--- title: Climate Change Pollutants Make Airborne Allergens More Potent description: Nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone appear to chemically alter some airborne allergens, increasing their potency, a study finds canonical: https://time.com/3753723/air-pollution-allergies-climate-change-study/ author: Helen Regan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-23T07:46:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:59:37.121Z article:section: Science og:title: Climate Change Is Causing More Allergies og:description: Pollutants chemically alter airborne allergens, making them more potent og:url: https://time.com/3753723/air-pollution-allergies-climate-change-study/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdff7390634991b69/698784ab8e0601e39e45ae2b/smog-air-pollutants-allergies.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 594 og:image:height: 334 og:image:alt: Smog arrives at the banks of Songhua River on January 22, 2015 in Jilin, Jilin province of China. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Climate Change Is Causing More Allergies twitter:description: Pollutants chemically alter airborne allergens, making them more potent twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdff7390634991b69/698784ab8e0601e39e45ae2b/smog-air-pollutants-allergies.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Pollutants Created by Climate Change Are Making Airborne Allergens More Potent > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: Science Cop Takes on Climate Change Denying Senator Jim Inhofe [Watch (HLS stream): Science Cop Takes on Climate Change Denying Senator Jim Inhofe](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/UbAmQMaL.m3u8) (3:52)  _Published 2014-12-04. When the GOP takes control of the U.S. Senate, Oklahoma's James Inhofe— a global warming denier—becomes chair of the Environment Committee_ by [Helen Regan](https://time.com/author/helen-regan/) ## Helen Regan Mar 23, 2015 7:46 AM UTC  Smog arrives at the banks of Songhua River on Jan. 22, 2015, in Jilin, China Smog arrives at the banks of Songhua River on Jan. 22, 2015, in Jilin, China ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images by [Helen Regan](https://time.com/author/helen-regan/) ## Helen Regan Mar 23, 2015 7:46 AM UTC If you think your seasonal sneezing, wheezing and sniffling is getting worse, you aren’t simply imagining it. Currently, some 50 million or so Americans suffer from nasal [allergies](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150322080208.htm), but the number is going up, and researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany say a pair of pollutants linked to climate change could be to blame. That’s according to a report in Science Daily. The two gases are nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone, which appear to set off chemical changes in some airborne allergens, increasing their potency. “Scientists have long suspected that air pollution and climate change are involved in the increasing prevalence of allergies worldwide,” said the institute’s Ulrich Pöschl. “Our research is just a starting point, but it does begin to suggest how chemical modifications in allergenic proteins occur and how they may affect allergenicity.” Pöschl’s team found that ozone (a major component of smog) oxidizes an amino acid that sets off chemical reactions that ultimately alter an allergenic protein’s structure. Meanwhile, nitrogen dioxide (found in car exhausts) appears to alter the separation and binding capabilities of certain allergens. Researchers believe that together, the two gases make allergens more likely to trigger the body’s immune response, especially in wet, humid and smoggy conditions. The team hopes to identify other allergenic proteins that are modified in the environment and examine how these affect the human immune system. \[[_Science Daily_](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150322080208.htm)\] ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] They say elections have consequences. Well, we're about to experience a doozy. And it's because when voters elected Republicans to a majority of both Chambers of Congress, they effectively put Oklahoma Senator and long- time climate change denier, James Inhofe. In charge of the Senate's climate policy. This is the same James Inhofe who has called climate change quote, the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. So let's see what science thinks of what the senator has to say. [ MUSIC ] The claim that global warming is caused by man- made emissions is simply untrue, and not based on sound science. Decades of research by international climatologists, none of them Senators from fossil fuel states, say otherwise. Indeed, there is a 97 % consensus among scientists that climate change has been proven, and that humans play a big role. The United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change says decisively, quote, " we have overwhelming evidence that it is happening and that it is real .". CO2 does not actually cause catastrophic disasters. Actually it would be good for our environment and our economy. That one may be true. Provided you're willing to overlook a few things. Global sea levels have risen by 6. 7 inches in the past century. Autumn ice cover in the Arctic is 23 % below average. From 1980 to 2010 there were 99 weather related disasters in the US costing at least a billion dollars. Apiece. Stubborn droughts are punishing vast swaths of the American West and the 20 hottest years in the last century have occurred since 1980, which is part of the famous hockey stick graph. The hockey stick was completely and thoroughly broken once and for all in 2006. Two Canadian researchers tore apart the statistical foundation for the hockey stick. Wrong again, just last year the National Science Foundation studied ice core samples from 73 locations around the world and found that the Earth is currently warmer than it's been for 70 to 80 % of the last 11, 300 years. In the last 5, 000 years Earth actually slowly cooled by 1. 3 degrees. But it made up all the heat it lost in just the last 100 years. And then there's the religious argument. God's still up there. And this is the arrogance of people to think that we, human beings would be able to change what he is doing in the climate, is to me outrageous. It's a favorite trope of people like Inhofe to frame faith and science as binary choices. But you can believe that God created the earth and still accept the fact that we have the power to mess it up. The same God would've created rivers and tigers too. That doesn't mean we're not capable of polluting the rivers until almost nothing can live in them or hunting the tigers nearly to extinction. Finally, in [ UNKNOWN ], Michael Crichton's anti- climate science novel State of Fear. I think I've read most of his books. I enjoyed most State of Fear, and made it required reading for the environment committee. Just to be clear, the book was a novel. Which is to say, fiction. Which is to say, it was all made up. When it comes to Inhofe and science, that pretty much explains everything. 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