Posted on by Christopher K. Merker, Ph.D., CFA

Q&A: A Harvard Expert on Environment and Health Discusses Possible Ties Between COVID and Climate (InsideClimate News)

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11032020/coronavirus-harvard-doctor-climate-change-public-health

Doctors and public health researchers are getting an increasingly accurate and nuanced picture of the many ways climate change damages human health. 

Now, questions have arisen about whether climate change contributed to the outbreak of COVID-19, whose spread the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on Wednesday. For example, did habitat loss, driven in part by climate change, make it easier for pathogens to spread among wildlife and for the virus to jump to humans? Does air pollution, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, make some people more vulnerable to contracting the illness? 

Author: Christopher K. Merker, Ph.D., CFA

Christopher K. Merker, PhD, CFA, is a director with Private Asset Management at Robert W. Baird & Co. He holds a PhD in investment governance and fiduciary effectiveness from Marquette University, where he has taught the course “Sustainable Finance” since 2009. Executive director of Fund Governance Analytics (FGA), an ESG research partnership with Marquette University, he is a member of the CFA Institute ESG Working Group, an international committee currently exploring ESG standards, publishes the blog, Sustainable Finance, which covers current topics around governance and sustainability in investing, and is co-author of the book, The Trustee Governance Guide: The Five Imperatives of 21st Century Investing.
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