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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Talk about short attention spans… Wasn’t the whole “we’re living longer because of good ole CO2” idea trotted out, by you, just a week ago to general skeptic head bobbing? News flash (again): civilization, a good thing, is NOT just increased CO2 output.
“But what do empirical data show?” How about showing some that covers an actual meaningful time period instead of a cherry-picked too-short too-recent snapshot? If you are familiar with the typical lifespan of homo sapiens you will understand that a 40 year slice doesn’t cover it, nor does that slice cover the time frame of the modern improvements that have actually led to longer life expectancy.
P.S. The secret world government loves you all. 🙂
Indur Goklany, I also thank you for an excellent post. I can remember when a UN report cost about $40US and you had to wait four to six months for it to arrive by boat from Europe. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad situation. No one much bothered because the studies were more historical. Now that they have gone to this prescriptive mode and an unfathomable reality I think we should close them down and send them home.
rephelan said:
Roughly translated:
可是我很高兴看到还有别的人也会了解中国话。我写(学？）的中文差不多四十年以前在台湾。
怪不得你的拼音很差！
I would recommend the following web site as a source for the information being discussed here:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
Yeah, I know, it’s the CIA. Get over it. The data is good. Take a couple of hours and extract the data that’s relevant for you… I’d recommend comparisons of the World, the US, France, Germany, UK, Mexico, China, India….. and then look at Niger, Chad, Mali, Somalia and Central African Republic.
This WHO communique is a blueprint for genocide. It ought to be mentioned in the same breath as the Wansee Conference.
News headlines from the year 2011:
Sick From CO2? Use an eMeter
IPCC Declares Scientology beats thetans, lowers CO2
Studies Show eMeter Saves Polar Bears
Scientists Agree Tom Cruise Evolving At Fastest Rate
Monbiot Sees Hubbard’s Light
Nutrition Less Important Than Meditation For The Poor, Study Finds
Greens Furious As Scientology Agenda Streaks Ahead
UN endorses Scientology as New World Religion
Greens Unite With Scientology For World Betterment
Very good Richard. You’ve got to tell me how you do that. Yeah, the character was “study” and I tend to speak with a Taiwanese accent, so I can understand your confusion.
For the rest of you guys, the first star ship is NOT going to be the Enterprise. It will probably be called the “Tien Shan”. The Chinese are not a bunch of strange guys running around in hats that make them look like mushrooms; they are ambitious, bright and focused. They are not our friends.
In 1970 the U.S. manufactured 60% of everything that was made in the world. Today we manufacture 20%, mostly high end stuff like aircraft, precision tools, that sort of thing. If you look at everything you own, your computer, your cell phone, your clothes, shoes, book-bag…. they were all made in China. China also manufactures 20% of everything in the world. One of the major differences between us and the Chinese is that in the U.S. only one half of one percent of our population is engaged in farming, fishing, forestry and mining. That figure for China is about 40%. As they mechanize their agriculture, they will be releasing more extra people for production than the entire U.S. population!
Study some demography and learn some Chinese. You’ll need it.
BTW, raphelan, Windows XP allows you to enter characters, but you have to know PinYin (or one of the other romanization systems the IMEs understand). You just have to install the Asian Language pack.
Linux also can do it, which is how I entered the characters above, but you need to know Pinyin. You need all the SCIM RPMs or DEBs.
MacOS X also allows it but I don’t know how to do that.
So the WHO is now peddling outright lies and falsehoods to further the AGW/MMCC theories(political cause)?
What a tragic waste of resources and funds, the massive investment in a failing theory by the UN has condemned millions to starvation and premature death and will ultimately be the cause of much more suffering across the globe, the new anti science allied to a new world political order is leading us all to disaster!
The result of this wicked combination of anti science in hock to a new global political cause will be tragic in the extreme.
I used to wonder just why the media/political classes/mainstream science could be so wrong about so many things and yet so immune from from any kind of reality checks, I realise now that the AGW/MMCC science is only there to serve and verify a new political world order, in effect science has been perverted to serve a political purpose, that is scary!
Every thing I’ve read from and about this recent Copenhagen conference has been pretty far out there.
That the WHO would submit such an obviously false study there is not surprising. We have heard time and again that these folks truly believe that the future of the species is at stake. They have also told us on more than one occasion that exaggeration is required to budge the rest of to move.
Two really important deadlines are ahead this year for the faithful – Obama’s Cap and Trade and Kyoto II. Those who are well informed within their movement know that if they fail in these two attempts the cooling climate will shut them off from the power and money they seek. Once enacted they get to cruise and collect regardless of how the climate unfolds.
Keep up the good work Anthony. A lot of people come here and pass on what they read.
Smokey,
This is the culture I lived in during my my enlightened years when I had to believe in catastrophic global warming because it came with my job description
I can confirm that this site is not available in Mainland China.
Sylvia send your kids there they are desperate to have more English teachers. They’ll make a comfortable living too.
They are clutching at straws. We’ve not heard the last of all this rubbish.
John in NZ (20:35:30) :
“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.”
John,
And do not forget India and China:
The so called “brown cloud” is caused by the burning of bio mass:
See: http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/biomass-burning-behind-asian-brown-clouds-.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_climatechangeandenergy
Remarkably the researchers conclude that not only the burning of biomass but also fossil fuels must be addressed, to prevent climate change.
The simply don’t want humanity to burn anything!
News headlines from the year 2011:
Sick From CO2? Use an eMeter
IPCC Declares Scientology beats thetans, lowers CO2
Studies Show eMeter Saves Polar Bears
Scientists Agree Tom Cruise Evolving At Fastest Rate
Monbiot Sees Hubbard’s Light
Nutrition Less Important Than Meditation For The Poor, Study Finds
Greens Furious As Scientology Agenda Streaks Ahead
UN endorses Scientology as New World Religion
Greens Unite With Scientology For World Betterment
OH! You’re my new favorite blogger fyi
OK, I’ll bite. Here in the UK, a relatively prosperous country, we have around 15% of households that cannot heat their homes properly in cold weather. I know it is a rough and ready calculation but lets convert that directly to population by saying 15% of 60 million – 9 million people.
Artificially limiting energy supplies will drive up the price of most everything not just raw domestic energy. Lets further guess that 1/3rd of our 9m are already in big trouble come winter and CO2 taxes prove to be the (real) ‘tipping point’. That is 3 million people who will have no heating in a Northern Winter rather than their current minimal heating. No prizes for guessing what happens to them.
I am left with only two options.
The Government and those pressing for ‘meaningful’ reductions have not really thought this one through very well.
OR
They have thought it through and are fully aware of the consequences.
The first option is possible, never discount stupidity. Remind me again though – what does the UN call the second option?
Source of my rough and ready numbers
6 going on 7 billion people say the WHO is full of s#@ur momisugly!.
Henry Phipps (19:29:01) :
beautifully expressed
The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
Smokey (19:29:49) :
“… Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
Now, apparently, bedbugs are back with a vengeance. A report in the Irish Examiner last week revealed the pests are making something of a resurgence in Ireland, and indeed around the world. “Health fears as bedbug infestations rise 66%” screamed the headline in last Friday’s paper. Apparently entomology professor Michael F Potter says we’re currently in the middle of a “global epidemic”, and blames a whole host of criteria from a fertile second hand furniture market to increased travel and global warming for the rapid spread of these unwelcome guests.
WHO’s report makes no sense on its face and makes even less sense in context. It’s like they didn’t even try. How can climate change legislation reduce indoor air pollution? Increased energy efficiency INCREASES indoor pollution by sealing the home better (increased recycle means concentration of all impurities). How on Earth can it reduce traffic deaths or deaths due to sedentary lifestyles? How many people more will die due to lack of heating, cooling, transportation, and medical attention (do you now the footprint of an MRI? Huge!)? They didn’t even attempt to calculate actual deaths.
The estimate of current deaths also has problems, namely that none of their items are linked conclusively to climate change, and two of them have had a link disproven. Diarreha is due to malnutrition and waterborne disease, and malaria is due to mosquitos. Neither of these are confined to the tropics by temperature, and both ran rampant in Europe and America in the Little Ice Age.
Did Not Do the Homework
Ben (03:57:48) :
How on Earth can it reduce traffic deaths or deaths due to sedentary lifestyles?
Mass transit, bicycles, walking, etc. are all part of the Green agenda which would probably have an effect on traffic deaths and keep us in better health. Can’t see the indoor pollution angle. Screened windows left open for natural ventilation reduces formaldehyde pollution from carpets and upholstery?
Want a laugh?
Remember Suzanne Goldenberg’s overt racism and sexism towards “Deniers” last week?
Well, a new sexist remark has caused a split in the Green camp and it is none other than George Monbiot himself on the receiving end! 😀
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/18/nuclear-power-climate-change
So the Green party has lost Monbiot’s vote. World tyranny has nothing to worry about though because he can always go back to the Islamic-Marxist party he helped found with George Galloway.
I would, instead, relate this post with the Be-10 Post, GCR relation to health: cancer…and don´t forget our portable “wilson cloud chambers” or, in other words GCR and lung diseases…
The truly ironic thing is that if the greenies want fewer of us, then why do they want to improve health and increase life spans?
I just find it curious how the alarmist camp (?) seems to have to revisit the very core of their argument so frequently. Namely; warm=death. I can understand that this equation is a hard sell when history is full of examples of the exact opposite, being; cold=death. As a mechanic, I have a special fondness for simplicity. A machine that has few moving parts is far more reliable than one with myriad whirling gadgets and bells. It seems the arguments posited by those that adhere to warm=death are so elaborate as to require constant “adjustment”. Whereas the cold=death position can pretty much be left alone and it will run forever. I think this constant revisiting of supposedly established facts is an indication of the overall weakness of AGW alarmism. Too many moving parts! Reality will no doubt be a “model” of simplicity.