Based on per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence, it must be ap­par­ent to every­one that cli­mate change af­fects air qual­i­ty and health. The clear­est ex­am­ple we have is the si­nus is­sue we ex­pe­ri­ence with Sa­hara dust.

Fifty years ago, we did not know about Sa­hara dust. Now it’s al­ways present in the at­mos­phere. Analy­sis of the dust in the air over the past 25 years shows a grad­ual in­crease, year by year.

As a ha­bit­u­al walk­er of Chan­cel­lor Hill, I first be­gan to no­tice a haze over Port-of-Spain around 2000 and in an ar­ti­cle ti­tled “Pol­lut­ed Air,” pub­lished in the T&T Guardian in March 2003, wrote that “there is a clearcut re­la­tion­ship be­tween the pres­ence of this dust, and coughs and colds in chil­dren. Check the at­mos­phere for signs of dust or smoke. You may no­tice that your child’s cold and cough im­proves, when the air ap­pears clear and clean.”

In those days, on top of Chan­cel­lor, when there was Sa­hara dust, you could see the Ca­roni Swamp. Not so nowa­days.

It’s fair­ly easy to un­der­stand how dust from a dry­ing up Sa­hara, due to the in­crease in the Earth’s sur­face tem­per­a­ture, can ir­ri­tate si­nus­es, eyes, throats, and lungs in chil­dren and adults. So one ends up with ei­ther si­nusi­tis, con­junc­tivi­tis, ton­sil­li­tis, pharyn­gi­tis, croup, asth­ma and even pneu­moni­tis. The un­der­ly­ing prob­lem is in­flam­ma­tion.

The res­pi­ra­to­ry tract re­sponds to ir­ri­ta­tion by pro­duc­ing mu­cus in the nose, throat, or lungs. Mu­cus pro­tects the res­pi­ra­to­ry sys­tem by trap­ping and re­mov­ing in­haled par­ti­cles like dust, al­ler­gens, pathogens and oth­er tox­ic com­po­nents and is an im­por­tant, though trou­ble­some, part of our im­mune re­sponse.

If pro­longed, that in­flam­ma­to­ry process in adults caus­es dis­ease. In chil­dren, that in­flam­ma­tion not on­ly caus­es dis­ease, it al­so harms de­vel­op­ing or­gans.

If the de­fen­sive mu­cus sys­tem fails and air­borne par­ti­cles, chem­i­cals and al­ler­gens pass through the lungs in­to the body, they trig­ger in­flam­ma­tion in­side the body. If that oc­curs in chil­dren whose or­gans are de­vel­op­ing and if the in­flam­ma­tion is too long, it can cause life­long in­flam­ma­to­ry con­di­tions con­tribut­ing to preterm birth, di­min­ished lung func­tion, dis­rupt­ed brain de­vel­op­ment, en­docrine dis­rup­tion and al­tered ex­pres­sion of our ge­net­ic sys­tem. All the above then, are linked to the heat­ing up of the Earth’s at­mos­phere.

When in­flam­ma­tion sys­tems re­spond for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od dur­ing preg­nan­cy, it takes away en­er­gy from fe­tal de­vel­op­ment, re­sult­ing in preterm births. Pre­ma­tu­ri­ty, in ad­di­tion to the cost in­volved in tak­ing care of preterms, means de­lays in de­vel­op­ing cog­ni­tive and mo­tor skills, vi­sion and hear­ing prob­lems, di­min­ished lung ca­pac­i­ty, de­vel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties such as cere­bral pal­sy, as well as high­er risk of oth­er chron­ic con­di­tions, obe­si­ty, heart dis­ease and di­a­betes.

Dis­rupt­ed brain de­vel­op­ment is one of the most re­cent find­ings linked to cli­mate change. Brain in­flam­ma­tion caused by pro­longed ex­po­sure to air pol­lu­tion pre­na­tal­ly and in the ear­li­est years of life, can dam­age the de­vel­op­ing brain and in­crease the risk in lat­er life of de­vel­op­ing autism, Alzheimer’s and Parkin­son’s.

The re­la­tion­ship with autism spec­trum dis­or­der is par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ter­est­ing. It would be use­ful for par­ents to use their con­sid­er­able en­er­gy to fight against cli­mate change and air pol­lu­tion rather than blam­ing vac­cines.

En­docrine dis­rup­tion. Chem­i­cals found in air fresh­en­ers and per­son­al care prod­ucts used to “cool down” can cause in­creased thy­roid ac­tiv­i­ty and ac­cel­er­ate the start of pu­ber­ty. Cer­tain chem­i­cals, when mixed with in­door dust, can mim­ic testos­terone and es­tro­gen. Or­di­nary house dust it­self can be hor­mon­al­ly ac­tive.

Al­tered gene ex­pres­sion. We used to be­lieve that the ge­net­ic make­up that you in­her­it­ed from your par­ents could not be changed. It can. A child’s ex­pe­ri­ence and ex­po­sure can ac­ti­vate pro­teins that at­tach to their genes in dis­tinc­tive pat­terns which con­trol whether a gene’s in­struc­tions will be car­ried out. This epi­ge­net­ic process can lead to changes in your ge­net­ic struc­ture. Genes can be al­tered by in­door pol­lu­tants dur­ing preg­nan­cy and the first years of life. The re­sult­ing changes can af­fect or­gan de­vel­op­ment, sleep pat­terns, en­er­gy lev­els or even cause changes to DNA that in­crease the risk of autism, de­vel­op­ment de­lays and can­cer. These ge­net­ic changes can be passed down from par­ent to child and even grand­chil­dren.

If out­door pol­lu­tants are harm­ful, in­door ones are worse. One of the things we did with the oil and gas mon­ey was to pur­chase air-con­di­tion­ing for our homes, of­fices and schools. Car­pet soon fol­lowed. That com­bi­na­tion can be lethal to our cells. Chem­i­cals re­leased from fur­ni­ture, car­pets, and clean­ing prod­ucts, plus in­door sources of pol­lu­tion, such as to­bac­co smoke and out­door pol­lu­tion com­ing in, mean lev­els of in­door air pol­lu­tants, trapped in­side closed up rooms, can be two to five times high­er than out­door lev­els. In­hala­tion of these air­borne par­ti­cles harms chil­dren more than adults be­cause their bod­ies are still de­vel­op­ing and their im­ma­ture sys­tems are more sen­si­tive to poi­sons.