A Vote For Lee Zeldin Jeopardizes Your Child’s Health and Safety

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Your vote does count this November because how you vote may determine the safety of you and your children as well as the safety of your wallet. Climate change is the greatest threat to our health and safety this century and Rep. Lee Zeldin is doing nothing to prevent this danger. He consistently votes against climate action and instead votes for coal, oil, and gas companies. As a father of two and as a climate scientist I cannot vote for Zeldin because I see what is happening. I want you to know what I know.

The following critical areas are the focus of my evidence-based analysis:

Health:

Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases will get worse due to a growing populations of ticks

West Nile Virus will get worse due to a growing population of mosquitos

Asthma and allergies are getting worse due to higher pollen counts and increasing mold spores

Heat waves are increasing and heat is a killer at its worse and causes hardships to everyday life, esp. outdoor sports

Poison ivy is getting worse

Poisonous spiders are moving into our region due to warmer climates

Safety:

Increased sea level rise causing more costly and deadly flooding

Stronger, wetter storms like Superstorm Sandy, Harvey, Maria, and Florence becoming more likely

Mass migrations causing military conflict across the globe as well as increased immigration of people from Mexico and the Caribbean Islands into the United States

Terrorism is on the rise due to dwindling resources

Costs:

Billion dollar storms are increasing

Food prices/inflation increases

Loss of jobs/productivity due to weather extremes such as drought, fires, flooding and extreme heat waves

Insurance costs are increasing

Here is Rep Lee Zeldin’s voting record on the environment and climate change (100% is the goal if wishing to protect our resources and to address climate change. An X is a vote against climate action):

According to the World Health Organization, climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.

Lyme Disease:

Source: petmd.com

A recent CDC study found that cases of Lyme increased more than 80% between 2004 and 2016 -- from 19,804 to 36,429.

Those are the reported cases. The CDC estimates there are more than 300,000 cases of Lyme infection in the U.S. each year -- or 10 times as many as what is reported.

The CDC says 95% of confirmed cases in 2016 were in 14 states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Scientists point to a variety of causes for the spread of Lyme infection. Among them are reforestation, especially in the Northeast U.S., where Lyme disease is more prevalent; climate change and temperature extremes; suburbanization; and more exposure to the white-tailed deer, which is the black-legged tick’s favorite mode of travel. See more at: WebMD

Remember: Rep. Lee Zeldin’s voting record is opposite of what you would want to see if you care about slowing the spread of Lyme Disease. For the health and safety of my children, I cannot vote for Zeldin.

West Nile Virus:

Source: Globalchange.gov)

“Temperature is the most studied climate driver of the dynamics of West Nile Virus transmission. It is clear that warm temperatures accelerate virtually all of the biological processes that affect transmission: accelerating the mosquito life cycle, increasing the mosquito biting rates that determine the frequency of contact between mosquitoes and hosts, and increasing viral replication rates inside the mosquito that decrease the time needed for a blood-fed mosquito to be able to pass on the virus.” See: (Globalchange.gov, 2016)

Remember: Rep. Lee Zeldin’s voting record is opposite of what you would want to see if you care about slowing the spread of West Nile Virus. For the health and safety of my children, I cannot vote for Zeldin.

Asthma and Allergies:

In 2010, I wrote a long blog post on this topic. A few excerpts are included here.

Source: National Wildlife Federation

Source: National Wildlife Federation

Source: USDA

As these images show, killer asthma and nuisance allergies are on the rise in a warmer world.

The World Health Organization estimates that globally 300 million people currently have asthma, and 250,000 eople die from asthma each year. In the US, 20 million people (6.2 million children under 18 and 13.8 million adults) have active asthma. The National Institute of Environmental Health (NIEH) in their April 2010 report, A Human Health Perspective On Climate Change, state that asthma is the second leading cause of chronic illness among children and is rapidly rising among children less than five years old.

About 10 million Americans suffer from “allergic asthma” – asthma attacks that are triggered by allergens. As allergens increase, so do episodes of asthma. Global warming may exacerbate air pollution that interacts with allergens to trigger more severe asthma attacks. The potential impact of global warming may have a significant economic impact. Allergies and asthma already cost the U.S. more than $32 billion per year in direct health care costs and lost worker productivity.

• Global warming will worsen allergies for approximately 25 million Americans.
• Ragweed, the main cause of fall allergies, grows faster, produces more pollen, and has a higher allergenic content under increased carbon dioxide levels.
• Longer growing seasons under a warmer climate produce larger ragweed plants that produce more pollen later into the fall.
• Springtime allergies to tree pollen could also get worse.
• Warmer climates will allow oaks and hickories, two of the most allergenic trees, to expand their habitats northward.
• Climate change may also increase the amount of fungal allergens in the air.

Remember: Rep. Lee Zeldin’s voting record is opposite of what you would want to see if you care about the health of your children. For the health and safety of my children, I cannot vote for Zeldin.

Heat Waves:

Heat is a killer at its worst (in 2003, a heat wave in Europe killed 35,000 people), and annoying at its best. Consider how hot and humid the most recent years have been. Can’t play sports because it is too hot? Too hot to entertain your guests outside? Get used it to it. These oppressive summers are only going to get worse as the climate warms. Summers in New York will be more like summers in Georgia if we keep electing officials like Lee Zeldin who ignore climate change action.

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists

We choose whether we follow the yellow path or the Zeldin red path. I choose yellow.

Remember: Rep. Lee Zeldin’s voting record is opposite of what you would want to see if you care about decreasing the occurrence and severity of heat waves. For the health and safety of my children, I cannot vote for Zeldin.

Poison Ivy:

Noticing how bad poison ivy is getting? It is only going to get worse if we ignore climate change. According to the WebMD article, Climate Change Brings Super Poison Ivy:

As the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, it’s boosting the growth of poison ivy plants, two recent studies show. These elevated carbon dioxide levels are creating bigger, stronger poison ivy plants that produce more urushiol, the oil that causes the allergic reaction and miserable poison ivy rash. The urushiol isn’t just more plentiful; it might also be more potent.

Source: Reddit

I think a lot of kids (and some adults) do not properly identify poison ivy so I am very concerned these cases will be increasing if we ignore climate change action.

Remember: Rep. Lee Zeldin’s voting record is opposite of what you would want to see if you care about the health of your children. For the health and safety of my children, I cannot vote for Zeldin.

Deadly Spiders:

There are a few venomous spiders in the US, including the Black Widow and the Brown Recluse. There is no mistaking the Black Widow but the Brown Recluse is often mistaken for one of the numerous small, brown, non-deadly spiders. The tell-tale signature of this spider is the violin-shaped marker on its thorax.

Brown Recluse spiders are notorious for their necrotic bites.

Source: PhantomPepper/Reddit

In a 2011 study by Saupe, et al. titled: Tracking a Medically Important Spider: Climate Change, Ecological Niche Modeling, and the Brown Recluse (Loxosceles reclusa), the authors model the future habitats of the Brown Recluse in a warmer world. By 2080, perhaps only 5% of the spider’s current range — which extends from Kansas across to Kentucky and from Texas across to Georgia — would remain suitable for the Brown Recluse spider. Climate change could make portions of Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Nebraska and South Dakota habitable to the spiders in the future.

I don’t know about you, but I certainly do not want my kids to mistake a Brown Recluse spider!

Remember: Rep. Lee Zeldin’s voting record ensures that these southern spiders will keep moving northward. For the health and safety of my children, I cannot vote for Zeldin.

Sea Level Rise:

As a scientist and co-author of the book Rising Sea Levels (Janin and Mandia, 2012), I am keenly aware of the threat of sea level rise. As land ice (Antarctic, Greenland, and mountain glacier) melts, it adds water to the ocean. As the oceans warm, the water expands. These two physical processes are causing seas to rise. Unfortunately, it appears that seas will rise for the next few centuries so our choices today will determine just how much sea level rise occurs. Because of sea level rise ALL coastal storms are worse. Imagine a basketball hoop ten feet above the floor and consider a dunk to be a storm over-topping a sea wall or other barrier. Now imagine humans have caused that floor to rise by a foot. It is much easier to dunk a basketball now. More flooding just like we saw in Sandy, Harvey, Maria, Florence and EVERY hurricane from now onward.

I wrote a blog post after Superstorm Sandy devastated Long Island/New York City titled “71,000 New Yorkers: Rise Does Matter!” where I showed how the extra sea level rise caused by humans resulted in 70,929 more people and 30,551 more homes flooded just in the NY Harbor region alone. Nor’easters now routinely flood our low-lying harbors. For example, shops and roadways in Port Jefferson have been shut down quite a bit lately due to storms flooding the harbor area. A 2016 study in a journal of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences predicted that an event comparable to Superstorm Sandy, would be up to 17 times more likely by 2100 if seas rise by 3 feet.

Melting ice in Greenland, for example, adds water to global ocean levels each year equivalent to the amount of water needed to fill 115 million Olympic-sized swimming pools! 115 million Olympic-sized swimming pools every year and increasing.

We can expect sea level rise of 3-6 feet by the end of the century and perhaps 15 feet in the next 100-200 years. Of course, we can choose to slow global warming and thus, sea level rise, if we vote for climate action.

Remember: Rep. Lee Zeldin’s voting record ensures that sea level rise keeps accelerating. For the health and safety of my children, I cannot vote for Zeldin.

Stronger Storms:

Storms require heat and moisture, both of which are increasing in warmer world. Think of climate change as putting storms on steroids. They are stronger and wetter and thus more damaging and costly. In the northeast, storms are dropping more flooding rains. In the Atlantic Ocean, hurricanes are getting stronger causing more coastal destruction, loss of life, and larger economic impacts. Long Islander will not soon forget Sandy. In a warmer world, more of these stronger are coming, unfortunately.

Source: Christian Science Monitor

Remember: Rep. Lee Zeldin’s voting record ensures that these stronger, wetter storms will get worse and worse. For the health and safety of my children, I cannot vote for Zeldin.

Terrorism and Mass Migration:

As resources around the world dwindle [esp. the availability of fresh water], desperate people are forced to flee and move northward. There has been a huge influx of immigrants into the United States and Europe because of climate change.

In a message for World Food Day 2017, UN Migration Director General William Lacy Swing highlighted the importance of urgent climate action.

“Climate action is paramount. Climate change is having far-reaching effects on agricultural productivity and food security. It is among the main reasons for the record numbers of people compelled to migrate from rural areas to towns and cities around the world. Importantly, the Paris Climate Change Agreement recognizes the need to protect vulnerable populations, including migrants, and establishes a dedicated task force to advance strategies that avert, minimize and address displacement related to climate change,” he said.

Historically, people have been forced to flee their homes due to civil wars, political instability, poverty and hunger, but the growing number of extreme weather events linked to climate change are now increasingly contributing to migration.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, in 2015, there were 244 million international migrants, 40% more than in 2000. In the same year, over 19 million people were internally displaced because of natural disasters. Between 2008 and 2015, an average of 26 million people have been displaced annually by climate or weather-related disasters.

One must also understand that when millions of people are on foot, civil wars break out and unstable governments are brought to power. According to the Pentagon’s 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review: Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large. As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing, and severe weather patterns are accelerating. These changes, coupled with other global dynamics, including growing, urbanizing, more affluent populations, and substantial economic growth in India, China, Brazil, and other nations, will devastate homes, land, and infrastructure. Climate change may exacerbate water scarcity and lead to sharp increases in food costs. The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world. These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions – conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence.

Some experts think that climate change was one of the reasons that sparked the Syrian Conflict and the creation of the terrorist group known as ISIS. Refer to the following video from Yale University:

Climate Change & Global Insecurity

Remember: Rep. Lee Zeldin’s voting record seems to fly in the face of what our military experts are telling us. For the health and safety of my children, I cannot vote for Zeldin.

The Cost of Inaction:

Unfortunately, you may hear elected officials complaining about the costs to address climate change. That is like complaining about the cost of an LED lightbulb which we all know is going to save us much more in the long run than the up-front costs. We are not going to be fooled by that bogus argument.

There IS a cost if our elected officials do nothing. There are various studies that try to put a number on this question but it is a difficult one to nail down due to so many factors. However, most experts will tell you that doing nothing is guaranteed to cost more than doing something. In fact, a do-nothing approach like that of Lee Zeldin is likely to cost the United States economy a few TRILLION dollars and the world economy TENS of TRILLIONS of dollars. In a recent peer-reviewed publication in the prestigious journal Nature, scientists determined that the United States could SAVE $6 trillion if we live up to our Paris Climate Agreement pledge. (Note: The Trump Administration has called for the US to pull out of that deal and Zeldin said in April 2018 that he did not support the Paris Accords in their present form.)

The image below shows the obvious. The expected 3% GDP growth in the global economy gets hammered if we pretend there is no climate change and fail to respond. If we do accept the facts and spend a little money up front, we get huge savings. It is the LED lightbulb scenario but on a global scale.

The map above comes from a comprehensive 2017 study in the journal Science. Note that Long Island takes a GDP hit and the southern US really gets hammered economically. That study also concluded that for every increase of 1 oC in global air temperature, there will be a loss of 1.2% of gross domestic product world-wide. There are serious costs to doing nothing as Lee Zeldin has done!

Insurers also understand these costs. As reported in the Financial Times, German reinsurer Munich Re says that natural disasters in 2017 exposed the global insurance industry to a record level of costs which give “a foretaste of what is to come”. The three hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, as well as a severe earthquake in Mexico in September, floodings in Asia and other natural catastrophes resulted in a total insurance bill of $135bn, according to Munich Re’s statistics. The costs are almost three times above the ten-year average of $49bn and 8 per cent higher than the previous records seen in 2005 and 2011. “… our experts expect such extreme weather to occur more often in future,” said Torsten Jeworrek, Munich Re board member responsible for global reinsurance business.

Keep in mind that the federal government provides the flood insurance for these people and we all pay for that with our taxes. As these storms keep getting more costly, that means either higher taxes or the government will raid other parts of our federal budget looking for that extra money.

Fires and drought which are strongly linked to climate change are costing our economy many billions of dollars. Firefighting is now consuming more than half of the US Forest Service budget leaving less money to maintain healthy forests and provide the services that we all expect when we vacation. Billions of dollars’ worth of homes are going up in smoke as fires are burning larger and longer due to climate change. Fires have gotten so bad lately that scientists concluded that wildfire intensity and frequency is worse now than it’s been in the past 10,000 years!

Drought kills our food plants and costs us jobs when there is no food to harvest. As reported in USA Today in 2015, “The drought in California will cost the state's economy $2.7 billion this year and nearly 21,000 jobs as the four-year drought continues in the nation's most populous state, according to a new study from the University of California-Davis.

The biggest hit comes in agriculture, which will lose $1.84 billion this year, the study said. The rest comes from ripple effects across the state's economy. Almost half of the job losses — 10,000 — are in seasonal agriculture jobs. In addition, the drought will force 542,000 acres to lie fallow, nearly all in the Central Valley.

This year's economic loss is greater than last year's $2.2 billion cost, according to the study released late Tuesday.”

A comprehensive 2018 study showed that as workers are exposed to hotter, more humid conditions, their productivity falls and the number of “no-shows” increases. Less productive workers mean a less productive business, and a less productive economy.

I could go on but I think I made my point. It is clear that addressing climate change is the cheaper solution in the long run.

Remember: Rep. Lee Zeldin’s voting record seems to fly in the face of what our financial experts are telling us. For the health and safety of my children, I cannot vote for Zeldin.

We have a choice this November. We can vote for our children, our health, our security, and our wallets by NOT voting for Lee Zeldin. He is just out of touch with the message we are getting from nearly all of our experts and out of touch of what we have all observed with our own eyes. As parents, don’t we all want our kids to be healthy and safe and have a better future? Your vote has long-term consequences. Vote wisely.