Climate Change Is Harming Her Patients. Trump’s Latest Plan Will Make It Worse.

Dr. Lisa Vinci knows what it’s like to watch someone struggle to breathe.

Last summer, when Chicagoans experienced a record-breaking stretch of 90-degree days, one of Dr. Vinci’s elderly patients kept coming to the hospital complaining of shortness of breath. They didn’t have a cough or fever, their lungs were clear, and they were taking their medications correctly. And though the patient spent most of their time inside an air-conditioned home, every time they went outside, they “felt like they were dying.”

Despite a thorough evaluation, Vinci couldn’t determine what was causing her patient’s distress. Eventually they decided to consider end-of-life care and hospice. Two months later, much to Dr. Vinci’s surprise, the patient arrived for a follow-up visit feeling much better without explanation, except for the cooler weather.

Lisa Vinci

“It shows that we’re really underestimating the health impacts of climate change,” says Vinci. “It’s miserable in the city during the summer, especially for those who don’t have air conditioning or who only have one window unit and can’t cool their whole house.”

Scientists have long warned that climate change will bring hotter temperatures and more intense heat waves that will harm millions. Yet the Trump administration plans to revoke a longstanding scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. This “endangerment finding” compels the EPA to protect us from these hazards. By revoking it, Trump’s EPA can pretend that climate change doesn’t hurt us.

The administration’s game of pretend is deadly. It also has no basis in law or reality, which is why Earthjustice is ready to take the Trump administration to court if it tries to roll back the EPA’s finding. We’ve successfully defended the endangerment finding before, and we’ll do it again.

The case for regulating greenhouse gas emissions has only gotten stronger over the past decade. The last 10 years have been the hottest on record amid increasing extreme weather events, with states like Colorado, New York, Texas and California suffering from deadly heat waves, wildfires, and flooding.

As a primary care doctor, Vinci treats adult patients for a wide range of issues, from hypertension and diabetes to asthma, pulmonary disease, depression, and anxiety. She sees firsthand how many of these health problems are worsened by climate change. Breathing in wildfire smoke for example, which many Chicagoans did for several days last summer during record-breaking fires in Canada, increases the risk of cardiovascular events like heart attacks and strokes. One study in 2020 found that exposure to heavy smoke during California wildfires raised the risk of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest up to 70%. The risk is even worse if you live in an area with polluted air, which is the case for nearly half of the U.S. population. U.S. population.

Smoke from Canadian wildfires covers the downtown Chicago lakefront, obscuring the view of the city’s skyline on June 05, 2025. The drifting smoke prompted officials to declare an air quality alert for much of the Chicago area, advising children and adults at higher respiratory risks to limit time outdoors. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)

The effect is similar to smoking cigarettes, “except when you have a cigarette, you’re inhaling the smoke for about three to four minutes per cigarette,” explains Vinci. “When it’s smoky and the air quality is bad, it’s like smoking constantly.”

Seeing her own patients suffer and struggle from climate change impacts motivated Vinci to speak out when she heard about the Trump administration’s plans to repeal the endangerment finding. Trump’s EPA also plans to weaken vehicle emissions standards, even though transportation is the largest source of climate pollution in the U.S.

“It’s frustrating because we see this happening, and we know we should do something,” says Vinci. “But this administration has crushed us on multiple fronts, and we don’t know what to fight first.”

Earthjustice is a “beacon in the dark,” says Vinci, who adds that she would like to see more education in the medical field on the intersection between health and climate.

“Almost every single specialty is going to be affected by climate change. We need to prepare.”