Symposium on climate change coming up Friday at MJC

At a symposium Friday in Modesto, experts will discuss the health effects of climate change and what’s being done to slow the warming of Earth’s atmosphere.

The symposium will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Mary Stuart Rogers Student Center at the Modesto Junior College West Campus. Two 45-minute presentations will be followed by a question-and-answer period moderated by former Modesto Mayor Garrad Marsh.

University of California, Berkeley, professor Dan Kammen will examine the state of global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. He also will discuss why climate-friendly development is good business.

Kammen is a climate adviser for the Obama administration and has served as a contributing or lead author on reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

In a second presentation, Dr. Linda Rudolph will discuss the effects of climate change on public health. Climate change is claiming an estimated 600 lives each year and the number is expected to grow to 70,000 by the year 2100.

Rudolph was the deputy director for chronic disease prevention and health promotion in the California Department of Public Health. She holds a doctorate in medicine and received her clinical training in pediatrics and emergency medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

The White House honored Rudolph as one of the “Champions of Change” for her public health work.

The Modesto Area Partners in Science program is holding the free event. For more information on the MAPS program, go to http://maps.events.mjc.edu.

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 5:59 PM with the headline "Symposium on climate change coming up Friday at MJC."