Don’t let your yard serve as a Hilton Hotel for mosquitoes or ticks.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—We were glad that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took its first step in clearing the air Friday, releasing an endangerment finding that greenhouse gas emissions threaten human health and welfare. This should help to set stricter emission standards for vehicles, power plants, and other big sources of the pollution that can both damage our lungs and heat up our planet.

The effect of greenhouse-gas induced pollution on global warming is becoming a major health issue. Experts including Paul R. Epstein, M.D., M.P.H., associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, say climate change is, and will continue to be, the underlying cause of a host of medical problems. Speaking at a conference at Mount Sinai School of Medicine earlier this month, he told med students to expect these health problems to grow as a result of climate change, and urged future docs to improve public health by working in their communities to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Here are some of the health problems cited, as well as ways to fix them.

1. Allergies and asthma. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stimulates allergenic plants like ragweed to produce a lot more pollen, making sniffle seasons more severe. Scientists also believe that burning fossil fuels is a strong force behind skyrocketing asthma rates—the number of people suffering from this ailment has quadrupled since 1980.