial and demographic char-acteristics of communities, andthe infrastructure built up bythe residents. The topography,the growth in population andits movement to more exposedlocations, the poverty that re-stricts people's ability to live insafe locales, occupy sturdybuildings or buy insurancehave an effect. The condition ofpublic utilities, transportationsystems, communications andhome and office buildingswhich may be growing in ageand density, all have an influ-ence on disaster impacts. Andof course climate change, withmore frequent and severe ex-treme weather, heat waves,

thunderstorms, sea level rise anddrought exacerbate the effects ofdisasters.

Roger Pulwarty of NOAA re-ported on development of waterresources which are currently themost advanced system at replicat-ing impacts and vulnerability. Heemphasized that different extremesrequire different responses. Weshould divide floods and droughtsinto several cayegories and findthe very different ways eachevolves, he said.

Our present hazard manage-ment focuses on short-term gains,on simple loss reduction instead oflong-term implications, said MaryFran Myers of the National Centerfor Atmospheric Research. It doesnot take into account how societyfits into to its natural environment,and it separates hazard issues fromother community concerns insteadof solving problems according tolocal conditions.

Despite our efforts to mitigatenatural disaster, "our approachhasn't gotten us very far," she noted.Losses due to natural hazards, in-cluding extreme events, have beencontinually rising. Much flood di-saster relief simply rebuilds and re-places what is lost and will be lostagain in the next flood. Better ad-vance warning of severe storms en-courages more people to build alongfragile coasts, destroying dunes andwetlands and making the areas morevulnerable. Risks of extreme eventsare not incorporated into cost-ben-efit analysis. A design to protect so-

(Continued on page 4)

CLIMATE ALERT

Atlanta Symposium noted Myers. Resiliency is the(Continued from page 3) ability to bounce back from ex-

ciety up to a specified level of risk, treme natural events without per-such as a IOO-yearflood, gives us a manent and intolerable damage,false sense of security. Long-term and without massive outside as-vulnerability is actually increased sistance, she said. It means build-when development is forbidden ing a society in which we bufferwithin the IOO-yearflood plain, but ourselves against the risks fromdoes not stipulate flood-proofing future disasters, exacerbated byoutside that changing climate, placing morearea. Roofs of . emphasis on moving out ofbuildings are harm's way. Instead of buildingdesigned to a wall to hold back water, couldstand up un- buildings be designed to float?der specified Resiliency would involve build-snow loads ing consensus on how to copebut no provi- with hazards, how to use hazard-sion is made prone lands, how to pay for andfor loads ex- recover from disasters.ceeding de- Pulwarty took a penetratingsign. The Mary Fran Myers, look at adaptive management as aworst that is NCAR basis for decisions. Communities

anticipated is must make their own assessmentrarely a "worst-case scenario," said of what they think is importantDavid Etkin of Environment and the members must interact toCanada, and then we are totally develop plans, reconciling theunprepared for such events as the different ways of framing the is-1993 Mississippi flood~._~_. s~es. They~~~ consider the

Our mitigation strategies for --chffenng vlewpomts of ffie con-coping with hazards are based on servationists, the habitat people,the fantasy that we can use tech- the industry and utilities group,nology to control nature and the regulators and native stake-make ourselves totally safe, said holders. They should assess theMyers. We think we can prevent capability to deal with potentialdisasters through technology, loss, and project results of alter-Etkin added, and when technol- native mitigation decisions. Theyogy fails we blame it on nature. should also develop baselines for

Myers, Etkin and Pulwarty all measuring sustainability.recommended a different ap- Policymakers now have no em-proach, a change in culture, rec- pirical data for judging whetherognizing that human choices may programs achieve their goal of re-be responsible for disasters and ducing losses. Local communitiesdetermining how these choices should evaluate their own pro-can be modified. Natural disasters grams to see what works.are primarily a social issue, said Decision-making is a process,Etkin; society by its actions and not an event, Pulwarty asserted,decisions designs its own disas- and we must develop an interac-ters. Pulwarty agreed; society tive way of carrying out the pro-needs to devise new ways of mak- cess. There are many barriers toing environmental decisions to adaptive management. We needprevent natural calamities from to understand the past and its les-becoming full-fledged catastro- sons in shaping what we doinphes. the future. The decision stakes are

We should push to make hu- large, the actions taken have greatman society more resilient, put- c.onsequences. And the uncertain-ting less emphasis on resistance, ties are also large; we are not sure

of what we are doing.

In many respects we are:"data rich and knowledge poor,"Scheraga remarked. And in somecases we are also data poor, headded.

Decisions on data gatheringpresent many difficulties: decid-ing what data emergency manag-ers need to be more effective andwhat data modelers need to im-prove their models. There wasagreement that wider collection ofdata would be helpful - fromnetworks of observation stations,including satellites, and frommore powerful computers provid-ing finer resolution.

To help reach informed deci-sions, policymakers need to developa sharply articulated sense of thedata they need, said MichaelSchlesinger of the University of Illi-nois. While they have some quali-

Michael Schlesinger, U.ofIllinois, Francis Zwiers,EnvironmenfCanada

tative understanding of their dataneeds they could get much morehelp from modelers in predictingthe impacts of climate change ontheir communities if they couldspell out in quantitative terms whatthey want. (This statement led to anexchange between Schlesinger andPatz of Johns Hopkins, withSchlesinger saying thepolicymakers' demands must be inreasonable dimensions, not downto predicting the smallest puddleresulting from a flood, and Patzreplying that a tiny mosquito in apuddle can have a large impact onthe spread of malaria.) With ad-

equate quantitative data,Schlesinger stressed, modelerscould define parameters and comeup with more useful predictions.

The insurance industry, some-what like the impacts community,has no consistent set of data re-quirements , according to RichardMurnane of the Bermuda RiskPrediction Institute, and relies ondescriptive language, slippinginto jargon which is not useful formodelers.

Data on human health are"most unreliable," according toJonathan Patz of Johns HopkinsSchools of Public Health; we haveboth bias in reporting and varia-tions in methods of detection.

Extreme weather events willlead to increased illnesses fromheat, air pollution, contaminatedwater, red tides, or by vectors asin malaria and hantavirus. Im-proved surveillance would helpbut it will not be enough to pre-vent illness ..

A top priority, said Patz, is de-velopment of predictive models.These will work best ifhealth scien-tists, climatologists, biologists,ecologists and social scientists co-operate to develop scenarios forcommunities taking into accounttheir past experiences with extremeevents and the future risks they face.Understanding the links betweenclimate and ecological changes assources of disease will help to con-struct models that can predict con-sequences and guide programs thatprevent disease.

Patz cited en~vironmentalrefugees as po-tentially the mostserious healthconsequence ofclimate change.Overcrowding,poor sanitation,lack of shelter,food, fuel andwater, andheightened tensions all could lead toenormous disaster, even war.

Luis Roberto Acosta, programdirector of SIMA, describedMexico City's serious urban airpollution problems and high UV-B levels and called for extendedresearch on these topics. He rec-ommended putting all environ-mental variables (including cli-mate change) in a single MexicoCity monitoring system and incor-porating data from a number ofdifferent sites. He specificallyurged higher spectral resolution(to measure absorption of UV-Bmore accurately) and radiometersfor health studies.

Data are gathered in a spottyway, with inconsistent proceduresand on inconsistent scales, severalparticipants noted. While there isa warming trend over most of theUS since 1978, the Southeast iscooling, David Easterling of theNational Climate Data Center(NOAA) noted. An increase insulfate aerosols from the TVA andother plants may be partially re-sponsible, but we need more in-formation before drawing cause/effect conclusions, he said.

Landfalling hurricanes haveshown a downward trend, butwith only 2 - 3 a year it is hard topinpoint tendencies. Extremeevents have not happened that of-ten, and the perspectives ofpaleoclimate findings may beneeded. For instance, JonathanOverpeck's research shows thatmegadroughts occur every 200-300 years, beyond our presentrecords. Even the trail of 16 suc-cessive months breaking the tem-perature record recently fallswithin the realm of probability,Easterling declared.

We need to understand notonly the causes of climate ex-tremes such as hurricanes but theforces that cause structures to failunder hurricane pressure. Thefailure of a structure is the foun-dation of natural disaster, and thereason may be quite unexpected,said Alan Davenport of the Uni-versity of Western Ontario. It wasnot entirely the ice load that

brought down the transmissiontowers in the phenomenal 1998Quebec ice storm. The ice on theheavy cables changed their aero-dynamic properties when theyswayed in the wind causing themto oscillate unstably and pulldown the towers. In calculatingkey loads on a structure, we haveto consider coupled events. Thetowers might have been able towithstand the ice alone or thewind alone, but the combinationwas too much for them.

Davenport urged particularconcentration on the wind climateor wind profile. To calculate theprobability distribution of hurri-cane wind would include incor-porating in a model thehurricane's central pressure, thesea temperature, the forwardspeed, the angle of the track andarchived data. The model couldreproduce an historical hurricanewhich would give designers someidea of the wind forces whichthey must contend with.

There is whaf na\renporCcaJlsa "culture of construction." Forexample, formerly many homesin Jamaica were built with hiproofs which spread the force ofthe wind. Under a different cul-ture, newer houses abandonedthat style and are much more vul-nerable to cyclone-type winds.

The very complex, compositeinteractions in climate phenom-ena require long experience tounderstand. We have good dataon temperature and precipitation,but our weakest evidence is onthe interaction between the atmo-sphere and surface (land orocean). We need a better under-standing of such interactions aswell as the perplexing role ofwind, the uncertain effect ofclouds. Modeling such interac-tions is extremely difficult.

Modelers stressed the need formore support of the developmentof regional models which can bet-ter predict area impacts than the

(Continued on page 6)

Page 5

CLIMATE ALERT

Eric Barron,PennsylvaniaState U.

eventually reaching a national ex-ercise. He made a plea for majoremphasis on future research in thisarea, concentrating on factors suchas wind.

The regional models would beself sufficient units, well definedand built to stand alone, but alsoable to be nested, integrated intoGCMs so that phenomena such astropical cyclones or other com-plex and overlapping zones ofvulnerability could be analyzedmore thoroughly. Coordinatingperceptions across disciplineswould lead the process toward anintegrated assessment.Major savings could be gained in

replacing utility plants, highways,sewage systems and the manyother installations communitiesmust periodically renew, RogerStreet pointed out, as we achievegreater certainty over futureclimate change and its extremes.Greater understanding amongdecision-makers will lead to more

exible planning-and wiser.ditures on systems that are sensi-tive to weather.

Most Symposium papers areavailable on the Institute web site:

www.climate.org.

Photos of Symposium partici-pants were taken by InstitutePresident John Topping.

Roger Street,Environment

-Canada, - -- -Symposium

Janet Gamble, Annette Goessl, Roger Street, JoelScheraga, Bill Bolhofer, John Topping, Luis Roberto Acosta,Michele Pena

place? How much wind advectionand convection is there? How manymiles per hour does the wind blow?How many tornadoes are there?Howmuch cloudiness is there and ofwhattype?Thestructure ofthe atmosphereincluding the humidity, water andits oxygen level, biology, character-istics ofthe surface including vegeta-tion, soil,soil moisture, and impervi-0us conditions are added. Theeffectsof phenomena such as EI Nino andthe North AtlanticOscillationshouldbe properly fitted in as well as obser-vations fromthe social sci-ences on suchphenomena aspopula tiongrowth. Heagreed withPulwartywhospecified in-cluding eco-nomic devel-opment andland-use pat-terns,_watermanagementdevelopment,political evo-lution, ecological trends.

Following this procedure, youcan find what prediction you arecapable of, where you fail, thenchange your design and make anewpredic-t ion,build-ing aconsis-ten t,eve rm 0 r ereliablepat h.Gradu-ally theare ac 0 v -ere dcouldbe ex-tended,

David Easterlng, NationalClimate Data Center and Joel

Scheraga, USEPA, Symposiumorganizer

Barron has used in intensive study ofnatural regions such as the Chesa-peake Bayand the Great Lakes.Withwhat he calls "sensor webs," bit bybit from a data collectionnetwork hebrings in observations of meteoro-logical variables: How much rain,snow, hail, flooding is there? Howmany blizzards and avalanches?What is the duration ofthe dry spells?What are the extremes of cold andheat? How much evaporation takes

Atlanta Symposium(Continued from page 5)

commonly usedGeneral Circu-lation Models(GCMs) whichare too broad toyield more thancrude estimates.

While ad-mitting thatthis would sac-rifice generali-zation for finerresolution, EricBarron of Pennsylvania State Uni-versity, favored development ofregional models covering a lim-ited area or ecosystem becausethey could be treated as interdis-ciplinary laboratories to help de-velop understanding of how to-pography and other local condi-tions influence climate change.

Users would gradually fit moreand more components into the par-ticular system, beginning to bringthe discipline of IorecastingintO en-vironmental prediction.Itis amethod

Page 6

Former Award Winner SenatorChafee Dies

The Institutesadly reports thedeath ofSen.JohnChafee of RhodeIsland on Oct.24,1999. He hadserved 23 yearsin the Senate and had been chairmanofthe Environment and PublicWorksCommittee since 1995. SenatorChafee was recipient with RogerRevelleof the Climate Institute's firstenvironmental award.

Sir Crispin Appointed to Panelon Risk from Asteroid Collision

UK ScienceMinister LordSainsbury has appointed SirCrispin Tickell, Institute Boardchairman, to be part of a three-person task force to examine therisk of human vulnerability froman object from outer space. SirCrispin was in Washington in earlyMarch for meetings at NASA andthe White House related to the taskforce's effort which will culminatein a report by the middle of 2000.

For further information, see:http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/ sci/ tech/newsid_590000 /590668.stm

Institute Board member Devra

Davis of WRI and Dr. ShouzhengXue of Shanghai Medical Univer-sity organized a symposium,"Environmental Health Chal-lenges Facing China," at theAAAS annual meeting in Wash-

ir:gton in February. The sympo-SlUmwas supported by a grantfrom the Wallace Global Fund tothe Climate Institute.

On a panel along with repre-sentatives from the World Bankthe US Geological Survey, and 'Carnegie Mellon and JohnsHopkins Universities, the panelmembers showed that: despiteprogress in control in China, airpollution is still a significantcause of ill health and death(contributing up to 17 percent ofexcess mortality in Shenyang); airpollution accounts for nearly one-third of the world's cases of lungcancer among women (possiblybecause of dirty cooking andheating fuels); arsenic and fluo-rine are principal causes ofhealth problems attributable tocoal production in some areas.

Further details can be found onthe Institute's web site:www.climate.org.

Devra Davis OrganizesAAASSymposium on China

Climate Institute NewsSt. Lucia(Continued from page one)

efficiency.The St. Lucian Govern-ment will eliminate duties andtaxes on renewable energy systems.

"In addition to reducinggreenhouse gas emissions, thisinitiative will also help reduceenergy bills and insulate theisland from the impacts of unpre-dictable increases in oil prices,"Mr. Tulsie added. "We call ondeveloped countries to assist St.Lucia and other Small IslandStates in their energy transforma-tion plans and show similarinitiatives in their own countries."

"The Climate Institute's role isthat of a catalyst," said NasirKhattak, program leader, "tof,acilitate the development andimplementation of a comprehen-sive sustainable energy plan forSt. Lucia. We hope this willcatalyze a global green energyrevolution." John Topping,Climate Institute President,added, "We believe this historicstep can help to jump start badlystalled clir;natenegotiations." Heinvited the international commu-

nity to take this as a challengeand show maximum progress by2008-2012.

A press release giving furtherdetails can be found onwww.climate.org.

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CLIMATE ALERT '

Climate Institute News

Devra Davis atpress confer-ence

cussed potential means for limitinggreenhouse emissions and reducingair pollution which results from rapidpopulation growth, heavy auto useand the atmospheric inversion thattraps air in the valley surrounded bymountains where the city lies. Formore details, please see the Institute'sweb site, www.climate.org.

Alejandro Encinas, Environmental Secretary, Mexico City,Award Winners Mario Molina and LuisManuel Guerra, and

SirCrispin Tickell at Mexico City Symposium

Joining her at the press conferencewere three Mexican environmental

officials including Diana Ponce Navawho leads Mexico City's air qualityprogram, Institute Chairman SirCrispin Tickell, Nobel LaureateMario Molina, Luis Manuel Guerra,President ofINAINE, Institute Presi-dent John Topping, and a World Bankrepesentative.The symposiumbrought together air quality andhealth experts to consider some cut-ting edge work that could help theCity dealwith oneof the

greatestair pollu-t ion

problemsin theworld.

The par-ticipantsd i s -

Dr. Devra Davisof WRI released a

report on a majorinternational

study of air pollu-tion and children'shealth in

megacities of theworld at a pressconference which

attracted a greatdeal of public at-tention at a symposium in MexicoCity in Septeinber 1999. She waslead author of the study which wassupported by the World ResourcesInstitute. "The NorthAmericanSym-posium on Coordinated Strategies forClimate and Air Quality Protection"was convened by the Climate Insti-tute and a MexicoCity NGO, InstitutoAutonomo de InvestigacionesEcologicas (ll':J~n'!p).

Devra Davis Reports on Urban AirPoliution and Children's Health

Climate Institute3331/2 Pennsylvania Ave. SE

Washington, DC 20003

Address correction requested

Non-Profit Org.U.S. Postage PaidWashington, D.C.Permit # 2303

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The Climate Institute is a private

nonprofit organization formed toadvance public understanding ofclImate change including the green-

house effect and of strategies to avertstratospheric ozone depletion.

@p'inted on ,eeye/edpaper

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