Part I: Ranking global warming among present-day risks to public health.
Guest essay by Indur M. Goklany
There seems to be no limit to the hyperbole surrounding climate change – and that’s no hyperbole. Numerous politicians have informed us over the years that climate change is one of the most important problems facing mankind. In fact, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called it the defining challenge of our age.”
But is it?
I answer this question in a paper just published in the refereed section of Energy & Environment.
A 2005 review article in Nature on the health impacts of climate change estimated that 166,000 deaths were “attributable” to climate change in 2000. This estimate was derived from a World Health Organization (WHO) sponsored study that even the study’s authors acknowledge may not “accord with the canons of empirical science” (see here). But I will accept this flawed estimate as gospel for the sake of argument.
In the year 2000, however, there were a total of 56 million deaths worldwide. Thus, climate change may be responsible for less than 0.3% of all deaths globally (based on data for the year 2000). This places climate change no higher than 13th among mortality risk factors related to food, nutrition and environment, as shown in the following table.
Specifically, climate change is easily outranked by threats such as hunger, malnutrition and other nutrition-related problems, lack of access to safe water and sanitation, indoor air pollution, malaria, urban air pollution. And had I included other risks to public health beyond environmental, food and nutritional factors (e.g., HIV/AIDS, TB, various cancers, etc.) then climate change would have ranked even lower than 13th.
With respect to biodiversity and ecosystems, today the greatest threat is what it always has been – the conversion of land and water habitat to human uses, i.e., agriculture, forestry, and human habitation and infrastructure. See, e.g., here.
Climate change, contrary to claims, is clearly not the most important environmental, let alone public health, problem facing the world today.
But is it possible that in the foreseeable future, the impact of climate change on public health could outweigh that of other factors?
I will address this question in subsequent blogs.
| Risk factor |
Ranking |
Mortality (millions) |
Mortality (%) |
| Blood pressure | 1 | 7.1 | 12.8 |
| Cholesterol | 2 | 4.4 | 7.9 |
| Underweight (hunger) | 3 | 3.7 | 6.7 |
| Low fruit & vegetables | 4 | 2.7 | 4.9 |
| Overweight | 5 | 2.6 | 4.6 |
| Unsafe water, poor sanitation | 6 | 1.7 | 3.1 |
| Indoor smoke | 7 | 1.6 | 2.9 |
| Malaria | 1.1 | 2.0 | |
| Iron deficiency | 8 | 0.8 | 1.5 |
| Urban air pollution | 9 | 0.8 | 1.4 |
| Zinc deficiency | 10 | 0.8 | 1.4 |
| Vitamin A deficiency | 11 | 0.8 | 1.4 |
| Lead exposure | 12 | 0.2 | 0.4 |
| Climate change | 13 | 0.2 | 0.3 |
| Subtotal | 27.6 | 49.4 | |
| TOTAL from all causes | 55.8 | 100.0 | |
Priority ranking of food, nutritional and environmental problems, based on global mortality for 2000. Source: I.M. Goklany, Is Climate Change the “Defining Challenge of Our Age”? Energy & Environment 20(3): 279-302 (2009), based on data from the World Health Organization. Note that malaria isn’t ranked in this table because deaths due to malaria were attributed by WHO to climate change, underweight, and zinc and vitamin A deficiencies.
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“Note that malaria isn’t ranked in this table because deaths due to malaria were attributed by WHO to climate change, underweight, and zinc and vitamin A deficiencies.”
So much for all those stupid theories about mosquitos. And especially having to memorise the Life Cycle of the Malarial Parasite in school.
The situation is even worse that expected, at least according to speakers at the meeting called “Melting Ice Regional Dramas, Global Wake-Up Call” in Oslo this week.
“There is indeed a risk that we will be among the last to live in a time of bountiful ice and snow; but such a future is not inevitable. I sincerely believe that today will mark one important step towards a different future, one where longing for the first winter’s snow remains a basic part of the human experience”, Foreign Minister Stoere said during his opening of the conference on Tuesday.
Dorthe Dahl Jensen, an expert from Denmark’s Niels Bohr Institute claimed “Antarctica and Greenland have been sleeping until now, now they are awakening giants.” The flow of melting ice into the oceans has picked up, and at the current pace sea levels will have risen by three feet by the end of the century, she added.
http://www.norwaypost.no/content/view/21953/26/
http://tinyurl.com/cyr8jo
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30460831/
The situation is even worse that expected, at least according to speakers at the meeting called “Melting Ice Regional Dramas, Global Wake-Up Call” in Oslo this week.
“There is indeed a risk that we will be among the last to live in a time of bountiful ice and snow; but such a future is not inevitable. I sincerely believe that today will mark one important step towards a different future, one where longing for the first winter’s snow remains a basic part of the human experience”, Foreign Minister Stoere said during his opening of the conference on Tuesday.
Dorthe Dahl Jensen, an expert from Denmark’s Niels Bohr Institute claimed “Antarctica and Greenland have been sleeping until now, now they are awakening giants.” The flow of melting ice into the oceans has picked up, and at the current pace sea levels will have risen by three feet by the end of the century, she added.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30460831/
Wow – that’s quite a list… and for the first time in any such list, Smoking isn’t listed as the biggest killer ever. That must be because those on that particular Crusade have now banned smoking everywhere… isn’t it nice that that worked and stopped all the smoking deaths?
Anyway, this is sounding like what many of us have been saying… do we really need to abandon all of the actual problems in the world to “tackle” the one that we can’t do anything about???
Excellent piece of writing. However, as evenmjones says whay about the cold. It may be on its way as I type! What will be the official death toll as a result of the recent winter?
And the WHO can cloud the issues by attributing deaths due to climate change, one can do that with anything one likes, as there is simply no way of disproving it. Also, the WHO has left out that other dramatic dealer in death & distruction, undersea earthquake followed by the resulting tsunami, what was the death toll according to the UN? Wasn’t it around 250,000 as a minimum, which leaves CC deaths way behind & it was all perfectly natural! What are the death tolls for earthquakes this century alone?
Sorry that typo should read “destruction”.
Good report Dr. Goklany – generally consistent with the Copenhagen Consensus.
Also, cold kills more than heat – much more. Global warming, if it were true, would probably improve the lot of humanity. History tells us so.
The reality is Earth is cooling, perhaps severely, and we are unprepared, as we continue to obsess over non-existent humanmade global warming.
OT but good sun site
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/
sorry Leif…Unless ALL their graphs are wrong
In other news, another Scientist with his snout in the trough has softened his stance on Global Warming. I quote:
Note the “probably”. It seems the sceptics are having some impact!
Excerpt from above:
A 2005 review article in Nature on the health impacts of climate change estimated that 166,000 deaths were “attributable” to climate change in 2000. This estimate was derived from a World Health Organization (WHO) sponsored study that even the study’s authors acknowledge may not “accord with the canons of empirical science” (see here). But I will accept this flawed estimate as gospel for the sake of argument.
***************************
OK for the hypothetical basis of this paper, BUT:
In my opinion, this WHO study is completely without merit. In total, more people would have died if Earth had become colder during the study period.
Low fruit and vegetables can kill you ! OMG!
So can staying up late nights gridding weather stations . . .
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!
Didnt the WHO say the biofuels push as a result of global warming alarmism has caused another 30 million to slide into poverty because of rising food prices
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7472532.stm
Also the cold kills many more than the warmth. As I understand it in the UK alone 25,000 people over 65 die every year from cold related causes.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1089933/More-25-000-elderly-die-cold-fuel-poverty-hits-pensioner-households.html
This will only increase as the Green movement seeks to increase the cost of fuel and so fuel poverty will become more widespread and many more will die.
I think if we added the numbers its getitng to the point where we could say more people are dying because of global warming alarmism than actual of any climate change!
We do not seem to miss the dinosaurs so perhaps we will not miss the polar bears. Lets face it, millions of species have disappeared from earth since life began. Do we have to ‘save’ every single one?
“But you did leave out one thing I might have included: Namely how many die from cold.”
Good point – mortality rates, particularly in the elderly rise substantialy in the winter months. There are other risk factors that need mentioning but in particular modern transport ( motor accidents) should probably be in the top end of environmental risk factors.
Funny how the WHOs own data contradicts it’s stand on AGW.
Quote;
“One of the few silver linings of the seasonality of mortality is the impact of global warming on wintertime deaths. One study suggests that an increase in temperature of roughly 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by the middle of this century would boost total heat-related deaths in the United Kingdom more than threefold, to just under 3,000, but the number of cold-related deaths would drop by 25 percent, or 20,000, to 60,000.”
http://www.slate.com/id/2088323/
So based on this proportion if Global Warming causes 166,000 deaths every year then it also save more than a millions from dying from the cold.
In reality if the current cold continues to deepen we will see many more of the vulnerable die unnecessarily because of Global Warming alarmism and the failure of governments to prepare.
Without the headline figures issued by the alarmists put into the perspective of percentages, the general public has no way of evaluating true risk, and it’s an unfortunate trend that affects matters beyond the climate change agenda. I first started questioning the whole global warming propaganda when I stumbled on some statistics relating to CO2. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I read, about 95% of the greenhouse effect is created by water vapour, and that only about 3.6% is created by CO2. Given that only 3.2% of all CO2 is produced by mankind, despite all the green lobbies quoting how many millions of tons of CO2 we annually produce, when analysed into percentages, lead me to the conclusion that even if mankind suddenly ceased to exist, the effect on the climate would be ludicrously small. Or have I got it all wrong??
Environmentalism has alread killed somewhere between 10-30 million people since the 1970s.”
Michael Crichton, Science writer and author ‘State of Fear’.
OT but we’ve just had our coldest ever April temperature in Australia.
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/minus-13-degrees-the-coldest-its-been-in-april/11794
OT as well, I just found this and it looks like the cold in Australia has taken some wildlife by surprise.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25392386-30417,00.html
Just found a nice picture in an article in my newspaper today;
http://www.vg.no/uploaded/image/bilderigg/2009/04/29/1240994578092_85.jpg
Apparently the picture came from reuters, I’m guessing this article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE53R27V20090428
Swine flu will very likely kill more people than “climate change”.
BTW, I’m waiting for the report linking swine flu and “climate change”.
The “true believers” already have this line of reasoning covered. It’s the “tipping point”, stupid! Any day now, we’ll reach the CO2 tipping point at which temperature will suddenly skyrocket and beyond which all will be lost. The current global temperature decline can be visualized as a cliff-diver squatting down for leverage just before he leaps off into the abyss. Dr. Hansen proved all this with “new math” and The Goracle has confirmed it with his “third eye”. Better be on the safe side; shut down 52% of all U.S. power plants today and wander the woods naked with a stick, searching for grubs!
Sorry OT,
But Australia just had it’s coldest weather recording on record for April today of -13 at Charlotte Pass, in the snowy mountains. But of course weather isn’t climate.
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/minus-13-degrees-the-coldest-its-been-in-april/11794