Dwindling supplies of fossil fuels will have
a transforming effect on "business as usual"
in our world. One of the under-reported
challenges is in public health and medicine
which will face significant challenges in
the face of the world-wide energy emergency.
A day-long conference held at Bristol Community
College on April 14, 2009 brought
experts in the field
to explore how healthcare professionals can prepare now
to maintain high standards of healthcare
delivery and care, and how citizens
must demand change.
Richard Heinberg,
author of
eight books including Peak Everything
(New Society, 2007) and a Senior Fellow of
Post Carbon Institute
gave the
keynote address by video connection from Los
Angeles.
Sociologist
Dan Bednarz,
PhD, represented a consortium among public
health and health care stakeholders and
actors working to address the bottleneck of
ecological crises facing medicine and public
health.
Jill Stein, M.D.
a former staff physician at Harvard
Community Health Plan and Simmons College
Health Center and co-author of
In Harm's
Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development,
concluded the morning presentations.
Conference participants were invited to
attend afternoon workshops with each of the
speakers. For further information, contact Sociology Professor Nancy Lee
Wood at 508-678-2811, Ext.2043.
