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Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) was also critical of the decision. “Facing the greatest refugee crisis in our time, there is no reason to limit the number to 15,000,” Durbin said in a statement, according to the New York Times. “Say it ain’t so, President Joe.”

After reversing their stance on the refugee cap, the White House tried to tamp down criticism by claiming there was “confusion” over the decision not to raise the cap in the first place. Democratic lawmakers applauded the reversal overall, but some of them also pointed out the continuously disorganized response to the refugee crisis.

Rep. Verónica Escobar (D-TX) said as much on Twitter Friday, tweeting that she was “heartened” by the White House clarification while also urging the administration to adopt better communication regarding the matter. “Protecting the most vulnerable seeking a safe haven is who [we] are, it’s at the heart of our nation’s values,” she concluded.

While I’m heartened to learn that @POTUS still intends to increase the number of refugee admissions, I urge the admin. to move with urgency and communicate with clarity.

Protecting the most vulnerable seeking a safe haven is who are, it’s at the heart of our nation’s values.

— Rep. Veronica Escobar (@RepEscobar) April 16, 2021

The Biden administration has taken a number of steps to reverse Trump’s extreme nativist immigration policy. In January, Biden reversed the controversial Muslim travel ban. On the flip side, the president has come under criticism from progressives for continuing to hold unaccompanied minors crossing the border at temporary detention centers.

The administration has also struggled with the politics around a recent surge in people crossing the US southern border in the midst of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and political unrest in Central America.

Biden may see an electoral trap in immigration issues

While the Biden administration has taken many steps to undo the harmful immigration policies of the Trump administration, the initial balk at raising the cap and the eventual reversal illustrate what a delicate political situation the president finds himself in, early in his first term. Appealing to nativist panic and fearmongering over border surges has become a staple — and successful — electoral strategy for right-wing politicians, and Biden’s careful navigation on this issue may indicate that the president is attempting to avoid a political trap.

Making matters even more complicated for Biden is conservative media’s tendency to stoke this kind of paranoid nationalism. Just this week, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson once again promoted the “great replacement” theory, a myth created by white supremacists which states that Democrats purposely encourage immigration by people of color in order to dilute the electoral power of white people, and by extension, the Republican base. The myth underpins the beliefs of former Trump administration officials like Stephen Miller, who helped guide the former president’s restrictive immigration policies.

Though refugees are not immigrants — nor are they asylum seekers — the Trump administration made no such distinction, viewing them all as political threats. Under Trump, the US refugee cap was lowered repeatedly until it hit a low of 15,000 in October last year. That represents the lowest number of refugees accepted into the US in history, at a time when the number of internationally displaced persons is at its highest since World War II.

In 2020, the Trump administration delayed making a decision on the cap number, triggering a one-month pause on new refugee resettlements. That, combined with the pandemic, meant that from October 2019 to September 30 the following year, just 11,814 refugees were resettled within the US.

Biden, by contrast, ran his campaign on reversing the immigration legacy of the Trump administration. In February, he signed an executive order raising the refugee cap to 125,000 starting this October, all while attempting to ramp up current resettlements before the new fiscal year starts.

Biden acknowledged the bureaucratic challenge ahead of him when he signed the order. “The United States’ moral leadership on refugee issues was a point of bipartisan consensus for so many decades,” he said in a speech at the State Department in February. “It’s going to take time to rebuild what has been so badly damaged.”

But the controversy this week also illustrates that the left flank of the Democratic party remains committed to holding Biden’s feet to the fire on immigration issues. In this round, the progressives seem to have won.

Up to 50 million Americans are estimated to have allergies, and as pollen counts increase, more people may become allergic.

“I think that what will happen is that more people will get sensitized and then they will present themselves earlier because of the higher pollen count, particularly with tree pollen,” said Sunil Perera, an allergist in Roseville, California, near Sacramento.

That in turn will become a greater burden on health and the economy, as even people with mild symptoms struggle with remaining active and productive. The cost of treating nasal allergies already tops $3.4 billion per year in the US. Asthma attacks induced by pollen lead to 20,000 emergency room visits a year in the US.

One complication this year, like last, is the Covid-19 pandemic. Many are wondering whether their suffering is being caused by the virus or pollen. There are some overlapping symptoms between Covid-19 and allergies, like a runny nose and a loss of smell, but allergies also produce some distinct signs, like itchy eyes and sneezing, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology. The more unique symptoms to Covid-19 include fever, cough, and shortness of breath.

Chart listing symptoms of allergies, influenza, the common cold, and Covid-19 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology
Allergy symptoms can overlap with Covid-19, but there are some distinct signs.

However, many people with Covid-19 have no symptoms at all. And there’s no reason why someone couldn’t have Covid-19 and allergies at the same time.

In fact, doctors warn that severe allergies could make people more vulnerable to respiratory infections. “When allergic inflammation occurs in the respiratory tract, [infections] are easier,” Perera said. “We see concurrent allergies and infections when [patients] come see us.”

Face masks may provide allergy sufferers with some relief, although they leave eyes exposed. But as the planet continues to warm, allergy sufferers will have a harder time finding refuge. Grains of pollen range in size from 200 microns down to 10 microns, with smaller grains able to penetrate deeper into the lungs. Small pollen grains can even seep indoors. And researchers are finding out just how much our own insults to the environment are to blame.

How climate change makes allergies worse

Allergies are the result of the immune system overreacting to something that is otherwise benign. That can lead to annoying but mild symptoms like hives or itchy eyes. But it can also cause life-threatening complications like anaphylaxis, where blood pressure plummets and airways start swelling shut.

Pollen is one of the most common allergens. It’s produced as part of the reproductive cycle of plants. The timing of pollen production varies depending on the plant species, with trees peaking in the spring, grass over the summer, and ragweed in the fall.

This chart shows the pollen peaks for various species in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Tree pollen peaks in the spring, grass pollen peaks in the summer, and weed pollen peaks in the fall. Johns Hopkins University, Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
Different plants reach peak pollen production at different times of year.

There are two main ways that humans are changing pollen production. One mechanism is that humans are increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have risen from 280 parts per million in the 1800s to 420 ppm today.

“When CO2 goes up, plants tend to grow a little bigger,” said William Anderegg, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Utah. “They tend to put out more flowers as a fraction of their mass, and individual flowers tend to have actually more pollen on them.”

Plants that produce more pollen tend to produce more seeds. That also means more pollen-spewing plants in the next season.

The other mechanism is the warming induced by carbon dioxide. Since it traps heat, higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are causing the planet to heat up. This is leading to warmer winters and earlier springs, giving plants a head start on pollen production. “As spring heats up, all of these life cycle events, including pollen seasons, tend to shift earlier,” Anderegg said.

The combination of these two factors is leading to more pollen production and over a longer period of time.

Humanity’s fingerprints are becoming more visible in the pollen-filled skies

Attribution is the growing climate science field that seeks to figure out not just how the climate is changing but also to what extent human activity is specifically to blame — and what amount of change might have occurred otherwise, without human meddling. Scientists use observations and models to figure out how phenomena ranging from extreme flooding to wildfires would be different if humans weren’t spewing gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“Think of it as looking at a baseball player before and after they start using steroids,” said Lewis Ziska, an associate professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

Researchers have now begun to attribute changes in allergens to human activity. In a study published in February in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Ziska, Anderegg, and their colleagues calculated that human impacts on the climate account for roughly half of the increase in the length of pollen seasons in North America. Human-caused climate change also accounts for 8 percent of the observed increases in pollen concentrations.

“There is a very distinct climate signal that is appearing that we can directly associate with these changes in pollen, both with respect to load — how much pollen — but also with respect to the entire exposure time,” Ziska said.

A massive cloud of pollen wafts from the trees in a coniferous forest around the Niedersonthofener Lake in Germany. Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/Picture Alliance via Getty Images
Humans are changing the climate, which is making pollen seasons longer and more intense.

These effects are already visible, and as humanity continues burning fossil fuels, these impacts are poised to grow. Some estimates show that pollen counts of all varieties will double by 2040 in some parts of the country, depending on what pathway the world takes on greenhouse gas emissions.

The northern latitudes will likely end up sneezing the most since they are the fastest warming parts of the planet. And pollen isn’t the only allergen of concern. As permafrost melts in places like Alaska, moisture is seeping into homes, creating an inviting habitat for mold. That mold can then produce spores that trigger allergies. Stinging insects are another concern in the far north. Warmer winters mean more insects survive into the spring, increasing their numbers. People who may not have realized they are allergic to stings can end up finding out the hard way that they are vulnerable.

Jeffrey Demain, director of the Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology Center of Alaska, told Vox in 2018 that he observed that the northernmost part of Alaska saw a 626 percent increase in insect bites and stings between 2004 and 2006 compared with the period between 1999 and 2001.

What’s emerging from the haze is that the health burden from allergies of all sorts is poised to grow, and there will be little relief for allergy sufferers on the horizon. But it also highlights how climate change impacts are already here, and they’re going to get worse. “This really underscores the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling climate change as quickly as we can,” Anderegg said.

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