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The climate crisis and its consequences represent the greatest challenge facing human health and health care system in the 21st century. It threatens to undermine the last decades of health gains. Rising temperatures, fires, floods and droughts can directly and indirectly cause human pathologies, that are physical and mental. Extreme weather events lead to loss of life, basic life resources and cause severe mental burden. More intense and frequent heat waves due to global warming impact human health and increase mortality, especially for those most vulnerable. The heat-related health risk depends on individual state of health as well as environmental and socioeconomic characteristics of residential areas. Increasing exposure to air pollutants, due to wildfires and anthropogenic emissions, raises respiratory and cardiovascular mortality. Climate warming changes ecosystems and enhances biological invasions that can better adapt to warm environments. Pathogen profiles are changing, transmission and spread of vector-borne diseases as Malaria or Dengue are increasing. Further, rising temperatures and air pollution increase the production and allergenicity of pollen, associated with higher prevalence of allergic diseases. Protective environmental factors, as biodiversity or diverse microbiome, should be given greater consideration in future research.Health sector has the central responsibility as the fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter to transform in a climate-neutral and sustainable way, e. g. by efficient use of resources. Further education and training in this area should be intensified and included in curricula for medical staff. Furthermore, medical professionals must educate patients about the burden of climate change, climate resilience, and the benefits of CO2 reduction - for human but also for planetary health.

Dies ist das dritte Webinar in der „CLARITY für die Klimaresilienz“ (Clarity4CR) Webinarreihe und das erste in deutscher Sprache. Es präsentiert die CLARITY-Methodik zur Klimawandel-Risikobewertung, Impakt-Analyse, und Anpassungsplanung, stellt den "Advanced Urban Screening" Service vor und erläutert die Ergebnisse der CLARITY-Expertenstudie in Linz. This webinar is part of the CLARITY4ClimateResilience series. Other webinars from this series are available at https://www.gotostage.com/channel/climate-adaptation

The education of engineers in chemical engineering at the University of Applied Sciences of Geneva is quite unique. In the last year of study, students work on pilot plants in the laboratory of chemical engineering and use their results in the planning and construction exercises. An example of tests with biogas purification and the project of an industrial installation in which the biogas will feed a motor illustrate this.

Perennial grasslands play an important role as an extensive CO2 sink. Fodder and biofuels can be produced in an ecologically acceptable manner on such sites. Projected future climate-change scenarios suggest that Central Europe’s grasslands will be increasingly affected by drought. In order to determine whether there is potential for some alternative drought-adapted grass species to contribute to herbage production for either forage or biomass, we tested the agronomic performance of ten grass species (Agropyron elongatum, Agropyron intermedium, Agropyron desertorum, Agropyron trachycaulum, Elymus hoffmannii, Elymus junceus, Bromus inermis, Bromus marginatus, Festuca arundinacea and Panicum virgatum) in comparison to four reference grasses (Dactylis glomerata, Arrhenatherum elatius, Agrostis gigantea and Agropyron repens). Experiments were conducted in small-plot cutting trials at two sites across two growing seasons with either one or multiple cuts per season. In the one-cut system, P. virgatum provided the highest average annual dry matter (DM) yield (14 258 kg ha–1), followed by A. elongatum (13 086 kg ha–1). The multi-annual persistence of these two species under the experimental conditions was given only when P. virgatum was not harvested before freezing off and A. elongatum was harvested only once per year. Moreover, both species are susceptible to lodging. In the multiple-cut system, F. arundinacea showed a high yield (12 533 kg DM ha–1 average annual yield) and a low presence of associated weeds (only 0.1% surface area). Cultivating this grass species requires considering its only moderate competitiveness during the establishment phase. Based on the rapid establishment of A. trachycaulum, this species is expected to be best suited as a cover crop in seed mixtures. The yields of A. desertorum, A. trachycaulum, A. repens, E. junceus and B. marginatus were below the experimental average (9255 kg DM ha–1 at multiple cuttings). DOI: 10.5073/JfK.2014.06.01, https://doi.org/10.5073/JfK.2014.06.01