As Doctors See the Costs of Climate Change, Trump Plays a Deadly Game of Denial

In the summer of 2019, a man’s car broke down while driving along the 405 freeway in Washington State. As he waited for the tow truck amid the sweltering heat, his body started breaking down as well. Sweaty and short of breath, he began to feel a heavy weight press down on his chest.

Once at the hospital, doctors confirmed the man had a heart attack, despite being in relatively good health. The unbearable heat damaged his heart, says Dr. Mark Vossler, a retired cardiologist and the man’s doctor at the time. Cases like these, Dr. Vossler adds, may be becoming more common due to climate change.

In 2009, years of mounting scientific evidence and in-the-field observations by those like Dr. Vossler led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare.

Now, the Trump administration wants us to disbelieve our own eyes and experiences. In February 2026, his administration revoked the EPA’s determination. Then, it repealed climate emissions standards for gas-powered vehicles, the U.S.’s biggest carbon emitter. 

Trump’s game of denial is deadly. It also has no basis in the law or reality, which is why Earthjustice is suing the administration for its illegal actions. Among our clients are medical professionals like Dr. Vossler, who’ve seen firsthand how climate change harms their patients.

When a heart attack occurs, the heart keeps beating, but it can start to lose its normal rhythm. The same is true for a planet in crisis. As we enter this late stage of climate change, there’s no time to waste in averting the worst of its impacts.

Firefighters battle the Eaton Fire in strong winds as many homes burn in January, 2025, in Pasadena, California. A powerful Santa Ana wind event dramatically raised the danger of wind-driven wildfires in the region. (David McNew / Getty Images)

‘I’m Terrified for my Patients’ Health’

If the planet wore a Fitbit, its vital signs would look pretty poor right about now.

In 2021, scientists determined that 85% of the world’s population has already been negatively impacted by climate change-fueled events like crop failures, floods and heatwaves. Five years later, the situation on the ground has only gotten worse. Researchers estimate that climate inaction leads to millions of deaths each year and causes billions of dollars in damage worldwide.

According to peer-reviewed studies published by the National Institute of Health, extreme heat alone is linked to thousands of excess cardiovascular deaths per year. In addition to bodily stressors, climate change also impacts our minds, with extreme weather events like heatwaves and floods that often upend people’s lives and livelihoods linked to increased trauma, mental illness, and even suicide.

Emergency medical technicians assist a person with chest pain after he worked outside for hours during a heat wave in Eagle Pass, Texas in June, 2023. The southwestern region of the state had suffered record-breaking 120-degree heat indexes for multiple days during the weather event. (Brandon Bell / Getty Images)

As a cardiologist for more than 20 years, Dr. Vossler has seen firsthand how climate change threatens his patients. Regarding the man who suffered a heart attack, he says there’s no question that exposure to extreme heat and the subsequent damage to the man’s heart increased his risk of future problems. It was “definitely a setback” to his patient’s overall health, says Dr. Vossler, who retired from his practice last year and who serves on the board of Physicians for Social Responsibility, including as president in 2025.

Mark Vossler, a retired doctor, at his home in Kirkland, Washington. (Jovelle Tamayo for Earthjustice)

For Dr. Vossler, who had many patients who were frail, elderly people, climate change impacts are “not just a dry study in the New England Journal of Medicine. I saw many of my patients suffer right before my eyes.”

He adds: “There’s a lot of disappointments right now, but a big disappointment is that the federal government is purposely rolling back public health protections like climate regulations at every level. These are preventable deaths we’re talking about here.”

Dr. Laalitha Surapaneni, a physician in Minneapolis who has helped conduct heat safety trainings for outdoor workers, has also seen how climate change impacts like hotter weather and increased wildfires directly hurt her patients.

Exposure to heavy smoke during wildfires can raise the risk of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest up to 70%. That deadly risk increases even more if you live in an area with polluted air, which is the case for nearly half of the U.S. population.

During wildfire events, Dr. Surapaneni tries to protect her patients by reminding them to wear masks and use air filters in their homes whenever possible, as well as by giving them extra “rescue” medications like asthma inhalers. But she knows that as a doctor she can only do so much.

Laalitha Surapaneni in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Steven Garcia for Earthjustice)

Air filters can be expensive, and many people don’t have health insurance and/or have recently lost access to it, says Dr. Surapaneni. And in rural Minnesota, some people lack adequate air conditioning, which helps both cool and clean indoor air.

“It’s like layer upon layer of difficulties that people are dealing with,” says Dr. Surapaneni, who was inspired to become a doctor after growing up in India where her dad was an educator. “If there’s wildfire smoke, for example, people breathe it 24/7 until it’s gone.”

She compares addressing climate change impacts to caring for a patient who smokes cigarettes. While treating the existing lung damage by giving her patients inhalers and oxygen, she’s also telling them to quit smoking. To deal with climate change, Dr. Surapaneni says the government needs to transition off fossil fuels as soon as possible and support those facing climate-health impacts. Otherwise, more people are going to fall through the cracks, especially those among us who are the most vulnerable.

“I’m already seeing serious health impacts from climate change that has already happened, and yet we are building new fossil fuel infrastructure like nobody’s business,” says Dr. Surapaneni. “I’m terrified for my patients’ health.”

Ferry passengers look at the Manhattan city skyline covered in smog brought by wildfire smoke from Canada in June, 2023. (Ed Jones / AFP via Getty Images)

A Climate of Possibility

Nearly two decades ago, the Supreme Court affirmed EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, then it ordered the agency to determine whether they endanger public health and welfare. Though the fossil fuel industry has attacked the EPA’s scientific finding that greenhouse gases do, in fact endanger public health, courtrooms across the country have repeatedly upheld the agency’s finding, including in a case by Earthjustice and our partners.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has also taken another look at the EPA’s original 2009 finding. Made up of the country’s leading researchers, the independent organization concluded that the EPA’s finding is “accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.”

“The law is settled, the science is clear, and the reality of climate change is all around us,” says Hana Vizcarra, one of the Earthjustice attorneys challenging the EPA’s decision in court on behalf of groups like Physicians for Social Responsibility and Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice. She adds that the EPA has long regulated air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Pretending that greenhouse gases aren’t air pollution abandons the agency’s core mandate to protect human health and the environment.

The agency’s short-sighted and dangerous actions also risk the opportunity that tackling climate change presents: to finally build a 100% clean energy economy that works for everyone. Luckily, a handful of states around the country are embracing this climate of possibility. They’re no longer content to wait on the federal government to act.

Workers carry a solar panel onto a roof in Schaumburg, Illinois. The state now has a jobs program to help develop a clean energy workforce. (Trent Sprague / Chicago Tribune via ZUMA Press Wire)

In New York, for example, the city’s first-in-the-nation congestion pricing program is cutting carbon emissions while delivering faster commutes, safer streets, and a . And in Colorado, a newly planned billion-dollar upgrade to the state’s electrical grid will catalyze the creation of new EV charging stations, electrified buildings, and interconnected rooftop solar. Finally, in Illinois, a transformative clean jobs program with robust wrap-around services allows many more people to take part in, and benefit from, the clean energy transition.

The planet has an incredible ability to heal. So do our bodies. But they both have limits. We can still avoid the worst impacts of climate change — if we follow the science, and the law.