Ticks, asthma, cyanobacteria: How climate change is making us sick: Irwin

We’ve all heard about deer ticks and Lyme Disease as one of the ways climate change is harming our health. Unfortunately, the health threat posed by ticks is getting worse – and it’s not just deer ticks and Lyme Disease now. New Hampshire is facing a growing incidence of new ticks and infections, and it’s facing a dramatically longer tick season.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention is warning of a sharp increase in babesiosis – a disease carried by ticks which was once rare but is now showing up in increasing numbers across the New England states. Babesiosis causes similar symptoms to Lyme – body ache, headache, fatigue – but unlike Lyme it is more often found in patients over 50, and in rare cases, can be fatal.

Also newly arrived in New Hampshire is the Lone Star tick, which is now being seen in the Seacoast region and in large numbers in Massachusetts. The Lone Star tick’s bite can cause Alpha-gal Syndrome (AGS) which along with making you feel sick, can leave you with an allergy to red meat. The number of cases of AGS on Martha’s Vineyard was so high this summer it affected the sales of meat in markets and restaurants.

Finally both anaplasmosis, which is carried by the deer tick and causes fever and body aches similar to Lyme, and the very rare but potentially debilitating Powassan Virus, are also being seen in increasing numbers.

Tick season is growing too. The active period for ticks, thanks to global warming, is no longer May to September. It’s now four months longer, extending from March to November.

All of this means we need to take precautions to keep ticks off ourselves and our children, and when someone feels symptomatic or has found a tick, they should talk with a doctor.

It also means New Hampshire needs to get realistic about climate change, and it means our state elected officials need to take meaningful action − by saying yes to affordable, clean energy like solar and wind, and saying no to new gas pipelines and increased reliance on gas.

In addition to the increasing health threat of ticks, this summer in New Hampshire we have seen once-pristine lakes closed to swimming, and a threat to health, because of rampant outbreaks of cyanobacteria. And across our state, especially up north, smoke from Canadian wildfires has caused outbreaks of asthma and sent outdoor workers home early with sore throats and coughs. A key cause of these impacts? Climate change. If the health impacts of climate change weren’t enough, the economic damage of climate change is hitting our state across multiple sectors. We’ve lost fisheries and seen the adverse impacts of a warming climate on skiing, snowmobiling, maple syrup production, and beekeeping.

Unfortunately, our leaders in Concord have failed to prioritize the action we need to protect New Hampshire from climate change. Even more disturbing, there’s talk of going backwards and making the situation worse by burning more fossil fuels and building the pipelines needed to bring them in. The problem with that approach isn’t just the increased damage to our environment, our health, and our economy. It’s also the soaring energy bills caused by the cost of gas and our dependence on it. If we don’t take solar and wind seriously and start getting energy that comes from our own clean, renewable, low-cost sources, we’ll end up paying more and more each year to heat our homes and businesses.

Ninety percent of the new energy built last year was solar and wind. Why? They are cheaper and more reliable than burning gas.

We need to connect the increase in ticks and sickness, the closure of lakes and the choking air with our changing climate, and the impacts of a warming climate on our local economy – and then take action. The time is now for leadership in Concord.

Tom Irwin is Conservation Law Foundation Vice President for New Hampshire.