TY - JOUR T1 - A risky political game with climate change JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/13993003.01145-2017 VL - 50 IS - 4 SP - 1701145 AU - Mehdi Mirsaeidi AU - Abdy Javadzadeh AU - Michael Campos Y1 - 2017/10/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/50/4/1701145.abstract N2 - Phrases and words such as “climate change”, “global warming”, “greenhouse effect”, “depletion of the ozone layer”, “rising sea levels” and “carbon footprint” have become part of the popular vernacular; household names, in a manner of speaking. We are all, to varying degrees, familiar with the viewpoints and ideas behind these concepts, and have had time to absorb and react to them. The way most of us have reacted can be gauged on a continuum. At one extreme, there are those who demonstrate a great deal of concern, and take personal, social, environmental and sometimes political action to correct a man-made phenomenon, and on the other side, there are those who do not care or pay much attention because they do not feel that climate change is really happening or is a direct effect of human action on Earth. In between, there are those who believe that climate change is a real phenomenon but that it will correct by itself. Physicians, biologists, and environmental and social scientists, as well as some politicians at local, state and federal levels, are the ones paying the highest attention to this ongoing environmental disaster. Unfortunately, despite ample and strong evidence about the reality of this issue, there are still those in positions of authority who live oblivious to the real magnitude of this problem.The health effects of climate change are serious challenges for physicians, scientists and politicians http://ow.ly/ym2h30evYa4M. Mirsaeidi conceived this editorial and performed the literature review. M. Mirsaeidi, A. Javadzadeh and M. Campos wrote the article or had substantial involvement in its revision before submission. The guarantor of this article is M. Mirsaeidi ER -