For all the talk about climate change, sometimes it’s hard to see how it directly relates to us, our families, and our friends. We read about melting glaciers in the Arctic, about droughts in Africa, and about more hurricanes in the Caribbean. But what about here in Maine?
For most of us, these events that make the news may not hit home. We don’t contemplate where our electricity comes from or realize that how long we idle the car affects our health and the health of our children. We don’t think about coal-fired power plants in Tennessee or wonder if factories in Michigan are meeting air pollution standards. Are these standards actually strong enough to protect our health?
But, as a physician who often sees patients with asthma and other lung conditions, I can tell you that the health effects of carbon and other air pollutants are very real and very dangerous, and that we ignore the causes at our peril.
There is a well-worn path between carbon pollution, poor air quality, health consequences, emergency room visits, and costly hospitalizations.
Consider these four very real scenarios related to carbon pollution:
• Unhealthy ozone: days of high ozone levels, when people with asthma and other lung diseases can’t go outside, and even the healthiest people experience wheezing and coughing after physical exertion;
• Forest fires: fires in the western U.S. or Canada that turn the skies in Maine hazy with toxic smoke and make chronic heart and breathing conditions worse, and even contribute to the development of cancer;
• High pollen: pollen seasons that last longer, where your co-workers seem to be sick all the time and the neighborhood kids with asthma are constantly using their inhalers because they’re struggling to breathe;
• High heat: summertime heat that sends elderly community members to the hospital with heat stroke and forces your town to open up the school gymnasium so people can stay cool and safe.
These events are not distant possibilities. They are already happening and if current trends continue, there is no question they will become more commonplace in the years to come.
As carbon pollution and the other gases that naturally create a “greenhouse effect” have built up in the Earth’s atmosphere, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, the planet’s average temperature has risen.
Warmer air combines with gasses from smokestacks and tailpipes to create more ozone pollution. Higher heat and droughts create conditions more favorable to forest fires, which can generate immense volumes of dangerous smoke. And warmer temperatures extend the pollen season while higher concentrations of carbon dioxide trigger greater allergenic pollen production in plants.
The health effects can include wheezing, coughing, asthma attacks, heart attacks, and even premature death.
The risks are especially high for children, whose lungs are still growing; seniors; and people with heart disease, asthma, or other lung conditions, like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Air pollution doesn’t respect state borders and natural air currents put Maine on the receiving end of pollution from other states. And air pollution doesn’t only stay in the air. Many of the toxins carried in the air include mercury, lead and arsenic that get deposited in our soil (where they end up in our food and wells) and in our lakes and rivers (where they end up in fish).
Cleaning up sources of carbon and other harmful pollution is our best action to protect our air, water and soil.
Coal-fired power plants are the single largest source of carbon pollution, while cars and light trucks are also a significant source of toxic emissions.
It turns out climate change is not some vague concept that doesn’t really have much to do with us. Carbon pollution is changing the world’s climate and here in Maine we’re beginning to see the effects.
Reducing pollution from smokestacks and tailpipes will slow the rate of climate change, improve lung health, and lower the health care costs related to poor air quality.
This is about our health and the health of our children and grandchildren. We owe it to our families and communities to protect our state’s air, water, soil and climate.
Small actions by many people are the best way to bring about change. I hope you will join me in telling the Environmental Protection Agency that we support the Clean Power Plan and its first-ever limits on carbon pollution from power plants.
Dr. Anne Brown is an internal medicine physician at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center.
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