Extreme heat is causing my patients to suffer – and die. Trump Republicans don't care.

A young, healthy man collapsed in a field, unable to wake up. He ended up in my hospital’s emergency room with a temperature of 105 degrees. He did not have a rare infection or hidden cancer but something much more insidious – a condition affecting all of us: the scorching heat.

This agricultural worker had a deadly case of heat stroke.

The earth has again reached a milestone of “ hottest day on record .” Whether or not we believe it, global warming is real and the effects on human health are significant and lethal.

We must keep the climate crisis top of mind with November elections on the horizon.

Excessive heat, climate change threaten American lives

We are on track for more than a year of monthly record warm temperatures , and the National Weather Service has advised “major to locally extreme heat risk” throughout the nation.

This translates to direct effects on human health. My patient suffered from extreme heat stroke, as the human body can only stand being in the oppressive heat for so long before muscles are damaged and vital organs start shutting down.

'This can't be real': He left his daughter alone in a hot car for hours. She died.

More Americans are suffering from these heat-related illnesses. Last year, there were at least 2,300 deaths from excessive heat , more than any recorded year.

The numbers are yet to roll in for this year nationwide, but many communities are already counting the dead . Aside from the direct human toll, one study estimates that extreme heat is responsible for more than 235,000 emergency room visits and $1 billion in health care costs each summer.

And it is not just the high numbers on the thermometer that are causing illness from climate change – more wildfires are ravaging the nation, with one currently consuming 5,000 acres an hour in my home state of California. Wildfires also lead to worse air quality, which can cause more dangerous flares of asthma, bronchitis and emphysema.

I have seen my hospital wards filled with asthmatics, unable to catch enough breath to finish a full sentence, after being exposed to wildfire smoke.

On the other side of the country, climate change is also fueling more intense weather events like hurricanes. Warmer ocean temperatures fuel the development of stronger hurricanes, destroying and flooding our Atlantic coastal areas.

Displaced and vulnerable Americans are more likely to suffer from infections borne from flooded and molded areas, and the psychological toll is unquantifiable.

Trump, Vance and Republicans don't care about climate change

The ravages of climate change can seem depressing and insurmountable. Reusing and recycling our bottles and cans will only take us so far.

Collectively, however, we can use the power of our vote to make real and lasting change through government policy.

Cities are only getting hotter: Our houses and asphalt made heat worse. Don't just complain about it. Stop it.

One side of the political spectrum has been ready to address climate change and its effects on our health. One side has consistently believed that climate change is a human-made problem that needs to be addressed. And it is not MAGA Republicans.

According to the Center for American Progress, at least 123 members of Congress, all members of the GOP, have made comments denying human-made climate change, opposing the overwhelming majority of scientists who actually study the Earth’s climate.

When he was president, Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate treaty and has called global warming a hoax. He even claimed that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

As a man of science (and proud Chinese American), I say: No sir, climate change is real, and it is killing Americans.

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Republicans have already been hard at work trying to deregulate pollution standards and depower the Environmental Protection Agency.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has passed legislation aimed at increasing renewable energy efforts and is working to protect Americans at an individual level by proposing Occupational Safety and Health Administration water breaks when the heat is extreme. Rules like this could have saved my patient, but some Republicans have called it "idiotic."

Only one side of the political spectrum is working to protect Americans from the deadly effects of climate change. This is our chance to make sure our voices are heard. Vote this November for politicians who agree that global warming is human-made and want to do something about it. Vote like your life depends on it. Vote like our future generation’s lives depend on it – because they do.

Dr. Thomas K. Lew is an assistant clinical professor of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and an attending physician of Hospital Medicine at Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley. All expressed opinions are his own. Follow him on X: @ThomasLewMD

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Extreme heat is causing my patients to suffer – and die. Trump Republicans don't care.