Climate change is a public health emergency. A new government office now not only recognizes that fact, but has also been tasked explicitly with addressing it. Enter the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, a federal office within the Department of Health and Human Services that is leading the effort to solving the toll climate change is taking on our collective health.
The snag is that in a fight against a Goliath, the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity is trying to take up the role of David. Wielding the slingshot will be John Balbus, the former senior adviser for Public Health at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), who has been tapped to serve as interim director of the new initiative. According to environment industry publication E&E News, Balbus has been budgeted a whopping $3 million to play with — and that's only in theory, given Congress still has to approve funding for the office — which will pay for the upstart cost of hiring eight employees. That's probably enough people for, say, the Justice League to save the world. For some scientists without super powers, it's, well, it's a start.
