Visitors at Summit One Vanderbilt look out at a smoke-shrouded Manhattan as wildfires in Canada continue to blanket the city on June 7, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
By Neha Pathak, Yale Climate Connections, June 29, 2023
The fondest times of my childhood were the annual burst of flowers each spring. Not so for my kids, who sniffle and sneeze their way through pollen season.
With average temperatures growing warmer, trees here in Atlanta are flowering earlier in the year, blooming longer, and releasing more pollen than when I was a kid.
That’s led to what I have dubbed FOGO — “Fear of Going Outside” — for my children.
They live with weeks of nasal congestion, sleepless nights, tears, frustration, missed days of school, poor performance on spring tests, and this year, a refusal to go outside during school — almost an entire month of school recesses spent sitting inside alone with a teacher instead of playing outside with classmates.
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