Alongside the threat to our environment, immunologist Professor Luke O’Neill explains how climate change is damaging our immune systems. 

Research on the effects of climate change on the human body have expanded greatly in recent years, according to Prof O’Neill. 

“They noticed first of all that allergies have gone up,” he told The Pat Kenny Show. 

“There was a big study between 2012 and 2022 [showing] allergies in children have doubled in the last decade, which is a striking change. 

“Things like rheumatoid arthritis, it’s up by about 14%.” 

The question is what climate change has actually done to our immune system to cause these issues. 

Pollutants irritating the immune system

Prof O’Neill pointed out other factors like processed food or not exposing children to enough germs cannot be the cause due to how fast our immune systems are changing. 

“Wildfires for example, when there’s a fire, obviously there’s soot, it goes up into the air and that will damage your lungs directly,” he said. 

“But more importantly are things like pollutants building up. 

“So, for example, there's evidence that [with] floods, all these chemicals get dissolved and up in the in the water system, and then we're drinking this water. 

“There's no doubt that these pollutants do irritate the immune system."

School children and people protesting outside the Natural History Museum in Dublin call for action on climate change, 24/09/2021. Photo: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

Prof O’Neill also pointed out nutrition levels go down as climate change rises. 

“When there’s global warming, there’s less bang for your buck, say in wheat for example,” he said. 

“If CO2 goes up, the plants are making less nutrients basically, so when you have a slice of bread, you're getting slightly less in terms of nutrients. 

“What that means is we're all may be at risk of slightly being malnourished.” 

A 'finely tuned machine'

The immune system is a “finely tuned machine” that has evolved over 200,000 years – but climate change is throwing a spanner in that system, according to Prof O’Neill. 

“You're introducing new chemicals, the immune system sees those for the first time and then goes into overdrive,” he said. 

“It's your own immune system attacking your tissues.” 

The ways to resolve this health issue are the same solutions to addressing the climate crisis, according to Prof O’Neill. 

Planting more trees, in particular, will decrease the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere, reducing the risk of harmful chemicals and a lack of nutrients.