With little to no warning or explanation the CDC abruptly cancels a major climate change conference that had been scheduled for next month in Atlanta. The Climate and Health Summit was planed for the purpose of public health officials around the country to learn more about the mounting evidence detailing the risks to human health posed by the changing climate. However, the CDC officials abruptly canceled the conference the week before Donald Trump’s inauguration.
They sent emails to those that are scheduled to speak for the conference. However, it was not indicated in the email the reason of the cancellation. CDC officials wrote that unfortunately they are unable to hold the Summit in February 2017, adding that the agency is currently exploring whether it could reschedule the event later in the year. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, one scheduled keynote speaker, said that the agency officials decided to preemptively call off the summit, rather than risk running amiss of an incoming president who has repeatedly called climate change a hoax. And nominated climate change skeptics to his Cabinet.
Another scheduled speaker, Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, argues that the summit should have gone forward, no matter who had just been sworn in as the next president. According to the Chicago Tribune, Maibach said in an email, the summit should have been pushed through for the benefit of the citizens’ health, politics should be separated from this kind of concerns.
According to the ARS Technica, Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, which was co-sponsoring the conference, called the cancellation a strategic retreat. They decided the better part of valor was to stop and regroup" until the new leadership could weigh-in. CDC abruptly cancels conference about the health effects of climate change but for what reason they did not disclose yet.