Location: Tinkham Veale University Center Ballroom C, 11038 Bellflower Road, Cleveland, OH 44106
Climate change is the defining global environmental justice, human rights and public health issue of the twenty-first century. The most vulnerable populations will suffer the earliest and most damaging setbacks because of where they live, their limited income and economic means, and their lack of access to health care. Climate-sensitive hazards are forecast to increase in the coming years. However, not all of the populations residing within these hazard zones have the same capacity to prepare for, respond to, cope with, and rebound from disaster events. Professor Robert D. Bullard’s presentation will focus primarily on the need for empowering vulnerable populations, identifying environmental justice and climate change “hot-spot” zones and designing fair, just and effective adaptation, mitigation, emergency management and community resilience and disaster recovery strategies. He will also discuss his book, The Wrong Complexion for Protection, which analyzes more than eight decades of government response to natural and human-made disasters. He will offer strategies to dismantle institutional policies and practices that create, exacerbate and perpetuate inequality and vulnerability before and after disasters strike.
Free and open to the public. Registration requested.