Children Are Already Being Harmed: Dr. Elizabeth Pinsky Stands with Venner v. EPA Youth
May 27, 2026
Over decades of clinical practice, research, and national advocacy, Dr. Elizabeth Pinsky has seen firsthand what the science consistently confirms: fossil fuel emissions don't just warm the planet; they harm our children.
Dr. Pinsky is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital. She trained at Harvard Medical School and has developed deep expertise in the care of children and young people who have experienced severe trauma, including the growing toll of climate-related harm.
The following excerpt is from her expert declaration, submitted in support of the youth petitioners in Venner v. EPA, a constitutional challenge asking a federal court to reverse and vacate EPA's rule rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding (Repeal Rule), a landmark determination that greenhouse gas pollution threatens public health and welfare, and simultaneously eliminating all greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and trucks.
On May 20, 2026, the youth filed a motion for stay, asking the D.C. Circuit to immediately pause the Repeal Rule while their petition is decided on the merits. In the excerpt below, Dr. Pinsky provides expert testimony detailing the severe and irreversible harms children face from worsening climate pollution if the stay is not granted.
“Because childhood exposures to fossil fuel pollution and other climate hazards have harmful life-long consequences, it is critical that EPA’s Repeal Rule is stopped immediately.
The only intervention to fully protect children from the health harms associated with pollution from fossil fuel-powered vehicles, and to avoid new ones, is to limit exposure to that pollution. EPA’s decision to repeal GHG emission standards for vehicles does the opposite: it increases and prolongs duration of exposure to the pollution and heat that directly harm children.
This increases the risk that children and youth, like the Petitioners, will experience life-long injuries to their physical health. It also increases the risk to their mental health and wellbeing, both through direct negative neuropsychiatric effects of air pollution and excess heat and through deprivation of physical security, time outdoors in nature, and continuity of spiritual, cultural, and recreational practices.
In forming my opinions in this case, I have reviewed the declarations of Petitioners Elena Venner, Maya Williams, J.K., C.E., E.S., M.D., and N.N., and parents of minor Petitioners L.K., S.A., A.F., B.K., and accept their sworn statements to be true.
The increased risk of harm from the additional pollution that will result from the repeal of the GHG emission standards for vehicles is particularly important given many of the Petitioners’ specific existing health issues and the fact that many live in communities with air already deemed unhealthy because of air pollution and increased exposure to heat or other climate hazards.
Increases in Fossil Fuel Air Pollution Harm Children the Most
From a medical perspective, it is extremely salient that the Petitioners asking the Court to stay EPA’s Repeal Rule are children and youth. Young people have unique behavioral and physiologic vulnerabilities that put them at increased risk of health harm from fossil fuel related air pollution.
Compared to adults, children have disproportionate exposure to many of the pathways through which climate change and air pollution harm human health. Children spend more time outdoors and are physically closer to the ground where harmful particulate matter, ozone, and other pollutants are measurably more concentrated. Children’s outdoor activities increase their risk of contact with arthropods that transmit climate-driven infectious diseases including Lyme disease, dengue, and viral encephalitides. Children breathe at a faster rate and require more calories and water per pound of body weight than adults, exposing them to proportionately higher levels of pollutants.
Beyond increased exposure routes, once exposed, children are then also more susceptible to the health harms associated with fossil fuel pollution, with a range of negative outcomes that are more frequent and/or more severe when compared to adults. There are many examples. Children’s airways are narrower and more vulnerable to constriction caused by chemical air pollution and airborne allergens like pollen and mold (both of which are increasing due to climate change). Infants have immature heat regulation and kidney function and are more vulnerable to both extreme heat and to dehydration. Diarrheal illnesses, driven by climate-related decrements in water quality, disproportionately kill infants and young children. Specifically, when experienced in childhood, trauma related to extreme weather events inflicts outsized harm to mental and physical health, both acutely and then across the lifespan.
Children are at additional and uniquely increased risk because their bodies are actively developing, and even minor injuries or disruptions during critical early windows can have lifelong, sometimes irreversible consequences in multiple different organ systems. The respiratory system is one important example, as the lungs have a period of rapid growth in childhood and early adolescence. In a study of 1759 California school children (average age of 10), exposure to air pollution during the eight-year-long study period was associated with a clinically significant degree of decreased lung function once children reached adulthood.
1 Petitioner C.E. is eight years old; her current lung development, and therefore her lifelong respiratory health, are directly threatened by the additional pollution that would result from the repeal of the GHG emission standards for vehicles.
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It is my expert opinion as a child and adolescent psychiatrist and pediatrician that halting the repeal of the EPA’s Endangerment Finding and GHG emissions standards is unquestionably meaningful for the health and wellbeing of these young Petitioners. Any reduction in GHG emissions and localized pollution resulting from a stay will reduce the health risks of youth Petitioners experiencing worsening harms to their health in the coming months and years.
Childhood is a narrow window. These harms will be immediate, and include derangements to the physical structure of organs including the lungs and brain. Their significance and irreparability cannot be ignored. There will be more children diagnosed with asthma, more asthma exacerbations, and more children experiencing breathlessness. A small number of these children will die.48 More babies will be born early or at low weight, and as a result more will have lifelong respiratory and neurologic disabilities. A small number of these babies will also die.49
Some harms may be ameliorated in the future, but damage done in the meantime by air pollution to the brains of young children, infants, and developing fetuses is not repairable. Damage to the scaffolding of the adult body compounds over time for youth like the older Petitioners, who are also still in development, cascading into lost academic achievement, opportunity, earnings, and even years of life. These irreparable harms are in addition to their meaningful suffering associated with increased rates of pollution and heat related illness.”
Read Dr. Pinsky’s full declaration* here.
*This reflects Dr. Pinksy’s personal opinion and not necessarily that of her employer.