User:Apopa1985/sandbox

The debilitating effects of climate change seem to lead to medical impacts that affect a significant amount of people, particularly poor individuals and children. With the gradual worsening of climate change, Asthma is a serious chronic illness that is currently on the rise. Approximately 20 million Americans are inflicted with asthma. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, more than “4,000 die every year from the disease, which also causes some 1.8 million emergency room visits” (EmergencyDefenseFundOnline). Why, in recent years, has asthma symptoms become more prevalent? Who is most vulnerable to its effects? How does global climate change come into play? Beginning with defining asthma and what it does to the body, the reader can better understand asthma as a chronic illness that “constricts airways and makes them swollen, filling with mucus. Your chest feels tight -- you may cough or wheeze -- and you just can't seem to catch your breath. In severe cases, asthma attacks can be deadly” (NaturalResourcesDefenseCouncilOnline). Furthermore, the Natural Resources Defense Council found that asthma kills approximately “5,000 people every year in America” (NaturalResourcesDefenseCouncilOnline). It has been proven that people residing in poorer areas, with little sanitation, and both young children, and the elderly, are vulnerable subgroups to climate change and its effects on asthma. Beginning with the world’s poorest populations, the Practical Action organization found that the world’s poorest people are the hardest hit by climate change due to devastating droughts, floods, and other weather events (PracticalActionOnline). Furthermore, Practical Action proclaims that there is a massive injustice present since “climate change is caused by the world’s richest countries” (PracticalActionOnline). Since poor countries lack the financial means and strong voice to rise up against rich countries’ plans, which may have a debilitating effect on the earth’s environment, and further leads to climate change and the influx of asthmatic symptoms, these poor nations bear the burden of climate change. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the persistence of certain diseases, such as asthma, depend largely on climate change (EPAOnline). The extreme temperature changes that we have experienced cause a great loss of life, particularly on the elderly. Additionally, the extreme high temperature changes can “increase air and water pollution, which in turn harm human health” (EPAOnline). Furthermore, the EPA explains that “climate-related disturbances in ecological systems, such as changes in the range of infective parasites, can indirectly impact the incidence of serious infectious diseases” (EPAOnline). It is important to note that the “extent and nature of climate change impacts on human health vary by region, by relative vulnerability of population groups, by the extent and duration of exposure to climate change itself and by society’s ability to adapt to or cope with the change” (EPAOnline). By being exposed to these extreme climate changes, people are more inclined to contract diseases, such as asthma. Climate change is expected to contribute to some air quality problems. Respiratory disorders, such as asthma, are more prevalent as the climate changes in extreme manners. The four main air pollutants that trigger asthma are as follows: Ground Level Ozone, Sulfur Dioxide, Particulate Matter, and Nitrogen Oxide. Beginning with Ground Level Ozone, it is a “toxic component of smog…that is produced at ground level when tailpipe pollution from cars and trucks reacts with oxygen and sunlight” (NaturalResourcesDefenseCouncilOnline). Ground level ozone is most common in city-like environments. People living in cities, which are known to be less sanitary than suburban areas, are predominantly poor and thus lack the means to move to areas with better air quality. The cities are filled with buses and cars emitting harmful gases into the air and thus harming people in the near surroundings. Sulfur Dioxide is a “respiratory irritant…that is produced when coal and crude oil are burned” ( NaturalResourcesDefenseCouncilOnline). As mentioned previously, cities are filled with objects emitting harmful gases into the air, and sulfur dioxide is quite prevalent in city-like living areas. Sulfur Dioxide is emitted from coal-fired power plants. Unfortunately, “one in five Americans lives within 10 miles of a coal-fired power plant” (NaturalResourcesDefenseCouncilOnline). The fact that so many Americans live in such a close proximity of the coal-fired power plants goes to show that poor people do not have a great advantage at living in sufficient living conditions. Particulate matters are tiny particles in the air. They come from a wide range of pollutants, such as dust, soot, and diesel exhaust particles (NaturalResourcesDefenseCouncilOnline). If these small particles are suspended from the air and into the lungs, then an asthma symptom can be triggered; thus affecting the asthmatic. Approximately, “81 million people live in areas that fail to meet national air quality standards for particulate matter” (NaturalResourcesDefenseCouncilOnline). Coal-fired power plants and diesel vehicles are major emitters of particulate matter and thus further prove that people residing in poor living conditions are affected more than people living in more affluent areas. Finally, Nitrogen Oxide is a “gas emitted from tailpipes and power plants…it contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone and smog” (NaturalResourcesDefenseCouncilOnline). Furthermore, Nitrogen Oxide, when mixed with other air pollutants, form small particles that can trigger asthma.