In my particular case, I had some geographic data in a file.  It seemed like a name like 'geo_data' was a good way to refer to the filename with the data.  Then it seemed like 'geo_data was a good way to refer to the file handle.  Then it seemed like a name like 'geo_data' was a good way to refer to the DataFrame resulting from reading it.  Then it seemed like 'geo_data' was a good way to refer to the reformatted data I created in memory.  Then it seemed like 'geo_data' was a good name for the file handle to the new file I write in the new format.

Naming things is hard. (I might have exaggerated the specific example).

But not much of the problem had to do with scoping.  I pretty much wanted to use all those different meanings in the same scope.  And also not use absurdly long names like 'filehandle_for_json_geo_data'.  Even if scoping *could* have separated all those uses, it would be kinda terrible code where that same name had all these different meanings nearby, even if in technically different scopes.