By Henry Ehrlich
An article on the Scientific American website caught my eye because of this headline: “U.S. Price Tag for Allergies Will Rise Because of Climate Change; Longer pollen season and wider ragweed exposure will affect more people.”
It discussed a paper from Current Allergy and Asthma Reports (although I wasn’t able to link to it) by eminent allergist Dr. Leonard Bielory from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and Kevin Lyons, assistant professor of supply chain management at Rutgers University. Bielory talked about record-high pollen counts in New Jersey in February of 2012, while Lyons expressed surprise at the size of the impact of seasonal allergies on the economy–$21-billion for 60-million sufferers.
It was an unremarkable article on its face. However, the three comments it attracted by the time I spotted it do bear quoting. Here they are without further editorializing (or spelling corrections):
“Wait a minute, if climate change is going to cause an increase in deserts, that would mean there would be less plant life to produce pollen. In those instances, people will move toward areas that still have plant life left; therefore, they are the cause of their own misery. Individual and societal evolution in action! People are choosing to be exposed to allergies by their choices in living location, and while AGW isn’t helping, it certainly isn’t the whole problem.”
“Hypochondria will increase the pace of purchase for pharmaceuticals not needed for something rarely fatal, using lost productivity as the cause célèbre. This is just a convenient excuse to raise prices.”
“Increase? How can that be when according to the global warming groupies we’re all goint to be dead from malaria, floods, drought, ,forest fires, locust plagues, starvation and a hundred other inevitable horrors? Drink the purple Kool-ade or perish!”