Atlanta Axios recently published an article titled “Allness Seasons Are Getting Longer in Atlanta. Blaming Climate Change. Axios’s article is misleading at best and misses a bigger point of view. [emphasis, links added]
Data and historical trends show that factors such as urbanization and land use changes despite fluctuations in pollen levels– Especially the urban heat island (UHI) effect –The Atlanta pollen model contributes much more than what they call local climate change.
“The warm climate means that allergy season starts early and lasts longer,” Kristal Dixon and Alex Fitzpatrick wrote for Axios. “Longer, warmer growing seasons can lead to earlier pollen releases and higher overall pollen levels.”
Dixon and Fitzpatrick overlooked several key facts in an attempt to link long-term climate change to longer allergic seasons.
For example, Atlanta's well-documented urban heat island effect (effects caused by dense infrastructure, concrete and asphalt trapping heat – has a much greater role in local temperature trends than any global warming impact.
Over the past few decades, the city has expanded significantly, increasing local temperatures and extending the growing season for plants.
According to NASA's analysis of UHI effects in Atlanta, Because artificially manufactured structures retain heat, the city's temperatures are always much higher than those in the surrounding rural areas.
This local warming (not global climate change) is a key driver of temperature-related transfers during the pollen cycle.
Second, pollen levels are greatly affected by regional vegetation patterns and carbon dioxide fertilization, which can lead to healthier plants.
As pointed out in one Climate Realism article, The pollen season depends largely on precipitation levels and natural climate change, not just temperature. When more rainfall occurs, plants produce more pollen. On the contrary, drought can inhibit pollen levels.
Climate models cannot reliably illustrate these local and regional factors Axios raises the question as if it was driven entirely by global temperature changes.
Furthermore, previous claims about worsening allergy season deterioration have not been scrutinized.
For example, in 2022 Climate Realism Analysis by showing that pollen trends vary by region and that certain areas are actually experiencing similar assertions Fewer Not much pollen.
Furthermore, studies cited in mainstream media often rely on cherry picking data on a limited time frame rather than examining long-term historical trends.
Axios Embrace Climate Center uses “continuous freezing days” as agent for pollen season, pointing out that between 1970 and 2024, the number of consecutive freezing days increased in cities such as Reno, Myrtle Beach and Toledo.
Interestingly, It provides no data on whether the occurrence of allergic treatments or sales of allergic medicines in those cities corresponds to the increase in the number of days corresponding to the freezing temperature.
Blaming climate change without considering other effects misleads the public and causes unnecessary panic.
And, while climate change is a supposedly global phenomenon, it turns out that the number of cities without consecutive days of freezing has declined, so the logical question to ask is: Are allergic attacks or allergic medical sales reported a decrease?
If Axios asked these questions, there is certainly no answer to them in the article, but if someone asks if climate change affects allergies, it's a reasonable connection.
Even if climate change causes longer allergic seasons, contrary to other factors, this will miss a bigger point of view: Positive benefits of falling freezing temperatures.
Axios' story mentions a pass but fails to expand it, writing: “[a]Bove freezing temperature can improve plant growth. As Axios points out, while the pain of allergic patients cannot be ignored, allergies are treatable and are less beneficial to plants, pollinating insects and humans during frozen days and nights.
For example, climate realism presents this in repetitive posts here, here and here. Global greening has led to the biggest decline of global hunger in history. Larger plant growth not only removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but also emits carbon dioxide from pollen that causes allergies, making it ideal for pollinating insects such as bees and birds.
More directly, a large number of peer review reports confirm The cold temperature is 10 times higher than the high temperature.
As a result, as the number of frozen days decreases, deaths attributed to non-maximum temperatures also drop sharply, preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. (See the table below, below)
Rather than adopting a broad, evidence-based approach, Axios attempts to link worsening allergies to climate change, instead repurposing the claims of alarmists without addressing all relevant factors.
Allergy season in Atlanta is affected by many variables, including land use changes, dense urban landscapes with pollen production, increased green spaces and urbanization. Blaming climate change without considering these other effects can mislead the public and cause unnecessary panic.
If the media is really interested in public notifications, they should focus on all the contributing factors that may lead to longer allergic seasons. They can also discuss the huge global net gains of less frozen days.
Top photos of Kindel Media
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