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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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The Woke American is a better name for the magazine.
What did people in lower latitudes do in the summer before air conditioning?
Lived normally, just did not do as much in the heat. The mechanics that work on my vehicle do a summer in 100+ temps and no AC this summer were had a string of temperatures in the teens. They all work outside granted not in the sun but outside.
NUTS!
Reference: Anthony McAuliffe.
“Nuts” McAuliffe was a senior United States Army officer who earned fame as the acting commander of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division troops defending Bastogne, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge. He is celebrated for his one-word reply to a German surrender ultimatum: “Nuts!” {an official military response}
What an ignorant person. So anecdotally a woman has a bad night because she doesn’t have aircon. Therefore we must have a Green New Deal. Yes, follow the science. Revoke her license to practice!
Absolute bollocks.
Moving to the Philippines, I left my California/Oregon allergies behind. I hear that from many expats. Warm, humid is good for the sinuses.
The good doctor should tell all her patients to move somewhere much colder.
Then, they and she will discover cold kills more people than hot.
I moved to Florida a couple of months ago. It’s hot and humid. I live at the beach. I breath better here than in Western NC, my previous home. I think I’m allergic to fescue (Kentucky 31). I love breathing salt air and swimming in the ocean. My body is back home. I will not miss the cold.
until she does a randomized double blind study she is just a quack (like all the hydrox doctors are called) …
The second inane article in a week taken from the pages of Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Last week it was “An Industry Out of Control: 13 Major Climate Reports in 2020, and 42 Minor Reports” by Michael Svoboda, PhD (a freshman English teacher from George Washington University). Yale has apparently lost all semblance of being a prestigious institution of higher education, unless the real disciplines there are just tolerating the fools. Unfortunately, my own traditionally conservative alma mater has started down that road as well, even employing one of the most rabid, outspoken climate alarmists.
If a young person has been prepared and equipped with a strong world view and an acute nonsense detector, he or she may still be able to attain a good education.
So, “counseled” the mother on global warming, allergens, and air pollution.
Didn’t even try to find out WHY she didn’t have air conditioning – maybe something to do with the high price of electricity?
Oh, wait! Dr. Neelu Tummala is ALSO from GWU, just like Michael Svoboda. Is there a pattern here?
Free medical pass due to skin tone? Does not seem to be a high IQ person.
The climate of DC is definitely getting hotter. /sarc
My guess is that the climate as experienced by the people of DC is getting colder in the summer because of A/C.
“Climate Change™” seems to cause major issues with leftist psycho-phants.
Seems to turn their minds into a sort of fetid green goop/sludge.
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Or was it that way to start with ??
Methinks the good doctor should take a generous spoonful of castor oil and have a good lie down.
But she’s jolly pretty.
Wow! One or two degrees hotter is going to kill everybody. Who knew?
It defies logic.
GH gasses dont increase maximum temperatures, they lower them. They increase the lows, and the average for sure, but look at Tmax on the moon with no gases at all. 105 C.
Compare the tropics to a neighbouring desert zone. The desert has a higher Tmax and a much lower Tmin. GH gasses even out the extremes, and increase the average. They do not increase the maximum temperatures.
Scientific American: “What Climate Change Does to the Human Body”
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/58371/
Climate Reality discussions
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/27864/
While raised in the Atlanta, GA area, Dr. Tummala’s surname originates in the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states of India, where summer temperatures commonly exceed 40-45C (104-113F). Washington, DC where she lives now has temperatures nowhere close to her ancestral states of India. By her logic, everyone back home in India must be dead or dying from the heat already. Good thing for her that her family escaped the deadly heat to come the U.S. so that she could grow up and then contribute to the destruction of this country. If my doctor started preaching global warming to me like she does to her patients, I’d quit that quack. Just stick to the practice of medicine, please.
Dear Dr. Neelu Tummala,
You are an idiot. You are an easily mislead, biased and uneducated person in the field you are blaming – that of climate change. The very people you claim to see the effects of a mostly natural and extremely slow temperature change on could just as easily be people who travel south for a short time into a warmer climate, or people who go from an air conditioned area to the out-of-doors. Do you claim you can look at people and tell me with certainty what latitude they are from? If not, how could you possibly know that there “effects” have anything to do with climate temperature change? Mostly people go out into a hot day and just over stay, over work, and over sweat leading to the effects. Apparently you believe this never happened before 1960? Did it ever, EVER occur to you that the sudden expansion of air-conditioning in the 1960’s might account for people not being acclimatized to hot days in 2020?
Apparently not. You just had to use your “professional credentials” to make an absurd statement – you couldn’t help yourself. We know this as “attention needy”. I am so glad I do not depend on you for medical attention – there is no telling how needless, random, and bad it might be as you apparently do not use science to base your decision making on.
‘…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.’
That’s a problem for an increasing number with the rising cost of unreliables and yet still needing to insure it with dependables not to mention the blackouts it causes. Refer to California or South Australia for enlightenment about that doc.
Actually doc you should also contemplate the latest example of islanded Western Australia and how more and more power poor parents have been forced to pay the well to do fancy prices for their rooftop solar power dumping. Consequently they can’t afford to aircondition their bubs-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/subsidies-paid-to-houses-with-solar-panels-to-be-slashed/vi-BB18vstw
With your empathy and concern you wouldn’t be in on that green gravy train would you doc?
Forget the climate. Dr Tummala makes my head spin. That’s what she does to me.
Most PM 2.5 come from wood burning, not from fossils.
And the assumption of the “evil” of 2.5 particulate relies on the absurd Linear No (Lower) Threshold theory.
“Show me the bodies!”
Can anyone with a medical degree be THAT stupid? Certainly,but in this doctor’s case I’d suggest “follow the money.”