Climate Change is Messing with Your Mind

How OC Can Help Protect Against Air Pollution’s Assault on Your Memory

By Faisal M. Qazi, D.O.

Stand near Disneyland’s Autopia and the charm of 1950s nostalgia meets the unmistakable scent of a bygone era – gasoline exhaust from dozens of miniature engines circling the track. Walk fifty yards away and the smell fades. Walk back and it hits you again. It’s a vivid lesson in how air pollution concentrates exactly where we live, work and play.

Disney has pledged to convert every Autopia car to electric by fall 2026, smart timing given what happened recently in Washington, D.C. President Trump submitted a proposal to undo the 2007 landmark 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts vs. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which stated that greenhouse gases are air pollutants and the EPA has the authority to regulate them under the Clean Air Act. On December 7, 2009, the EPA issued what’s now famously called the “Endangerment Finding:” six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, “endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations.”

Why should Orange County care? Because new research shows dirty air isn’t just harming lungs and hearts. It’s erasing memories.

A Threat More Personal Than Climate Change

For years, we talked about air pollution through the lens of distant threats like melting glaciers or rising seas. Important, yes, but abstract. Brain science has made the stakes immediate and personal.

A global study of 30 million people published in The Lancet Planetary Health found dementia risk rises 17 percent for every small uptick in PM2.5, the fine-particle pollution spewed by tailpipes, refineries, and gas stoves. These tiny particles, 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair, slip past the body’s defenses, enter the bloodstream and travel to the brain, sparking inflammation linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

One in eight Orange County seniors (more than 164,000 people) already live with dementia or mild cognitive impairment, higher than state and national averages.

The Silent Timeline of Brain Damage

As a neurologist practicing in the Southland for two decades, I’ve learned something critical: bad air has been quietly eroding cognitive health while we focused on respiratory health and heart disease.

Patients experiencing asthma and heart attacks linked to smog fill emergency rooms. Brain damage builds silently for years. There’s no siren when particles cross the blood-brain barrier. Memory simply fades.

UC Irvine researchers recently showed measurable declines in brain function after just four hours of exposure to polluted air. This hidden timeline lets pollution cause lasting harm while we track only its obvious short-term effects.

Orange County’s Invisible Crisis

The American Lung Association ranks our region among the nation’s worst for ozone.

More than 40,000 children and 219,000 adults here have asthma that could be tied to dirty air. Now we understand these same pollutants quietly diminish cognitive health.

The burden isn’t shared equally. Pollution clusters near freeways and industrial corridors, disproportionately impacting lower-income communities. Santa Ana, for example, faces PM2.5 levels up to seven times higher than neighboring cities, according to UC Irvine researchers. But smog doesn’t respect city boundaries. It creates a pollution dome across the entire South Coast Air Basin, meaning even wealthier areas breathe unhealthy air daily, too.

Behind every statistic is a family watching someone they love fade away, when many cases were preventable.

Leadership Matters More Than Ever

Disney’s decision to electrify Autopia proves local leadership works – a company promising net-zero emissions by 2030.

With federal safeguards possibly retreating, leadership by local companies and governments matters more than ever. Local leaders can reduce pollutants by investing in clean transportation, enforcing stricter emissions standards, and accelerating the transition to renewable energy.

The Hidden Polluter in Our Homes

Gas stoves, water heaters and furnaces across Orange County release seven times more smog-forming pollution than all regional fossil fuel power plants combined. Those emissions further accelerate cognitive decline. Individuals and homeowners can convert to electric appliances to significantly cut indoor and outdoor air pollution, improving both public health and air quality.

Steps OC Can Take Right Now

We can’t wait for action in Washington. Gratefully, Orange County can protect itself today:

Choose cleaner power. Since its launch, Orange County Power Authority customers have reduced carbon emissions by 2 billion pounds, the equivalent of taking more than 221,000 gas-powered vehicles off the road. Its Basic Choice plan delivers 47 percent renewable energy and the generation rate costs 3 percent less than Southern California Edison’s. Installing solar panels at home can further reduce both pollution and your electric bill.

Electrify your home appliances. When replacing gas appliances, choose electric or induction alternatives. Electric stoves, heat pumps and water heaters reduce dangerous indoor air pollution and protect your family’s long-term brain health.

Consider an electric vehicle. Transportation remains the largest local pollution source. Choosing an electric vehicle eliminates tailpipe emissions, significantly reducing your family’s pollution footprint.

Filter indoor air. A $100 HEPA purifier removes up to 80 percent of brain-damaging particles indoors, especially important during wildfire season.

Make pollution visible. Affordable sensors installed at schools and clinics empower communities to demand change.

The Memory We Can Still Save

Cleaner air can reduce the risk of dementia by up to 17%. Climate activists spent decades warning about melting glaciers. Perhaps the threat to our own minds will finally motivate us in a way distant warnings couldn’t.

Orange County doesn’t need Washington’s permission to protect its memories. Let’s clear the air above our homes, schools and parks so the moments we create today aren’t lost tomorrow.

Dr. Faisal M. Qazi is a neurologist who received his medical degree from Touro University California and has been in practice for more than 20 years. He is affiliated with multiple hospitals in Southern California including Anaheim Regional Medical Center. Dr. Qazi has expertise in treating stroke, dementia, memory disorder, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, among other conditions. Dr. Qazi lives in Fullerton and serves on the Orange County Power Authority Community Advisory Committee.

About Orange County Power Authority

The Orange County Power Authority is a not-for-profit public agency that offers clean power at competitive rates, significantly reducing energy-related greenhouse emissions and enabling reinvestment in local energy programs. To learn more, visit www.ocpower.org.