Guest post by Indur Goklany
The Economist’s print edition has published my letter taking it to task for a pretty uninformed piece it published on the impacts of climate change last month. Although the editors changed the title, dropped the references which I furnish reflexively, and is somewhat briefer, the printed version is for the most part quite faithful to the spirit of the original. I am furnishing the original below for the benefit of your readers who may be interested in checking my statements and going beyond the “he said, she said” nature of most exchanges on the opinion pages of newspapers and magazines.
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A badly developed climate backgrounder
SIR — The Economist’s article, A bad climate for development (September 17), which also serves as a backgrounder for an online debate on climate change, is not only selective in the information it presents, it is riddled with speculation and unsubstantiated claims.
For example, its chart 3 presents portions of two of three panels in figure 2.1 of the World Development Report 2010. But the panel that it chooses not to display shows that deaths from all climate related disasters have actually declined at least since 1981–85 despite (a) an enormous increase in the population at risk, namely, the world’s population, and (b) the fact that older data has a greater tendency to underestimate the number and casualties of extreme weather events. The original source of the data (Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, CRED) states that the increase in the data until 1995 “is explained partly by better reporting of disasters in general, partly due to active data collection efforts by CRED and partly due to real increases in certain types of disasters.”[1] They also state that they are unable to say whether the latter increases are due to climate change.
Secondly, the backgrounder cites estimates sponsored by the World Health Organisation and published in Comparative Quantification of Health Risks that attributed 150,000 deaths and a loss of 5.5m disability-adjusted life years — a measure of the global burden of disease — to climate change in the year 2000. But these studies also show that at least twenty other risk factors contributed more to death and disease.[2] That is, there are many more important health problems facing the world than climate change.
Thirdly, the article goes on to claim that the indirect harm to public health from the impact of climate change on water supplies, crop yields and disease is “hugely greater.” But what’s the evidence for this?
In fact, access to safe water, improved sanitation, crop yields, and life expectancy has never been higher in the history of mankind.[3] This is true for both the developing and developed worlds. Much of this has been enabled, directly or indirectly, by economic surpluses generated by the use of fossil fuels and other greenhouse gas generating activities such as fertilizer usage, pumping water for irrigation, and use of farm machinery. And crop yields, in particular, are also higher today than ever partly because of higher concentrations of CO2, without which yields would be zero.
Fourthly, the backgrounder claims that global warming is causing both droughts and floods. Regardless of whether this is the case, deaths from droughts have declined by 99.9% since the 1920s, and 99% from floods since the 1930s.[4] In fact, since the 1920s, average annual deaths from all extreme weather events have dropped by 95 percent while annual death rates, which factor in population growth, have been reduced by 99 percent.
One item, however, where I agree with the backgrounder is that projections of the future impacts of climate change are “no more than educated guesses” although, as Alexander Pope might have said, a little education is a dangerous thing.
Indur M. Goklany
Notes
[1] Revkin AC. 2009. Gore Pulls Slide of Disaster Trends. Dot Earth Blog. February 23, 2009. Available at http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/gore-pulls-slide-of-disaster-trends/. Visited September 10, 2009.
[2] Goklany IM. Climate change is not the biggest health threat. Lancet 2009; 374: 973-74.
[3] Goklany IM. The Improving State of the World: Why We’re Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet (Cato Institute, Washington, DC, 2007).
[4] Goklany IM. Death and Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather Events: Global and U.S. Trends, 1900-2006, in The Civil Society Report on Climate Change, November 2007, available at http://goklany.org/library/deaths%20death%20rates%20from%20extreme%20events%202007.pdf.
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Alexander Pope did say that,
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”
although he revelled in nature and the “green” life – he still preferred his london home to his villa in Twickenham!
Good for you,and well argued, in what is an influential magazine. The next letter criticises their figures on solar panel output in Germany. Just shows that a well reasoned argument may, just may, reach print circulation. I know that newspapers and magazines tend to ‘cluster’ opinion pieces of a similar theme, even New Scientist had a cluster of letters critical of CC recently.
Dr. Goklany, as usual, hits the seam where affluence trumps effluence. This is uncomfortable for many, but it is the heart of the matter.
And along comes White House science czar John Holdren, who claims that 1 billion people will die in “carbon-dioxide induced famines” in a coming new ice age by 2020.
I am glad the Obama Administration has it’s priorities straight.
I am also amazed to hear that this ice age is triggered by CO2 and Global Warming!
In what way you may ask? Read the article.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2357965/posts
Btw, Thanks to Indur Goklany for his excellent comments to the Economist publication and this posting.
Great letter Mr. Goklany. The fact that it was printed essentially as written makes me wonder if the media is starting to realize the inherent danger of suppressing dissent. Certainly on the net the skeptic voice has never been stronger. I notice a proliferation of skeptical responses to articles making specious claims about climate. Suppression of dissent flies in the face of everything that America (and Canada) stand for. Freedom of Speech.
It is no wonder people pick up a magazine like that, read the subject line, throw it back down and pick up a Playboy. People want something for their money that’s not complete nonsense.
Excellent, on-point post, Dr Goklany.
I have subscribed to the Economist for almost three decades. During that time I’ve watched as it has tumbled from an honest analyzer of information, to a purveyor of far out AGW alarmism no different than Time, Newsweak, or the global warming celebrity statements in People magazine.
The Economist’s downward credibility spiral became evident when the Economist began taking George Soros advertising money, followed by Soros’ editorial control over Editor in Chief John Mickelthwaite.
Last week’s Economist debate proposed the ridiculous question: “This house believes that tackling climate change means leaving fossil fuels behind completely and quickly”
‘Tackling climate change’?? What kind of a question is that? If Economist readers are so anxious to give up “carbon” fuels, then rather than dictate to the rest of us how to live our lives, they should go for it themselves! Show us hoi polloi how it’s done. Then report back to us on how wonderful your life has become without the benefit of fossil fuels.
I suggest that the moderator direct Reed Coray to the thread most relevant to his post (even if now mostly inactive), so he can re-post it there.
It is no wonder people pick up a magazine like that, read the subject line, throw it back down and pick up a Playboy. People want something for their money that’s not complete nonsense.
But I hear those models have some of their raw data adjusted. Though it often slips right past peer review. (There may be some degree of observation bias.)
The Economist has gravely damaged it reputation with its biased and deceptive reporting on Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. The Economist used to be a trustworthy news source.
I found their article below amusing, as the Economist and Gavin Schmidt try to hedge on climate models that are proving to be laughably wrong:
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14580781
It’s funny that the Warmists have just discovered the immense variability and uncertainty of nature. We don’t understand how the sun works, we don’t understand how the clouds work, our understanding of Earth’s climate system is rudimentary at best.
Thanks, Anthony and other warriors for truth.
Reed,
Both you and Tom P need to know how a distillation tower works. The bubbles are lower temperature since the boiling point of water is less than milk (since it contains milk fat). As water evaporates, the remaining milk will increase in temperature since milk fat has a higher bp than water. Temperature is a function of concentration, not heat input, at a given pressure UNDER equilibrium. And concentration is a function of how much heat is inputted into the system. This is the case since components are free to move up and down a distillation column based on its bp. The boiling milk example is a single-stage distillation tower (essentially a pot). Finally, heat is removed from the system as water evaporates into the kitchen. In a distillation tower, an overhead condenser cools the vapor until it condenses back into liquid form.
Now, bringing this back to global temps and global warming. If the world was one big salty sea, there would be no change in sea surface temp due to the extra “insulation” that greenhouse gases provide since the concentration of the sea does not measurably change from extra evaporation of water. In response to the added thermal blanket, more water will evaporate into the atmosphere, where at some point in the atmosphere it condenses, releasing its heat to space. Of course, the earth has more than one feedback scenario (positive or negative). To continue the analogy, dark space is the ultimate overhead condenser. In summary, when one adds more heat to a distillation tower (or when one reduces the ambient heat loss by using insulation), this only serves to increase “traffic” of water vapor and water condensate (i.e., rain) up and down the tower, but it doesn’t change overhead and bottoms temperature unless concentration changes. This is the likely the reason why satellites show no increase in temps in the southern hemisphere (which is mostly covered with sea.) Over land, like in NH, the analogy breaks down. This is likely why the PDO and other phenomenon play an important role (movement of heat and water vapor across NA, for example).
Yes, the Economist was once a bastion of European style liberalism (aka libertarianism) and scepticism — and I eagerly looked forward to each issue. Alas, it has slowly become just another drumbeat toward statism, something of the BBC of print, and I no longer subscribe.
Craig
Excellent letter; my father had to point out to the Economist that in an article on 24 hour global trading they had the sun coming up in the west (cue Fozzie and Kermit).
evanmjones (21:18:38) :
In the extreme, adjusting raw data is a safety issue, see
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/03/bulgarian_airbags/
Now as follow up to alarmist stories read in the Globe and Mail:
Methane? http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/10/08/the-ups-and-downs-of-methane/
Sea ice? Check Antarctica: why is the MSM press silent on the fact that “The ice melt across during the Antarctic summer (October-January) of 2008-2009 was the lowest ever recorded in the satellite history.”?
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/10/06/antarctic-ice-melt-at-lowest-levels-in-satellite-era/
Arctic the warmest for 2000 years?
Based on what proxies? Briffa’s?
http://www.climateaudit.org/
Why indeed is the MSM not at least informing the readership of these developments? Where is the Canadian Press on those stories? NOWHERE.
That is unacceptable BIAS once again demonstrated by the usual suspects. If balanced coverage was the rule, more people would be indeed informed, more knowledgeable of the issues and the temptation for wackos to show up reduced as the extremism would be severely curtailed.
Failing to understand that point makes the MSM accomplice in the radicalisation of the debate and the deep division in the population and the potentially damaging consequences. After years of the same, I believe the MSM do not act as observers but as judge and party, unless proven otherwise.
I’ll stand up and defend the Economist. They were just about the *only* publication to fairly review Lomborg’s “Skeptical Environmentalist”.
Contrast that to the Skeptical Inquirer, which gave up the ghost a few years ago with a ‘the debate is over’ article that broke my heart.
Nigel S (22:00:10) :
Excellent letter; my father had to point out to the Economist that in an article on 24 hour global trading they had the sun coming up in the west (cue Fozzie and Kermit).
If we are very unfortunate – we may be forced to believe that the Sun does indeed rise in the West…
I see this reciting of “conventional wisdom” all the time. There was, for example, an article in the San Francisco Chronicle concerning San Francisco Bay that said one of the things threatening the bay was “rising sea level”. They did not note that sea level rise has practically stopped since 2006. As can be seen here sea level trend has been flat since late 2005.
They also fail to note that sea level was 2 meters higher between five and seven thousand years ago and that we are recovering from the coldest period in this interglacial since the Younger Dryas which might account for the rise in sea levels as glaciers recede to where they stood before the LIA.
They simply continue to repeat the dire warnings that sea level rise is going to drown us all, or they at least imply that it is some sort of danger or hazard and it is caused by us.
And as they teach this stuff in schools, more people are actually believing that this stuff is true.
Sad, really.
Antonio San (22:23:47) :
“Failing to understand that point makes the MSM accomplice in the radicalisation of the debate and the deep division in the population and the potentially damaging consequences. After years of the same, I believe the MSM do not act as observers but as judge and party, unless proven otherwise.”
Don’t tell me that you are just now coming to the realization that the MSM is controlled by certain entities for a specific purpose. What more proof do you need?
Six families own the major stake in the 6 biggest news outlets around the world. I am not going to tell you who owns the majority stake in Reuters and AP who disseminate the news they allow those entities to present to you to here. Look that up for yourselves. The Blog Stream Media has come of age (BSM).
I also note that the economist piece appears to blame cyclones on global warming when, as this blog has reported numerous times including http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/25/hurricane-frequency-is-up-but-not-their-strength-say-clemson-researchers/ recently, there is no evidence of increased tropical storm strenght in recent years and at least some of the frequency increase cna be put down to better observation.
I liked the Economist’s support for Lomborg and was a happy subscriber until it changed tack; couldn’t stand it afterwards. Didn’t know the reason so thanks Smokey for the explanation
I also gave up buying the Economist after they jumped aboard the dangerous AGW bandwagon. My attitude went from one of general admiration and respect to one of distrust and vague contempt. However, last Fathers’ Day my oldest son gave me a subscription as a gift. How could I refuse to read the rag? Perhaps by the time my subscription runs out they will have come to their senses. Somehow I doubt that. Que lastima!
Like Smokey (at 21:06:29), I too, have subscribed to the Economist for several decades. I’m going to come clean – I’m a great fan. I like their short, authoritative articles, and often find myself reading about subjects which I never knew I was even interested in. I’ve always admired their “Never mind what you, or other people think, what do the published data actually show?” approach.
But as others have noted here, when it comes to Climate Change it’s a very, very different story. Objectivity goes right out the window – in recent years I can’t remember ever seeing any suggestion that AGW was anything other than proven fact.
Their approach, when it comes to Climate Changes, appears to be exactly the same as the likes of the BBC and the Guardian, namely: “We’ve made up our minds, so why should we let the facts ruin a perfectly good hypothesis?”
The Herald is an important broadsheet here in Scotland. They also routinely give space to all the “alarmist” press releases including the recent “temperatures ‘could’ rise by 4 degrees C within 50 years and arctic sea ice ‘could’ disappear within 5 years during the summer”. I have tried before to get a rebuttal accepted and I managed again for the second time with the following text, repeated with only a minor change:
“As quoted in The Herald 29 September the MET Office has now issued another alarmist climate prediction. This time we could be exposed to a 4 degree Celsius temperature increase by 2060. Note the use of the word “could”. This means presumably also that we “could not” be exposed to such extreme changes in temperature. So far the argument for man made global warming (AGW) rests on the view that man made CO2 emissions have created a 0.6-0.8 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures over 100 years. This is based on an increase in CO2 of about 100 parts per million from around 280 to 380 ppm. Such a step change from 0.8 to fully 4 degrees Celsius increase in half the time seems far fetched considering the effect of CO2 is logarithmic. That means to create the same effect as 100 PPM increase, a 200 PPM increase is then required. That presupposes that CO2 actually has a warming effect on the climate.
Apart from that, the problem is that global temperatures have failed to increase since the turn of the century despite a continued rise in man made CO2 emissions. As anyone can see from this satellite based temperature record http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ there has been no global warming this century. This is in spite of an increase in CO2 of around 2 PPM per year. Ice levels at the poles have been used a lot recently in alarmist propagations of impending catastrophe such as no summer ice left in the Arctic in five years time. A quick look at http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm will show that Arctic sea ice has now recovered to 2005 levels and is well above the low years of 2007/8. A look at Antarctica shows sea ice extent well above the average for 1979-2000. So sea ice is on the increase at both poles. Not a movement one would expect if we are heading towards plus 4 degrees Celsius in 50 years time.
But the heat could be in the oceans as has been suggested. The ARGO site says that there has been a warming of 0.06 degrees C since the early 1960s – hardly a major build up that can be unleashed at some stage in the future. The site also have a graph showing that global sea levels have not increased since 2004, so not expansion of ocean water due to warming and/or smelting of land based ice. There appears not to be increasing atmospheric temperatures at the moment. Sea ice is increasing again. There is no significant heat build up in the ocean and CO2 is decreasing its ability to influence temperatures due to the logarithmic effect (if it has such an ability). It is hard to reconcile temperature and ice recording measurements with predictions such as those produced by the MET Office. In fact, based on current recordings and the quiet sun it is as reasonable to forecast a possibility of a long period of cooling – as it is of warming – and any analysis of what government action should be taken should involve the possibility we are heading towards a colder period. I think it is quite clear that as far as the climate is concerned the science is far from settled, but if CO2 does have a warming effect it is likely to be a weaker signal than that proposed by the MET Office and other “forcings” including the sun may equally affect the climate.
Either way increased insulation of properties would still be on the agenda and so equally would attempts at better power/fuel efficiency etc. Cutting down on the emission of particulates and soot should be done in any event around the industrialised world, but CO2 Cap and Trade would definitely be out of the equasion. CO2 is not a poison but an essential ingredient for the growth of plants.”