White House: Global Warming Will Give Your Kids Asthma

04.07.2015 | Surge Wire |

The White House is claiming global warming will increase asthma risks for kids, elderly and “communities of color” unless carbon dioxide emissions are drastically cut.

“In the past three decades, the percentage of Americans with asthma has more than doubled, and climate change is putting these individuals and many other vulnerable populations at greater risk of landing in the hospital,” the White House said in a fact sheet, ahead of a presidential announcement on corporations and schools that are taking global warming seriously.

“Certain people and communities are especially vulnerable, including children, the elderly, the sick, the poor, and some communities of color. Rising temperatures can lead to more smog, longer allergy seasons, and an increased incidence of extreme-weather-related injuries,” according to the White House.

That’s a pretty bold claim, and part of an effort by the Obama administration to tie public health to fighting global warming. The administration first began to parrot the claim that cutting carbon dioxide emissions would help asthma rates after the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a massive regulatory program to cut power plant emissions last year.

Around the same time, the White House put out a fact sheet claiming that global warming “caused primarily by carbon pollution threatens the health and well-being of Americans in many ways, from increasing the risk of asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses to changing the spread of certain vector-borne diseases.”

Basically, the argument goes that global warming will increase the number of days with extreme heat, putting more people with respiratory illnesses into the hospital. The White House also claims that warmer weather will increase ground-level ozone, or smog, which will mean more people with asthma and other respiratory problems will be admitted into hospitals.

To back this up, the White House claims that “ozone concentrations in the New York metropolitan region will increase as a result of climate change, driving up the number of ozone-related emergency room visits for asthma in the area by 7.3 percent—more than 50 additional ozone-related emergency room visits per year in the 2020s, compared to the 1990s.”

The White House also claims particulate matter, an air pollutant from wildfires will be much worse because global warming will lead to more wildfires. Fires contain particulate matter, carbon monoxide and other pollutants medical experts say can exacerbate respiratory illnesses like asthma.

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