Al Gore swoops in to save CDC’s climate and health conference

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Leigh Vogel)

Thanks to a push from former Vice President Al Gore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s conference on the health effects of climate change is back on for next month in Atlanta. The conference was abruptly canceled by the agency following the election of Donald Trump. Though the CDC has given no explanation for the cancellation, co-organizer Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, called it a “strategic retreat," the intention of which was to avoid upsetting the new administration and allow it to have input on the conference. The CDC said the conference may be rescheduled later in the year.

But Gore and others weren’t having that, apparently. In an interview with the Washington Post, Benjamin said, “He called me and we talked about it and we said, ‘There’s still a void and still a need.’ We said, ‘Let’s make this thing happen'… It was a no-brainer.”

In a press release, Gore elaborated, writing: