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Commentary from Community Health and Environmental Policy

The Double-Edged Sword of Air Conditioning in a Warming World
Last summer was the hottest on record and 2024 looks to be hotter still. Cranking up the AC can provide temporary relief but it could lead to greater vulnerability to extreme climate events over time. Fortunately, there are strategies that could reduce air conditioning's greenhouse gas emissions.
Aug 19, 2024
Community-Driven Recovery: The Lahaina Wildfires a Year Later
Lahaina can benefit tremendously from a community-driven approach to identifying recovery needs. This involves working closely with survivors themselves to understand their housing, health, economic, social, and other needs.
Aug 16, 2024
Building Flood Resilience: A Grand Challenge for U.S. Water Policy
Flooding has become the most expensive and frequent disaster in the United States. Since 2000, flooding events occur almost daily and the cost of inland flooding alone in 2023 was nearly $200 billion. Managing flood risk requires transformations in land use, regulation, insurance, and financing.
Aug 9, 2024
IPCC's Next Assessment Needs to Tackle the Complexities of Catastrophic Risk
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is well positioned to tackle the global threats posed by the climate emergency. What is needed is a concerted effort to confront the stark realities of catastrophic risk and interpret that literature through a policy-relevant lens.
Jul 12, 2024
Climate Change Risk to National Critical Functions
The changing climate will strain the basic functions that underpin American society. Core services such as supplying water and electricity, providing medical care, and responding to emergencies like floods will face regional- or even national-level disruptions in the years to come.
Jul 10, 2024
Proposed Cooling Policy Would Cause AC Usage to Rise, Risking Blackouts
Los Angeles County's Board of Supervisors is considering a policy that would establish a temperature threshold for rental units. It's crucial that policymakers assess the impact of the policy on the electrical grid and whether it will actually help the people it intends to help.
May 28, 2024
Emerging Threats to Financial Markets
The greatest danger to the U.S. financial system is the constant assault on reality—the deepfake videos and manipulated AI—that could weaken the system over time. It will be slow, but it will be steady and hard to stop—like financial climate change.
May 13, 2024
The Unseen Risks of Basement Flooding in Pittsburgh
Recurrent basement flooding is much more than a nuisance. It's costly to clean up, and it poses significant threats to public health and safety. It's time to stop thinking about wet basements as simply a nuisance, and understand their role in some of the critical health issues facing communities.
May 2, 2024
How Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations
Climate stress will become more intense and frequent throughout CENTCOM's area of operations. CENTCOM may be called upon less to fight wars and more to airdrop humanitarian supplies or evacuate people from disaster zones. It should also plan to contribute to stability operations in the region.
Mar 15, 2024
Build a Strong Public-Private Supply Chain Nexus
For a public-private partnership to work, the individual interests of the private sector must be brought into alignment with the requirements of the collective good perspective and policy goals of the public sector. Both partners have useful tools and working examples to make this vision happen.
Mar 8, 2024
National Security Risks from Climate Change Could Go Well Beyond What the U.S. Government Thinks
Climate change has at least two characteristics that are likely to drive second- and third-order political and social reactions whose effects on U.S. strategic interests may be substantially greater than those that occur in direct reaction to individual extreme weather events.
Mar 7, 2024
Not Enough to Just Replace Lead Pipes
From late 2023 to early 2024, residents of St. Croix were directed to drink bottled water and then to boil their water to be sure it was safe. As the drinking-water emergency on St. Croix moves out of crisis stage, officials will need to build public trust and a resilient water system.
Mar 1, 2024

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