The vector pipeline
“We have to do a better job of connecting the dots.”
A few months ago I published a project on how hotter temperatures in the United States may be exacerbating rates of mosquito-borne illnesses, such as dengue fever, that are generally uncommon to contract domestically. The piece was inspired by the fact that I contracted a complicated case of dengue fever, and the mysteries around the condition for its global prevalence were surprising. When one is personally touched by a health condition, it’s no longer amorphous. It’s very real, and one wants to see ambivalence around it change.
A few hours after hitting publish, I received an email from a reader. They wrote that reporting on the impacts of dengue fever and risks of it were misleading when compared to conditions such as the flu, which was more prevalent and deadly by comparison.
Fast-forward a few months later to a conference where I met an American medical journalist who spent years living in Brazil. I shared my impression that this note from a reader and the lukewarm urgency around mosquito-borne illnesses underscored: It’s very hard to get Americans, or perhaps a larger Global North readership, to care about diseases prevalent in the Global South. The journalist wholeheartedly agreed.
But as of late 2025, locally acquired cases of dengue fever in the U.S. hit a decade high, and Florida was the state most heavily impacted with hotspots around Miami and Orlando.
A few weeks later, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that 2026 is projected to be a record-breaking year for an all-time high of natural gas production. Though natural gas sounds innocuous, it’s still a fossil fuel that generates greenhouse gases, namely methane, which traps heat in the atmosphere and contributes to warming temperatures throughout the world. Natural gas currently makes up 70 percent of Florida’s energy matrix, and the state’s greenhouse gas emissions are up 30 percent from 1990 to 2022 alone.
A correlation between more natural gas and locally-acquired cases of dengue fever does not equal causation, but it makes one wonder: How do strategic choices on sources of energy make health conditions, like dengue fever, worse?
There are a multitude of health conditions that arise from climate change, from worse allergies to wildfire impacts, but in terms of vector-borne illnesses, it’s not just dengue fever that’s a concern in a hotter country. It’s Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and plague, among others. Furthermore, an analysis by Stanford in September found that dengue fever rates around the world are projected to increase 76 percent by 2050 due to hotter temperatures. Throughout the 21 studied countries, there were already 4.6 million more infections than anticipated annually.
The authors of the analysis wrote, “In the meantime, the findings could help guide public health planning and strengthen efforts to hold governments and fossil fuel companies accountable for the damages of climate change.”
It’s common knowledge that the choices any country makes in their energy matrix impact the global climate. The United States Environment Protection Agency (EPA) cites renewable energy as a major strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which is largely defined as hydropower, geothermal, wind, and solar energy.
But not all of those sources of power are considered firm, which is when a power source can operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The wind doesn’t blow 24 hours per day, nor does the sun shine. As much as one cares about a warmer climate and all of its implications, the U.S. is also in the midst of a skyrocketing electricity demand due to data centers processing artificial intelligence tools. There are also other considerations in states like California, where wildfires have destroyed electric infrastructure and higher utility prices are funding reconstruction. Overall, about 17 percent of the American public is facing higher electric bills, especially in the Northeast.
Demand on the electric grid means that firm sources of power are of the utmost importance. On the renewable end of the spectrum, firm power sources include geothermal, nuclear, and hydropower, to an extent. On the fossil fuel end, both petroleum and natural gas are firm, but they’re largely responsible for creating hotter temperatures around the world and these cascading environmental and health impacts.
Kim Ross, the Co-Executive Director of ReThink Energy Florida, an educational nonprofit working to advocate for renewable energy across the state, says that it’s quite surprising that for being such a sunny state, there isn’t more solar in Florida. Currently, solar energy makes up 10 percent of the state’s energy matrix.
“I’ve long said that climate change doesn’t just mean milder winters, but also that vector-borne diseases will increase because [there is] no winter to freeze out mosquitoes,” she says. “We have to do a better job of connecting the dots.”
More locally-acquired dengue fever cases in Florida also have economic consequences. In 2025 The Business Standard, a Bangladeshi newspaper, found that one case of dengue costs about $479 per person to treat. This is “catastrophic” for local families, reporters wrote, because that cost for a case of dengue often eclipses a individual’s monthly wage in the country. But even if that cost were transposed into an impacted household in America, it’s still worrisome when 18 percent of adults cannot afford an unexpected purchase of even $100 or less.
Between less investment in some renewable energies, a spike in natural gas production, and significant shifts in how Americans can access health insurance or qualify for Medicaid, it makes one wonder what’s going to happen to people living in places like Florida if they’re out and about, get a mosquito bite, and wake in the middle of the night, caked in sweat, feeling like their bones are breaking. These shifts in energy production towards more fossil fuels are making the health risks for that person much higher.
Sometimes, a set of ideas that feed into one another takes the shape of a circle, creating a vicious cycle. But other times, overarching causes and effects take the shape of a straight line. Generating electricity with petroleum and natural gas leads to a warming world. From that warming world, there are environmental changes, whcih lead to health consequences. In the case of Florida, the state is making strides to tamp down on mosquitoes to control rates of dengue.
But does controlling mosquitoes ultimately get at one of the major root causes of their abundance in the first place? Many would argue that it does not, and instead, a reliance on natural gas should be walked back for the sake of public health.
Over the past few years, talking about the electric grid and renewables has become politically charged in Florida, Ross says, but she envisions that in a decade, the somewhat hard-right, anti-renewable tone in the state will shift back towards the center.
“People [need to] understand that climate, science, and the need for renewable energy is not a partisan thing, but a set of concepts that we need to embrace.”
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Now it’s time to hear from you, dear reader. Do you worry about how your state’s energy matrix could be causing health impacts on locals? Do you think more renewable energy sources should be supported in the name of public health?
Comment and tell me what you think.
Recommendation Corner
READING: “My Absolute Darling” by Gabriel Tallent. I vaguely remember this novel being very controversial upon publication, likely because the content of it was hard to swallow during the #MeToo movement. I’m about halfway through and appreciate observing how the main character is processing trauma, i.e. when one is living in a chaotic, dangerous environment where they’re treated poorly, one can’t help but blame themselves and think it was something they personally did wrong to deserve the situation, when that is obviously not so.
WATCHING: I was sick twice in two weeks, so I watched a lot of movies. I started a Cate Blanchett kick with “Carol,” which was subtle and artful. I can’t put my finger on why her choices were so impactful, but it was spot-on. Then I saw “Tár,” which was incredible. My biggest takeaway was that getting cancelled for bad behavior can ultimately deliver artists back to a more authentic version of themselves. I watched 1948’s “Bicycle Thieves,” and then lived through the ultimate irony of getting my own bike stolen 48 hours later. Finally, over the weekend I saw “Hamnet,” which was illuminating. It’s always been difficult to picture what Shakespeare’s world looked like, and this movie not only brought it to life, but illustrated how the loss of a child led to the creation of one of the most iconic plays in the English language.
WHAT I WROTE: I wrapped a big feature on Afghan immigrant communities in Mexico, covered a unique conservation project on the outskirts of Chicago bringing the lost Great Plains to life, and wrote a piece about some of the differences that can be identified now between aging and Long COVID.