At first glance, the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan may seem like another one of those Washington abstractions.
As a medical professional, let me offer a second opinion. What gets lost in the immediate jump to the political debate about climate change is the impact our current pollution levels have on our public health. As a primary care physician at Robbins Clinic in the Cook County Health and Hospital System, I see firsthand the effects harmful emissions have on my patients — especially children.
The Clean Power Plan is simply a blueprint aimed at curbing carbon emissions from power plants — and there are many in and around the south side of Chicago and Cook County where my patients live. I’ve witnessed the negative effects excessive carbon emissions have on my patients’ health. In particular, they exacerbate chronic conditions such as asthma and heart disease. Excessive carbon emissions cause high rates of absence from work and school. They also contribute to increased mortality rates. The reduction of pollutants can impact lives by preventing premature deaths and hospitalizations. Recent studies have shown that the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan would lead to 140,000 fewer asthma attacks, thousands fewer deaths, and nearly half a million fewer missed school and work days over the next 15 years.
And it’s not just asthma. The likelihood of extreme weather will only increase as climate change accelerates and it is clear that these events disproportionately impact those least prepared to deal with the effects of climate-related disasters.
We owe it to each other, to our communities and to future generations to take action on climate change before it is too late. We know that temperature increases due to pollution-induced climate change can lead to more heat-related emergencies, more insect and waterborne diseases and longer allergy seasons. Such children are particularly susceptible to asthma but also suffer high rates of allergy syndromes and infection. They develop chronic and congenital diseases at higher rates than children living in other neighborhoods. These disparities are also exacerbated by decades of substandard housing, long-forgotten neighborhoods, and widespread neglect for the health of the people who live there.
There can be no mistake that climate change is a public health issue and the president’s visionary Clean Power Plan is no abstraction: it’s a response to the very real issue of sick kids in Chicago and Cook County.
All public health doctors see the effects of excessive carbon emissions on our patients – young and old – and we work every day to blunt those effects. The Clean Power Plan will only help us be more successful in that effort. But as anyone who is ailing will tell you, if you don’t have your health, the rest doesn’t matter. It’s time for cleaner air and a reversal of the long-term damage to our climate that threatens the health of all working families.
The president’s Clean Power Plan is a step in the right direction and I look forward to the day when moms and dads won’t have to spend late nights in the emergency room for asthma attacks that could have been prevented.
—Simon Piller, M.D., Doctors Council, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
