Many of you have probably heard by now of the UN. Report saying that “global warming is killing 300,000 people a year”. There’s a Times Online Story (h/t to Gary Boden) about it today that has some startling admissions. Here are some excerpts:
Climate change is already killing 300,000 people a year in a “silent crisis” that is seriously affecting hundreds of millions more, an influential humanitarian group warned today.
A report by the Global Humanitarian Forum, led by Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, says that the effects of climate change are growing in such a way that it will have a serious impact on 600 million people, almost ten per cent of the world’s population, within 20 years. Almost all of these will be in developing countries.
“Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time, causing suffering to hundreds of millions of people worldwide,” Mr Annan said.
“As this report shows, the first hit and worst affected are the world’s poorest groups, and yet they have done least to cause the problem.”
//
The report claims that 90 per cent of the deaths are related to gradual environmental degradation caused by a warming climate, which exacerbates existing threats — mainly malnutrition, diarrhoea and malaria. The rest are said to be the result of weather disasters.
But here is the kicker (emphasis mine):
Mr Annan said the report could never be as rigorous as a scientific study, but said: “We feel it is the most plausible account of the current impact of climate change today.”
Translation: “close enough for government work” (click for definition)
Worse, the U.N. didn’t even do the report themselves. The farmed it out:
The research was carried out by Dalberg Global Advisers, a consultancy firm, who collated all existing statistics on the human impacts of climate change. The report acknowledges a “significant margin of error” in its estimates.
But it is good enough for the MSM to use to scare the crap out of everybody and guilt the gullible into “action”.
‘Bogus’, doesn’t even begin to describe this political ploy.
For a real report, using real data, reflecting the real world situation, please read these reports by WUWT contributor Indur Goklany:
Going Down: Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather Events
How the IPCC Portrayed a Net Positive Impact of Climate Change as a Negative
Wrong: World Health Organization claims that health goes down as carbon goes up
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Compare to “competitive” and “economically viable.” “Profitable.” “Efficient.”
My first response to the claim in the title was to demand the name of just one person who has died from man-made global warming. Of course, that can not be done, unless someone has died traveling to the exotic locations they hold those global warming conferences.
This ‘study’ is beyond stupid, yet it is the lead story on the AOL website, too!
I have yet to see any of Indur Goklany’s papers in any of the mainstream media, yet they are much more scientific! The Earth is doing fine. We humans are nuts!
I believe that is the report that Roger Pielke Jr called a “A Methodological Embarassment” in the title to his post at Prometheus:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/a-methodological-embarassment-5314
Per Bob’s link, Pielke critiques:
Anan’s a kleptocrat. Far easier to blame “the AGW caused by the evil Americans” than the socialist/marxist “kings” of Africa who live in luxury, pilfer state tresuries, steal once productive farm land for their cronies who know zilch about farming, and who leave their populations to starve while chastizing us for not giving them more to steal.
Hey, I guess this means Kofi shouldn’t have arranged those oil licenses for Iraq back in the day! [/snark]
Want to combat Malaria? Use something to kill the mosquitoes. Prior to Silent Spring, we used DDT, and malaria was decreasing world wide. It is pretty much eradicated in the U. S. even now, but the rest of the world didn’t get to use it as thoroughly as it was used here. The Anopheles mosquito is pretty much gone from North America, except, oddly enough, in Alaska and northern parts of Canada. They still get a few malaria cases each year. Malaria is not a result of global warming; it is a result of mosquitoes carrying the virus from an infected host to another person. Mosquitoes inhabit environments as far different as the Amazon and Congo Basins to Antarctica and Siberia. They just need stagnant water in which the eggs can hatch and the larvae mature.
Malnutrition is due people not getting the diet they need. Currently, this is more connected to the poverty conditions in countries than to the temperature. Strike Two!
Diarrhea. They seriously said diarrhea was caused by global warming. Diarrhea is due to a fluid imbalance in your intestines. This can be caused by many things. This is just a short list – food borne pathogens (food poisoning), malnutrition, food allergies, radiation exposure, dysentery. Trust me, there are many more, and most of these are due to poverty conditions rather than the planet warming.
Strike three and you are out of here, Kofi!
Here in NZ a news item on TV two nights ago had prominent climate scientists from our Gov. NIWA and Met. Service telling us that painting our roofs white will help combat imminent catastrophic global warming. Confused experts? The very next TV item had our Met. Service (unfortunately not the same employees) warning us of an unseasonal and bitterly cold weather system that will give us snow right down to sea level. Maybe the MSM are developing a sense of humour. And yup our Met Service got the weather forecast right.
Aren’t Kofi Annan and his friends busy selling food in exchange for oil money to some dictator somewhere in the world? That’s what they spent so much of their time doing in the past, just like George Monbiot’s friend George Galloway was doing in Iraq.
From Dalberg Global Advisers
Situation:
A leading international agency (who could that be?? was looking for innovative, non-traditional ways to address environmental and social issues in developing countries.
The organization sought Dahlberg’s counsel on engaging private sector partners and resources to combat global warming.
Dahlberg Approach:
After analysing several options, Dahlberg recommended a long-term partnership with a leading global financial firm whose business was affected by the same issues that the public sector client was seeking to address – climate change and biodiversity loss. Dahlberg worked with the client to close the partnership, develop the concept and business plan, raise startup funds, identity potential partners and lauch the program.
Results:
Our client and it’s partner launched a new program to enable companies and consumers to take greater responsibility for their impact on the environment through C02 emission off-set programs.
So, is the US now a partner of the UN??
Does Kofi Annan now run the Treasury Dept. or lobby Congress?
And Kofi, in further clarifications, explained that ‘it is clearly a Zionist plot’.
Seriously- AGW propaganda has become as predictable and boring as
I apologize for this being off topic to this thread – couldn’t find the appropriate e-mail address. Moderator, please delete this post, but do look at this link – I think it is very eye-opening and would be well worth a thread of it’s own.
Lawrence Solomon: Who came up with the idea for a CO2 cap and trade system originally? Why Enron, of course. No wonder it was designed to be nothing but a massive money transfer scam from the top.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/05/30/lawrence-solomon-enron-s-other-secret.aspx
“which exacerbates existing threats — mainly malnutrition, ”
Yeah right. Turning foodcrops into ethanol for driving also exacerbates malnutrition. Using fertile land for growing biofuels als exacerbates malnutrition.
Thank you very much Greenpeace, thank you Mr. Gore for introducing biofuels as an answer to
peakoilthe climate crisis.Most of the commentary on this article misses a more important point. Probably the most prominent program for mitigating greenhouse gasses in the US is to convert food crops, corn and soy beans, into biofuels. Last year when the price of grains skyrocketed because of shortages, the money allocated to programs to alleviate famine throughout the world only went about half as far as it could have without biofuel inflated prices. Oxfam estimated that 30 million more people starved as a result. If only 1% of this group starved as a result of the diversion of food to fuel, that’s 300,000 people. I suspect the toll is greater. In other words, you can make a much more plausible case for climate mitigation stratagies resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. With a little bit of digging, I would be you could even get stats that could withstand review by Dr. Pielke.
Pielke jr had already criticized it here:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/a-methodological-embarassment-5314
Ouch!
hunter (13:57:53) :
Did you read the YouTube comments?
Hilarious
DaveE.
300,000 people is unfortunate but a small number in consideration that millions die every year caused by ill-conceived environmental politics.
Talk about a contradiction in terms: government work.
Governments don’t work, they take. The smaller they are, the less they take, the more is left for working people to use. And I’ll leave it at that before I let loose with a frothing at the mouth diatribe.
What a crock!
Why do people like Annan, Gobachev and the Profit,Algore, get to head these organizations, or do they start them to fund their copious retirements?
I think I know…
“I have yet to see any of Indur Goklany’s papers in any of the mainstream media, yet they are much more scientific!”
You folks keep wanting to see “truth” in the media. It’s just not going to happen. This is not a “factual” debate. This is money, plain and simple. They can hide behind whatever headline they wish. 90% of the population that can read it’s up each and every dire headline in the 15 seconds of attention they commonly allocate to any given piece of information, and they move on.
This is fighting a hydra that can grow 10 new heads as quickly and as easily as 1 can be chopped off.
This battle isn’t about truth and facts. It’s about money. And when we finally reach the tipping point where enough people are looking at their paycheck and saying “Hey…WAIT A MINUTE…”, it’s just going to keep on rolling.
JimB
It wouldn’t be hard to do a rough calculation of the number of lives saved by global warming. The increase in crop growth as a function of CO2 is well known. The longer growing season in some areas has even been implied by some of the alarmist lit. Together, they provide a lot of agricultural increase — which could be estimated. That could be translated into people not starving, simply by dividing by the amount of food that it takes to feed one person. This would be a MUCH more accurate number than their 300k guess. I’ll bet it’s bigger number too.
Here in Kansas we’re having our first 90 degree days of the year, before anyone asks they usually come around this time of the year and in 4 days a dip into the 70’s.
As far as I read extreme cold will kill more people than extreme heat as seen in previous cold periods
How much of the increasing amount of insect-borne disease cases is due to a rising population or rising rainfall amounts increasing the amount of standing water for mosquitos?
So mr. Anan, no answer me this then, 300.000 deaths due to AGW, that’s about 800 to 850 each day, now how about those other 40.000 to 50.000 each day that die because they lack sufficient medical care, food and above all water? Could you also answer me why it is that of those 40.000 to 50.000 most of them are in the age up to 5 years old? Yep that’s right, kids.
Even when there is a A in GW, then it is still a luxury problem.
Christian Bultmann (14:30:00) :
300,000 people is unfortunate but a small number in consideration that millions die every year caused by ill-conceived environmental politics.
—
Regrettably, there is NO connection between ANY symptom of actual global warming (today’s 1/4 of one degree rise since 1970) and ANY excessive deaths.
(Higher deaths from higher temperatures (in summer, even if 1/4 of one degree can actually be tracked into a heat wave death incident) are more than offset by reduced deaths in winter due to higher (average) winter temperatures.
More CO2? 12% to 27% MORE plant growth, more food, fuel, fodder, fuel, and feasts.
More growing season? Fewer deaths.
More area available to plant? Fewer deaths.
Sea level rise? Not measureable. Can’t kill someone from a 2 mm rise!
Droughts? No, not from global warming.
Tornadoes? No. Fewer tornadoes recently. Fewer hurricanes also. Real world = Less storms recently. Fewer actual deaths.
…
Now, I will grant that KOFI murdered 300,000 people through HIS starvation and DDT-restrictions and conversion of fuel and food into ethanol and higher taxes and higher oil charges and higher food prices and economic losses CAUSED by HIS (and the democrat’s) fears of AGW …..