Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; Dr. Neelu Tummala, MD claims she can see the effects of climate change increasingly impacting the bodies of her patients.
What Climate Change Does to the Human Body
An ENT physician sees the effects in her patients all the time
By Neelu Tummala on August 29, 2020
…
I vividly remember a patient who came in late for her appointment during a July heat wave. When I walked in, she said, “I’m so sorry I’m late, I was up all night walking my grandbaby around the train station.” Without air conditioning at home, the child was sweating through her clothes in the heat of the night, putting her at risk for dehydration.
…
Heat affects every part of our body. It can lead to heat exhaustion, heat stroke, anxiety, impaired cognitive function and even premature death from heart and lung disease. Across the country, the health concerns of the climate crisis are increasingly being recognized, pushing thousands of medical providers—doctors, nurses, pharmacists, therapists, medical students—to become advocates for change.
In my own practice, I explain to patients how the climate crisis affects their health. For example, apart from contributing to global warming, rising carbon dioxide levels increase the amount of pollen that plants produce as a consequence of higher rates of photosynthesis. This rise in pollen levels can lead to worsening allergy symptoms. Another example is fine particulate matter (known as PM2.5) associated with air pollution, much of it linked to the burning of fossil fuels that help drive the warming. When we breathe in these particles, they travel down the airway and settle in the tiny air sacs called alveoli of the lungs, causing inflammation and potentially worsening asthma symptoms. The explanations are simple, but the health risks are widespread and complex. Ground-level ozone pollution, which is worse in hotter weather, can also harm people with asthma and other respiratory diseases.
…
Climate action is required of our elected leaders, and we must mandate it of ourselves. It can be as simple as educating family and friends, while making sustainable shopping and traveling choices.
…
Neelu Tummala, M.D., is an ENT doctor with George Washington Medical Faculty Associates and a climate advocate with a special interest in the intersection of climate and health. She is a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Follow her on Twitter @NeeluTummala.
Read more: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-climate-change-does-to-the-human-body/
As someone who suffers severe asthma I am outraged when a doctor lends the weight of their professional qualifications to such sweeping and in my opinion grossly misleading generalisations.
Warmer temperatures would help many asthmatics. Different asthmatics have different triggers. My biggest trigger is dry cold winter air mixed with smoke emitted by people trying to keep warm, which is one of the main reasons I moved to the edge of the tropics. Warm, moist tropical air for me is just like one of those steam vaporiser masks, it helps control my symptoms. No matter how extreme the heatwave I do just fine, so long as the air is humid.
Humans have far greater capacity to handle heat than most people realise. Our ancestors evolved in the extreme tropics, many anthropologists believe our ancestors survived by persistence hunting, using our superior ability to handle extreme tropical heat to run prey into the ground – a tradition still practiced by some remote tribes. Anywhere outside the extreme tropical zone where we evolved, we have to wear clothes to stay warm. If you feel too warm, give your body’s superb heat management system a chance, drink lots of water and remove items of your cold climate clothes until you feel comfortable.
I have no doubt Dr. Tummala sometimes sees patients suffering heat stress or suffering the effects of pollution triggered asthma. But to blame all this on climate change, and to suggest a warming planet would be certain to make it worse is just absurd.
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Can anyone in their right mind imagine this level of quakery passing as medical science. Just when one thinks the height of absurdity has been reached, an incomprehensibly stupid individual raises the bar.
Quack-ery. Quakery has more to do with oatmeal. Point taken, though. Can’t list the vast number of wide-eyed pseudo-scientists who can “just see” effects than can only be caused by their pre-conceived. Elsewhere this is known as faith.
The ” impaired cognitive function” is well in evidence. It has been rising exponentially since the mid 70s so is clearly attributable to rising CO2.
To go by the photo this woman was born with ” impaired cognitive function” . If someone came to me with a face like that, claiming to be an MD, I’d ask to see her papers.
can toasters write papers? most toasters are empty and hollow and cant make good toast
toasty the toaster
toasty the toaster was brainless without a clue
With a corncob vibe and a button plug
and two eyes that had no soul
toasty the toaster is a fairy mermaid they say
she was made of bull but the children
know how she came to strip one day
There must have been some magic in that
old “p” hat they found
For when they placed it on his head she began to scream out loud
O
toasty the toaster
was as brainless as she could be
And the children say she could not laugh
and play just the same as you and me
Thumpetty thump thump
thumpety thump thump
Look at toasty go
Thumpetty thump thump
thumpety thump thump
Over the hills of hollow space
toasty the toaster knew
the sun was hot that day
So she said
“Let’s scream and yell
and i will have a hissy fit today
” Down to the village
with her tea shirt in her hand
Running here and there all
around the square saying
Catch me if you can
she led them down the streets of town
right to the traffic cop
And he only paused a moment when
he heard him holler “put your clothes’ back on”
For toasty the toaster
had to scury on her way
But she waved goodbye saying
“Don’t you cry
I’ll be back fully nude some day
” Thumpetty thump thump
thumpety thump thump
Look at toasty go
Thumpetty thump thump
thumpety thump thump
Over the hills to the land of odd
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
Once a science magazine
Now a climate whore
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/24/climate-whores/
Precisely. The chief reason why I cancelled my decades-long subscription many years ago.
I cancelled my subscription decades ago. Before “global warming/climate change” became “science”. Back then they were clearly becoming a leftist political rag with the lead articles frequently being some kind of socialistic or anti-western civilization, non-scientific blather. Even the science was screwed up. I remember one article about quantum mechanics that was such a logical mess as to be hopeless.
Unscientific and unamerican.
Just wait until all academic requirements and MCAT scores are abandoned because they’re racist.
This climate change garbage can trigger nausea and vomiting to people who value truth ..
The Quaker Dance.
Twice round the hall then outside for your oats.
Originally the Quakers were a worthwhile Protestant sect. These days they have evolved into a political movement. I say that as somebody who is a “birthright Friend”. I have been unable to stomach meeting for the past 50 years. They have become just another post-modern woke grievance movement whose only “inner light” is the torch of socialism, “climate justice” and mob violence.
The Unitarians have gone the same way.
Truth be known I have come to settle on the philosophy of Spinoza as being the only thing worth the effort now.
Physician heal thyself 🙂
Total BS by Ms. Tummala – we published the following in 2015.
COLD WEATHER KILLS 20 TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE AS HOT WEATHER
by Joseph d’Aleo and Allan MacRae, September 4, 2015
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
Don’t worry about global warming, which is insignificant – if you need to worry about something, worry about global cooling.
Yes as a physician for the past 35 years, I can not only imagine it but witness it on a regular basis. Having “M.D.” after one’s name does not guarantee that every verbal morsal that passes one’s lips is anywhere close to an actionable truth, rather than just a whim justified by the speaker’s overvalued ego.
She stated: “In my own practice, I explain to patients how the climate crisis affects their health.”
If you visit a physician who’s feels the need to warn you about a non-existent “climate crisis” and then lists off their imaginary understanding of what that means to your health, you may, with good reason, take anything they say about your health and measures to improve it with a large amount of skepticism and, perhaps, seek a second opinion.
Doctors are treating symptoms not the cause. It took one of us Engineers to consolidated all the scientific biological information (10,000+ papers) and conclude the obvious:
https://www.ali.fitness/chronic-disease-wireless-devices-richard-lear-greenwave-ep033/
Wireless Devices and their quadrillion increase in microwave radiation and now millimeter waves with the 5G roll-out—- these devices are the CIGARETTES OF THE 21ST CENTURY.
All one has to do is reflect how our species thrives in climates from desert to polar to realize how this “expert’s” opinion is just a bunch of end product from a bovine.
Intense heat makes me unable to process complex ideas where different things need to be put together. I tend to brain freeze/reinit from heat.
Doing sequential memorized stuff is OK. Or linear computations.
Let me fix that for you.
The climate is not warming. Think about that.
There, fixed it.
The climate in August in Paris is very different from the climate in December.
That’s lot of climate change.
Is that you, Joe? Come on, man. It’s not the heat, you’re old like dirt.
“I vividly remember a patient who came in late for her appointment during a July heat wave”
Heat waves are weather events constrained by time and place. It is not possible to relate their health and anatomical effects to AGW or fossil fuels. For that she will need global data over a period longer than 30 years, preferably 60 years. Pls see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/07/16/the-internal-variability-issue/
But I would be pleased to add her research to my list of climate research that exposes the dark and un-scientific nature of the climate movement
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/06/21/climate-change-impacts1/
When I had my first in 1979 in a heat wave om Montreal, we kept the baby comfortable by draping a damp receiving blanket over her. In the hot season in India where I grew up, my dad went out in the noonday sun with a damp tea towel around his head. He lived to be 96 despite dire predictions from the natives. Actually, Brits were better in the heat than the natives, because getting cold as infants confers heat tolerance to the adult.
The damp towel around the head works wonders, especially if you just use a simple fan. I do this to escape the hot head effect from a very hot day. Evaporative cooling. I sometimes wonder if this isn’t the origin of head coverings in Arab cultures or the turban in India for e.g. weren’t invented for that very purpose. It was hotter in the past climate oscillations of the Holocene so this Dr. is full of nonsense blaming global warming now.
I just bought a mini 6″ cordless fan at Walmart for $25 that has a L-Ion battery that will run it for 10 hours on low, or 3-4 hours on high and just takes a few hours to charge through any USB port. Plus it will charge my iPhone or any other USB device if the battery is fully charged, so is a miracle that could be utilized throughout the 3rd world where they don’t have 24/7 grid or any A/C. I would buy a bigger version too if it were available. For off grid or if the power goes out.
Omani rig hands told me that they wear the wraparounds for the evaporative cooling. Only when it gets to 50 degC, which is virtually every day in July, they wake them off.
For those that live in extreme heat, low humidity conditions like our US high plains deserts here is an alternative to standard AC refrigerant equipment, i.e., evaporative cooling. Here is one US manufacturer:
https://www.globalindustrial.com/p/hvac/air-conditioning/commercial-portable-ac/portable-air-conditioner-kpac1811-2-15-ton-17700-btu?infoParam.campaignId=WR&msclkid=5faa7ff471ca1eb3e8fe20b8aba92406&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=%5BADL%5D%20%5BPLA%5D%20%5BHVAC%2FR%20%26%20Fans%5D%20%7BAir%20Conditioners%7D%20(Overlap)%20-%20%5BNormal%20SKUs%5D&utm_term=4582627040682750&utm_content=HVAC%2FR%20%26%20Fans%20-%20Air%20Conditioners%20-%20(Overlap)&adlclid=ADL-fdb57a40-9c46-4c7e-9d88-bfc6c6f9d92f
As you say, climate does not change the weather, accumulated weather makes climate.
How weather affects life has been a study of mine for over 20 years.
https://www.weather-research.com/weather-and-life
All her observations and correlations are specious.
She is in the USA, and our best (no “adjustments”) temperature record the USCRN shows NO warming for the continental USA in the past 15 years.
So her observations of sequela must be either lies, deliberate propaganda or her mistakes.
Right up there with Greta seeing CO2. I can see a new Marvel Climate Super Heroes franchise coming soon.
Beat me to it.
And this: “Across the country, the health concerns of the climate crisis are increasingly being recognized, pushing thousands of medical providers—doctors, nurses, pharmacists, therapists, medical students—to become advocates for change. ”
Changing to what? Less expensive and more reliable air conditioners? More reliable electricity? Was that poor baby during the July heat wave in Kalifornia?
Is she really a doctor? A medical doctor or just playing one after staying in a Holiday Inn Express. Sheesh, what an idiot.
She must have had a consultation with Greta !
– JPP
“Seeing” things where they are not is an ancient pastime.
Skrying for portents in entrails is a good example.
This doctor is doing the same thing.
Don’t forget that Greta can also “see” CO2.
I wonder if she has any stories about patients suffering in the extreme cold?
this is just sick
It’s funny – funny strange, not funny ha-ha – how people can be so smart in one area and so dumb in others. And as for wisdom, often it’s the smart people who don’t realize how foolish they are.
I hope I am never in a position where I have to rely on this doctor for anything, in any field.
Some of the dumbest yet most arrogant people I have met have been doctors. For some reason a large proportion of them are hard Marxists.
A doctor dies, and finds himself in a long line waiting to see St. Peter. The doctor ignores the line and walks straight up to the Pearly Gates. St. Peter rebukes him, asking what possessed him to try to bypass the queue. He replies, “Well, I’m a doctor!”, to which St. Peter replies, “Go back and wait your turn“.
The doctor grumbles and returns to the end of the line, finding himself several places further back than before.
After a long while, an old bearded man strolls up to the gate in a white coat, and is immediately admitted into heaven. Incensed, the doctor rushes back to St. Peter to protest. “You just let that doctor in, why are you making me wait?”
St. Peter chuckles and explains, “That wasn’t a doctor. That was God. He just thinks he’s a doctor. “
Made my day, thanks
Uhh … make it wish you’d bought more sweaters?
I blame gravity for impacting my body.
Interestingly though, the article reminded me that I have not bought any Flonase nasal sprays this year for my pollen allergy. I usually need one or two of them during the season. Particularly interesting given how verdant has been the foliage around here in N. California.
Funny how when you get older the ground gets further away. It a lot harder to get down and a lot harder to get up. Jumping out of pickup boxes, that ended about 20 years ago.
That’s so true. Because we’re just not tackling the climate emergency, the ground is expanding due to the heat and, therefore, there’s more of it. Any idiot can figure out that if there’s more ground then there has to be more gravity. My cheek jowls are tracking closely with human CO2 emissions. How can anyone dispute the connection between CO2-induced gravitational effects and cheek jowl descent? Come on folks on here. Science is real.
My problem is methane, especially if I accidentally watch CNN, the smell is awful from the TV. Just like when your RV hot water tank sacrificial anode reacts with accidental mineralization in the water and disintegrates causing a real stink.
I terminated my subscription to the “Scientific” American in 1995 after they devoted a whole issue to denouncing “The Bell Curve”, a book by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray. Their arguments were mostly name calling and righteous indignation, not a glimmer of science. 25 years later that approach is bearing a poisonous fruit.
No, she can’t!
People live in virtually every climate. You can’t ‘see’ climate change. Holy crap, they just keep piling on with blather that will, eventually, knock their house of cards down.
The problem is that the writers actually BELIEVE what they are writing. I’m 76, and have lived through ‘global’ cooling and ‘global’ warming. Still here, doing fine. I lived in Hawaii, Connecticut, California, Washington, and Oregon. All have different climates. I was hot in Hawaii. It was dry in California. Mt. St. Helens erupted when I was in Washington. I’ve been in Oregon since 1980, where I was born. in 1949, there was over 40 inches of snow here. Some years we don’t see a flake. I’m still doing fine, because sooner or later, the averages catch up and we get dumped on.
I still remember Obama complaining about his daughter’s asthma being made worse by climate change, but I also remember that he moved his daughter from Hawaii to Chicago to DC. How’s that for climate change???
global warmists – it’s rain, it’s rain, it’s rain
Me – but you’re peeing on my leg
global warmists – it’s rain, it’s rain, it’s rain
keep saying it, pronouncing it, spewing it, teaching it to innocent minds – sooner or later they are going to tip over into the global warmist camp
Only works for a while. Once Warmunism becomes the state religion it becomes dogmatic parent think for the next generation of kids to rebel against. I think we’re already seeing early signs.
I hope you’re right. The stupidity and arrogance of climate hypochondriacs is a syndrome I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy.
How does anyone in DC not have AC?
Poverty rates in Washington DC are actually fairly high. About 18% of the population is below the poverty line. This rises to ~25% for families with children. The local economy is centered almost entirely around government and servicing government workers. There is almost no local industry in DC.
When I was young and living in and around Washington DC most cars had no air conditioning. There was a magnificent technology called a wing window. If one’s car was moving at all this window could be adjusted to direct drying air on the body. At the same time the wing window effectively exhausted tobacco smoke. It was sad to see these wings disappear even though more recent cars all have AC.
I understand one can still get wing windows on some very high end cars but I’m not in that financial league.
Probably worked real well on those few days in Washington, DC when the humidity wasn’t high.
Normally, however, the humidity is so ridiculously high you get swamp ass walking 100 feet to the mail box.
I didn’t live in a house with AC until I was in my 20’s. (I’m past mid-60’s now.). But they all had, and still do have heat. Cold kills.
I found that quote from the article very telling in that it and no where else in the article does it explain just where the doctor was seeing patients. While the article mentioned USA numerous times, the exact place where the doctor was seeing this patient was never stated. Also a bit odd that train stations in the USA are not the places of luxury that have air conditioning for people to walk about in. Add in the suspect people that frequent bus & train stations at night, a single older woman with a young child would be easy prey for all sorts of things, heat being the very least of her problems.
While “a July heatwave” is mentioned, it doesn’t say which year. The next paragraph leads one to only assume that July 2019 was the hottest on record, again it does not state where.
Prior to global warming, summer was never hot.
Crazy eyes, just sayin’
More fanatic, it seems.
Thank you for sharing this, one doctor off my list and I see a specialist at GW.
You can’t fix stupid.
My contention is that higher CO2 in the air in recent decades has caused greater tooth growth, as seen in humans born since 1990 or so. See image of author for an illustration.
Well, her brain is fried.
I was thinking the same thing clearly global warming has cooked her brain.
Funny. I made an instantaneous climate change move to a much warmer climate. My allergies and asthma got so much better. I don’t even notice them over a decade later.
Yep. IMO the hot weather = asthma claim is well dodgy.
Cold trigger my asthma, as I gotten older it does not take much cold to do it. High ozone also does and it often comes with the heat, but it is not the heat, it the ozone, low ozone high heat no problem. I will admit in high heat 110 + it does bother one eyes rather fast, they do adjust out of it. Here in Arizona I wait for the heat to show up and morn when it is gone, I am a life long asthmatic. It cold that give me problems.
I thought saunas were suppose to be good for the human body ?
Only when “Man Made”. 😎
Scientific American stopped being scientific and stopped being American long ago.
Nest ussue– how space aliens can increase climate change and racism.
Could not agree more. I dropped my subscription a few years ago for just that reason.
Psychosomatic? Stop spreading the social contagion.
So we can make up stories about climate change while blocking curative approaches to COVID19. A sad state of affairs that the focus of importance has drifted to such a political low.
A lot of Canadians vacation in Arizona to escape the Canadian winters, so all these people voluntarily expose themselves to abrupt, dramatic climate change on a regular basis.
I love those blogs that explain to climate change believers how to get regular people to care about climate change, and the usual prescription is, make it personal. The story is always, climate change Is affecting your life for the worse right now. Since this is obviously not true, the personal angle works only on people who are extremely suggestible which, come to think of it is a fair description of people who believe in a climate emergency that is obviously not happening.