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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It has nothing to do with education, Pamela. It has to do with the fact that they will not help themselves. The truth is often unpleasant, but it is still the truth.
An interesting reality jumps out when you study Mann’s bristlecone proxy data and the infamous “hockey stick” graphic his process produces. The reality the tree ring data and Mann’s graphic reveal is that nothing has done more to “GREEN” the planet in the past few decades than elevated levels of CO2 in the presence of mild sun-driven warming. That’s the natural science. In the face of huge volumes of data and studies to the contrary, political science has twisted this reality in a truly breath-taking Orwellian manner into 1) warming similar to the Roman Warm Period and Medieval Warm Period is bad, 2) warming is caused by an infinitesimal trace gas essential to life supporting photosynthesis, 3) human’s 3% annual contribution to a CO2 starved biosphere is putting the planet at some sort of risk. Just how high would fuel bills have to be elevated by Cap Tax to cut world hydrocarbon output by 1/3, or net 1%? What would such a reduction do to accumulations of CO2? That’s right, it’s quite literally in the noise, if you know anything about control theory. The cost is off the page. Like this recession? Then just wait for Cap&Tax. All of this then begs the question, “If humans can’t reasonably be expected to control the production of CO2, how they can possibly be responsible for the, as yet unproven, horrors of Global Warming?” The answer is, “they cannot and are not responsible.” The true proxy is the political science myth of Global Warming, foisted on a scientifically illiterate public as a distracting red herring to deal with the operational and economic exigencies of permanently declining oil production worldwide without actually revealing or discussing in the open media the most critical national security issue of our time. Doubt this assertion? Then just read all of the IPCC technical reports together with the most recent IEA oil production forecast. Too hard and time consuming? Okay, then just relax and believe the propaganda.