[SustainableTompkins] article in Ithaca Journal today on the health and sustainability conference

[GayNicholson at aol.com]

Conference links health care and sustainable  living
By Aaron Munzer 
Special to The Journal  

ITHACA — At a conference held Saturday in Ithaca College's Hill Center,  
educators, health care practitioners, government officials and students  discussed 
how to solve public health issues by encouraging sustainability  in both the 
workplace and everyday life.  
The conference's keynote speaker, Jonathan Patz, a health researcher  and 
associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, spoke to  the 
approximately 150 conference attendees about global climate change and  its effect on 
the world's health.  
Patz noted that a rise in global temperatures and more extreme weather  could 
result in more insect and water-borne diseases, worsening air  pollution, 
sewage overflows, and lethal heat waves and droughts. “Our  health really depends 
on adequate food and water,” he said. “And that's  why climate change is a 
problem.”  
But Patz also emphasized how climate change could also be an  opportunity for 
people to change their habits and fight obesity — one of  the developed 
world's biggest health problems — by biking to work,  exercising more and leading 
healthier lives.  
“We have built unhealthy cities, where even if you wanted to walk or  ride 
your bike to work, you can't,” he said. “It's a system-wide problem.”   
Gay Nicholson, the program coordinator for Sustainable Tompkins, said  she 
initiated the conference to create greater regional collaboration  between the 
normally separate sectors of health care, government and  education.  
“We all have shared concerns that I think collaboration can help  address,” 
Nicholson said. “How are we going to coordinate to help the  people of Upstate 
New York live healthier lives and transition to a  healthier society?”  
Later, over a vegetarian lunch of salad, pasta and grilled vegetable  wraps, 
attendees discussed eliminating toxic chemicals from households,  encouraging 
fitness in employees and sustainable development in hospitals.   
Dr. Rob Mackenzie, the president of Cayuga Medical Center, told others  at 
his table about the hospital's recent renovation to make its intensive  care and 
cardiac unit more energy-efficient. But he was there to learn  more about the 
operational side.  
“The advantage to this conference is that everyone has a level of skill  and 
knowledge that they bring to it, and everyone has something to learn,”  he 
said.  
Mackenzie said CMC has already turned some of the ideas at the  conference 
into reality by offering incentives to employees who attend  fitness sessions or 
bike to work.  
“It's been neat to see how many people have been inspired to be more  active,”
 he said.  
Other speakers at the event included Sandra Steingraber, an author and  a 
distinguished visiting scholar at IC, who talked about eliminating  toxins in 
local communities, and Steve Siconolfi, dean of Ithaca College's  school of 
health sciences and human performance, who spoke about the role  of health 
educators in sustainability. Paul Levesque, an associate with  HOLT Architects, spoke 
about sustainable design.  
Students were also part of the discussion — Meredith Titterington, a  senior 
studying community health education at IC, moderated a talk on  public policy 
and the food supply.  
“It's nice to have the older perspective and the younger perspective,”  she 
said. “It was a really good  conversation.”
 
 



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