In the latest round of meddling, White House censors yesterday gutted the testimony of the nation’s leading public health official – Dr. Julie Gerberding, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - by slashing more than half of her testimony to the Senate on the health effects of global warming. Read more about it in the Washington Post here and in the Associated Press here.
The White House completely eliminated seven pages of testimony on the health impacts of global warming, including explanations and descriptions of the links with heat stroke, weather disasters, worsening air pollution and allergies, food- and water-borne infectious diseases, mosquito and tick-borne infectious diseases, food and water scarcity, mental health problems, and even chronic disease. Perhaps the White House doesn’t want the U.S. public to know that climate change will directly affect their health and their lives.
Dr. Gerberding’s original testimony also explained that the burdens of global warming will fall on certain vulnerable populations. Her original testimony included the following detailed information on who is most at risk, which the White House seemingly doesn’t want people to know: "Children are at greater risk of worsening asthma, allergies, and certain infectious diseases, and the elderly are at higher risk for health effects due to heat waves, extreme weather events, and exacerbations of chronic disease. In addition, people of lower socioeconomic status are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events. Members of racial and ethnic minority groups suffer particularly from air pollution as well as inadequate health care access, while athletes and those who work outdoors are more at risk from air pollution, heat, and certain infectious diseases." Yikes, that sounds like most of us! I guess that's the problem.
The original CDC testimony also included the following statement, that was removed by OMB: "Scientific evidence supports the view that the earth’s climate is changing. A broad array of organizations (federal, state, local, multilateral, faith-based, private and nongovernmental) is working to address climate change. Despite this extensive activity, the public health effects of climate change remain largely unaddressed. CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern." Apparently the White House does not agree that CDC should consider climate change a ‘serious public health concern’.
The science on the health effects of global warming is growing stronger and more urgent every day. It’s beginning to seem like everyone understands these connections except the occupants of the White House. As wildfires burn in Southern California threatening homes and lives, and the water supply in Atlanta is draining dry, the White House is apparently trying to duck the inevitable question – are we already seeing the direct health effects of climate change today?
In case anyone's curious, take a look at the original testimony by the CDC director, and the gutted testimony that she gave yesterday to the Senate.
]]>So when the science started emerging that ragweed -- that most noxious of allergens for those of us with late-summer symptoms -- will thrive with global warming, I was pretty annoyed. It seems like with global warming, the hits just keep coming. Researchers from Harvard and the U.S. Department of Agriculture tried growing ragweed in greenhouses and exposing the plants to the levels of carbon dioxide that we experienced in pre-industrial times, the levels in the air today, and the levels expected by about 2050, and they found that the nasty weed produced about 130 percent more pollen today and will produce about 300 percent more pollen in the future. Worse still, the warmer temperatures may allow this weed to spread to new areas. You can read one of their studies here.
But it's not just ragweed that's linked to global warming. And it's not just pollen that hurts allergy sufferers. Ozone smog is also sensitive to temperature. That's why the smoggiest days are always the hot days of summer. Despite efforts to control air pollution, global warming is projected to reduce or even eliminate a lot of the efforts to control smog, and it may even make ozone pollution worse.
So here's the kicker: other scientific studies show that ozone and pollen seem to have a synergistic effect, so when people with allergies are exposed to both (instead of just one or the other), they get far more serious reactions.
My team of researchers at NRDC decided to take a look at this issue. We mapped the areas in the U.S. where ragweed has been reported, and we mapped the areas where ozone levels have exceeded the national standards within the past five years. Then we honed-in on the overlap zone. That overlap zone is pretty big, and it encompasses 309 counties where 150 million people live. It includes the Los Angeles basin, the Mississippi River basin, the Great Lakes states, and the entire Atlantic seaboard from Georgia to Maine. These are areas where people are living today with the "double-whammy" of ozone and ragweed pollen.
It's hard to say how much worse things will get in the future, but it's reasonable to be concerned. People with allergies and asthma might want to learn if they live in a zone where there's ragweed or ozone problems, and whether they're sensitive to ragweed. Here's some advice if you want to be prepared for ragweed season. For more information about ozone, and what can be done about it, check out this ALA factsheet.
Fundamentally, what we need is some government action to reduce ozone levels by bringing the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) down to a level that will protect human health, and reducing sources of pollution. At the same time, we need action to stop global warming and reduce carbon dioxide pollution. Can we do it?
]]>Yet I emerged from the meeting fairly optimistic. The fact that scientists and high-level government officials are getting together to even talk about this stuff means that there has been movement. Just a year ago, almost nobody was talking about the effects that global warming will have on our health. Now it's the topic of many major meetings, and lots of smart people are seriously working to figure this out.
Most of the speakers referred to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC's) most recent assessment of human health effects. It's an interesting read, and it's here. The IPCC is pushing for increased "adaptive capacity". That doesn't mean that we shouldn't do everything in our power to cut our emissions of greenhouse gases. It does mean that no matter what we do to our emissions, we're still going to be hit with some serious climate disruption.
So the new climate strategy is twofold: cut our emissions ASAP to minimize the damage, and at the same time, prepare for some nasty times ahead.
Hey, I live in San Francisco so I have an emergency kit in case of earthquakes. I guess people in the rest of the country need to catch on and put one together as well.
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