Hi, welcome to the course protecting public health in a changing climate, a primer for decision-makers. I'm Tom Burke. I'm Mary Sheehan. We believe that looking at our changing climates through the lens of human health will help us solve better meet the challenge. It's not only about distant polar bears important as they are, human health is already being affected. I'm Mary Fox. Whether you're joining us from the public health field or have another perspective, we've designed this course to give you tools you can use to prepare for and reduce these health effects. Our climate is changing in important ways and already having an impact on people and our health. The earth has warmed about one degree centigrade from the start of the industrial period. Sea levels have risen over the last century compared with relative stability for 2,000 years. Warming is making storms, heat waves, and other extreme weather events more likely to happen and more severe when they do happen. The impacts on human health and well-being and for the public health system could be devastating. Globally, 2017 saw three of the most destructive Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded, Harvey, Irma, and Maria and record Asian monsoon flooding, impacting Mumbai for example. Nine of the last 10 years with the hottest on record and May, 2018 was the hottest month on record. In May of 2018, flooding in Ellicott City, not too far from our campus here in Baltimore, another example of tremendous impact was shown when the city was wiped out by its second thousand-year flood in two years. Worldwide, thousands of lives have already been lost in events such as these and many more have been impacted by injuries, heat stress, and heat related illness such as the spreading of mosquito-borne disease and of course the tremendous mental health impacts due to these devastating events. This course will introduce you to what a changing climate means for public health and give you tools you can apply where you work and live. Whether large or small, rich or poor, cities and local health departments around the world today face the challenge of adapting to a warmer, more extreme, and unpredictable climate. So, we've designed this course to give you the science you need but mainly focus on policy and practice. Through lectures, case studies, interviews and online resources, our aim is to provide you with a how-to perspective. Building on the Bloomberg School of Public Health and Pompeu Fabra University programs, we'll focus some of our examples on Baltimore and Barcelona. But we'll also look at many other cities including where you live. We aim to connect you come from many different places around the world with one another through course materials, activities, and resources so that you can learn from each other. As we go along, you'll check your knowledge with short quizzes and with the final assignment, you'll have a chance to apply what you've learned to your own city or another one that you choose. Our larger goal will be to show you what a key role public health has in addressing climate change. Let's get started with the course materials. There are four course modules covering science, health impacts, assessment frameworks, and policy, and practice. You should be able to work through one module in a week. We start with the science of climate change. In this module, we will look at an overview of how climate change affects population health and well-being, the science behind climate change, and forecasts for how it will change our future, as well as how climate change is being debated in society today, and how looking through a health lens at climate change meaning, how thinking about health engagement of health professionals may lead to more effective communication and action. So, welcome, we're happy to have you with us and we'll enjoy working with you throughout this course.