Does health go down as carbon goes up, and vice versa, per the World Health Organization’s claim?
Guest post by: Indur M. Goklany
A World Health Organization (WHO) communiqué to an International congress on climate change in Copenhagen designed to sound the alarm on climate change, states that it estimates “around 150,000 deaths now occur in low-income countries each year due to climate change from four climate-sensitive health outcomes – crop failure and malnutrition, diarrhoeal disease, malaria and flooding.” [To get an inkling of the quality of these estimates, which are based on modeling studies, see here.] Then, citing “increased risks of extreme weather events, to effects on infectious disease dynamics and sea level rise,” the comminiqué declares that “as carbon goes up health goes down.” It then claims that “a large part of the current burden of disease is linked to energy consumption and transport systems. Changing these systems to reduce climate change would have the added benefit of addressing some major public health issues, including outdoor air pollution (800 000 annual global deaths); traffic accidents (1.2 million annual deaths); physical inactivity (1.9 million deaths); and indoor air pollution (1.5 million annual deaths).” Accordingly it argues, “Reducing green house gases [sic]emissions can be beneficial to health: as carbon goes down health goes up.”
But what do empirical data show?
Figure 1: Life expectancy at birth (1960-2006) for high, medium and low income countries, global carbon emissions (1960-2004), and carbon emissions per capita for each country group (1960-2004). Source: World Bank (2009).
Figure 1, based on data from the World Bank, shows that:
- Health, as measured by life expectancy at birth, has gone up for the low, medium and high income countries even as global carbon emissions have increased.
- The higher a group’s carbon emissions per capita, the higher its life expectancy. Thus life expectancy is highest for the high income group and lowest for the low income group.
- The slowdown in the increase in life expectancy during the late 1980s and 1990s in the low income countries can be better seen in the data for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) shown in Figure 2. This slowdown is more or less coincident with the decline in carbon emissions per capita in that region, which seems to follow declines in economic development (GDP per capita). [Note that higher levels of economic development are associated with higher carbon emissions per capita. This is to be expected. GDP per capita is one of the four multiplicative terms in the Kaya Identity used in the IPCC scenarios to estimate carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion.]
Thus empirical results are at odds with the World Health Organization’s claims that “as carbon goes up health goes down” or ” as carbon goes down health goes up.”
Figure 2: Global carbon (C) emissions (1960-2004), and life expectancy at birth (1960-2006), GDP per capita (1960-2007), and carbon emissions per capita (1960-2004) for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Note that GDP per capita in constant 2000 US$ and PPP-adjusted 2005 International $ are on different axes and scales. Source: World Bank (2009).
In fact, increased health is, if anything, associated with both increased economic development (GDP per capita) and higher carbon emissions per capita. That is, these figures suggest that the World Health Organization has it backward!!
Of course, the reason for this is that WHO is ignoring the forest for the trees. Yes, there may be some health aspects (e.g., mortality from extreme heat events) that any warmer temperatures from higher CO2 may have exacerbated but, on the other hand, such warming would reduce deaths during the cold weather (which substantially exceed deaths during the warmer portions of the year; see also here). But more importantly, as indicated in Figure 3, higher economic development-both a major cause and effect of those carbon emissions-acting in conjunction with the mutually reinforcing forces of technological change and human capital reduces deaths and increases life expectancy via a cycle of progress (see pages 29-33, here).
Figure 3: Life expectancy at birth across countries for 1977 and 2003.The figure shows that at any point in time, life expectancy, the most comprehensive single indicator for health, improves with the level of economic development. It also shows that because of secular technological change, life expectancy for any given level of economic development improves with time. Source: Goklany, The Improving State of the World: Why We’re Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet (Cato Institute, Washington, DC, 2007).
This of course raises the question whether – just as the push for biofuels may have contributed to greater hunger worldwide – WHO’s support for “strong greenhouse gas reductions (mitigation) in all sectors” might also backfire if such reductions reduce economic growth which then retards health improvements (as suggested by the economist Richard Tol and others).
It’s too bad that the World Health Organization dispenses solutions to the problems posed by climate change without undertaking a risk analysis of the problems that may result from those solutions.
Hippocrates, where art thou?
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Since the WHO is an arm of the UN does this stupid report surprise anyone at all?
CO2 is a marker of health and wealth. China and India know this simple truth. America knew this truth once but we have forgotten. We are apparently in the process of trading our health and wealth for a warm fuzzy feeling. Will we awake from this nightmare or are we determined to become a third world country under China’s boots?
Wake up or learn to speak chinese.
Xie xie,
Mike
I can see the fingerprint of a truly disciplined and vigorous scienctific study all over this report…ok, I’m being facetious.
There are so many factors involved in mortality rates, but to be able to pin mortaility and so “precisely” at that, CO2 is just….amazing. They should have skipped the open advocacy of the party line.
The affects of poverty are bad. I’ve seen it first hand, in too many countries. To pin the evil of poverty on wealthier countries, and their use of “fossil” fuels is just another avenue for those pushing for social “justice”.
It needs to be noticed that the WHO is a part of the UN, as is the IPCC and the World Meteorological Organization.
This entire corrupt and crooked organization is focused at one objective:
How to reduce the world population.
If a world wide legislation comes in place with an 80% reduction by 2050 we will be in serious trouble:
Very important to read this links: (I posted them befor on the Canada posting)
Here is “study” that makes clear what the freaks at the UN are really up to:
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N11/EDIT.php
This is a proper response to this madness from Chris Horner:
http://spectator.org/blog/2009/03/17/just-enough-of-them
Any CO2 reduction legislation eventually will put a rope around our necks, ready for the lynching. So in this perspective the WHO is right, high CO2 levels will be very bad for your personal health.
We better get rid of the AGW/ CO2 doctrine before real disasters start to happen.
http://green-agenda.com
Let’s boycott the UN and veto any Government involvement with this very sick organization.
I wonder if this is an attempt to counter what Bjorn Lomborg said in “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and later “Cool It”. It really makes no sense for an organisation like this to say such a thing. The world has gone mad.
Its crazy some of the things they come out with…. Ive served as a UN peace keeper in east timor back in 2000, the life expectancy there was 42(i dont think thats inclusive of mortality under 5). They do a whole lot o dying in those countries… a lot of it is from really easily preventable causes, but it can take them days to walk to the nearest doctor. It wouldnt be any different in the developed world if we had to walk from A to B for help in an emergency.
Some of the things they come out with! Or maybe co2 from the cordite in weapons is what theyre measuring. Crazy stuff, {shakes my head}
there we have it the old life expectancy vs income hockey stick. I knew all that skating would help me someday!
Higher CO2 has now been linked an increase in irrational thinking in certain groups, primarily those with in government bureaucracies and elected office. The increased levels of CO2 has a positive feedback on their highly inflated egos forcing them to believe that mankind is greater than it’s host planet and capable of disrupting it’s already unstable climate. If this condition persist these groups may reach tipping points which will lead to economic instability and an increased number of recessions worldwide.
Mr. Goklany, thank you for another excellent post. Are the plants that are being grown for biofuels pretty much the same plants that had been grown in those fields for food, or will going back to raising food crops require farmers to buy new grain drills, seed, etc.? Has anyone done a good statistical analysis or even a plan for what to do if/when the production of biofuels becomes less important than food production?
Mike, my teenage daughter is learning Mandarin and Japanese. Both languages are very popular with teens now, and not just because of manga. While it made sense for my generation to learn French and German, Mandarin is the current choice for most of the teens we know who intend to go into business. (Native tongue in our home is English.) There is a huge demand for Mandarin/English speakers in the computer hardware industry.
Anthony, I know you have readers from Japan who comment. Do you have any commenters from the mainland? I’m very curious about their surface stations.
Feasible improvements in environmental conditions could reduce the global disease burden by more than 25%. A large part of the current burden is linked to energy consumption and transport systems. Changing these systems to reduce climate change would have the added benefit of addressing some major public health issues, including outdoor air pollution (800 000 annual global deaths); traffic accidents (1.2 million annual deaths); physical inactivity (1.9 million deaths); and indoor air pollution (1.5 million annual deaths).
1.5 million deaths from indoor air pollution caused by climate change???
If I hear anymore of this kind of nonsensical claptrap I think I’ll cry… and I still keep coming across people who believe in all of ….THIS…stuff… isn’t there anyone out there with any common sense???… anyone remotely sane?????? and who doesn’t have an agenda???
I having a bad day by the way!!!
My whole professional career has been devoted to helping find and extract fossil fuels. I guess this new study makes me a mass murderer as well as an AGW heretic. They no longer burn heretics at the stake anymore but they do still give lethal injections to convicted mass murderers. I hope this mass hysteria stops short of a Salem hunt.
Incidently, has there been any reports of dizziness, fainting or fits at the WHO?
WHO needs to get out of politics and make sure the third world countries have chlorinated water and sanitary waste treatment plants…
I hear the pain of frustration. I’ve heard it before. It will not help to tell you that an educated opposition is the most formidable adversary of any corrupt regime. But listen to an old man:
When I was young, I imagined that I was a rock in a fast-flowing river of human misery. I was young and tough, with sharp edges and many angles. I would divert and manage as much of the river as a hard rock could.
Time went on, and the river worn down my harsh angles, but I still posed a diversion, only not so radical as before. I found ways to influence without confrontation, to shape without touching, to love without being noticed. I found my place. This phase lasted until:
Time wore the corners smooth. The smooth rock slowly tumbles downriver. No longer the adversary of the current, I am a passenger. I nudge and plow and vault, but can no longer control the effects of the current for myself or any others. And in the final phase:
The old smooth river stone tumbles against a vast pile of old smooth river stones just like himself. Together, we changed the very course of the river itself.
You are not alone.
This UN/WHO business reminded me of Vladimir Putin’s statement today saying that a world currency should be agreed to and adopted: click
The first thing that occurred was that anyone committing a ‘financial’ crime — which would of course be determined by an “international” *cough*u.n.*cough* organization — and would of course have to be prosecuted by an international court appointed by…
Can everyone see where this is leading?
As Ayn Rand noted, with enough laws on the books, everyone is a criminal. Yes, that includes you and me. And everyone you know.
It’s big time control, people. And with today’s computers, data bases, GPS, and surveillance cameras, there won’t be anyone who can’t be tracked 24/7.
With that, we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.
We really are witnessing new depths of nonsense now.
Even a scientific ignoramus like me is able to assert with confidence that flooding and scorching are not helpful conditions when you are dependent on your own land for food. Similarly, illnesses that arise more frequently at times of flooding or scorching are likely to increase.
All developed countries suffer localised flooding or scorching from time to time. The reason it does not result in death and illness on the same scale as in poorer countries is that we have sufficient resources to be able to divert some from an area of plenty to help those in trouble. And here’s the bit the yoghurt-knitters seem incapable of getting into their thick skulls … we can only do so because our economic and industrial systems (despite their current troubles) produce considerably more than a mere subsistence level of resources. The main contributor to this benefit is our ability to produce power to speed our production of consumable resources.
Weaken the strong countries and you reduce their ability to assist the weaker countries, both lose. Maintain the strong countries and strengthen the weaker countries, both win. There is only one way to increase the ability of the historically weaker countries to provide for their people, and that is for them to achieve strength. At the moment the only way they can do that is by following the same course that made the strong countries strong. Invent a different course if you can, but no one has been able to do so yet despite decades of attempts. Until there is a different course, we are stuck with the one we have, warts and all.
Well said FatBigot:
How did we ever get to this point, and elect the president and the Congress that we have now??
Maybe this explains it: click
I should have been dead 20 years ago, from all that C02 I breathed underground.
Dear me, 20 years of breathing atmospheres 1000ppm and greater for 8-10 hrs shifts and I ain’t dead yet!
I am sure that after 90 years of Mine Safety & Health Admin + CalOSHA they would have shut every mine down in the country if what the World Health Org. is claiming were true.
PolyScience rears it’s ugly head.
World Health Organization claims that health goes down as carbon goes up?
I couldn’t get past the headline.
That’s just plain old crazy. It completely flies in the face of history. If anything, the relationship is directly opposite. Not that CO2 itself made people healthy, but that which released the CO2 most certainly did.
Now I’ll actually read the article and the comments.
I guess this is what we get from insisting that articles be in the public domain. Back then, your scientific research lamented in a dusty old journal that was only available for your reading pleasure in an Ivory Tower. Most scientific studies never saw the light of day in a daily newspaper, monthly magazine, or that wonderful old rag I still miss, Look. Maybe that is what kept science discoveries wrapped in the dull, colorless writing one would find in a tractor repair book. We clamored for information, now we are getting information, but it has transformed into fastfood junk science.
Mike Bryant said:
You mean 谢谢 don’t you?
不太客气！
We clamored for information, now we are getting information, but it has transformed into fastfood junk science.
Absolutely smashing, Pamela. We used to have to pay to read stuff like Chariots of the Gods, but now we get it served with fries. If I had an imagination like some of those articles, I’d be raking it in writing scripts for Sci-Fi movies.
Pamela, I’ve wondered what you were thinking about this. And I’ve wondered if I had missed the point of all this lamentation about a single headline. I wonder if we appreciate what we still have.
I have often wondered whether those of you smart folks who post here regularly actually know where you are, right here, right now. Maybe that perspective comes from advanced age. You sometimes give me the impression that you think this is a place where eggheads (boffins?) try to impress each other with the overwhelming complexity, or obscurity, of your data and its sources. Such a shallow cyberview! Please realize that at this site you may actually be at Ground Zero of a new peer-review system, and simultaneously, at a uniquely self-governing interface between the Wondrously Over-Educated Who May-Or-May-Not Understand The Science Of Everything, and the ordinary people like me who will tolerate incredible lunacy, because we have done it before, and we can still laugh about it. We’re the proud survivors of the devastating world-wide swine flu epidemic.
Both parts of the interface must stay active, must co-exist, if ever we are to function together. Think about it carefully – you have never experienced immersion in an interface such as this one. Am I right? Take big breath.
This “science” is intruding on our humanity as aggressively as ANY ever has. How are we to learn to communicate with our political masters, who use the threat of “science” to control us? How are we to defend ourselves against predatory and egregious distortions of Climate Science? When will the Government Approved Climate Scientists understand that they are just cattle such as we?
I will now facetiously boast that I represent that vast majority of readers here who never post their thoughts, but who follow the arguments as carefully as they are able. (How’s that for an unprovable claim? I may just get away with this!)
Regards, Henry.
Has the WHO forgotten about the health problems caused by burning dried dung indoors on open fires to cook the family meal.
Coal fired power stations in Africa could save millions of lives annually.
Richard Sharpe and Mike Bryant:
Can’t do characters on my computer, ke-shih wo hen kao-hsing kan-dao hai yo bie-de ren yeh hui liao-jie chung-kuo-hua. Wo xie-de chung-wen cha-bu-dou se-shi nien yi-chien tsai Taiwan. Jin-tien de Chung Kuo hen ke-pa.