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.
Ron de Haan (20:41:50) :
“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.”
Sounds like Holdren has been reading Niven and Pournelle’s SF novel “Fallen Angels” pretty heavily. It depicts a future US ruled by the Greens in a world of a new Ice Age that has exterminated Canada, and is blamed on the independent “Angels”, astronauts who escaped Earth before the final Green takeover.
“…..1981-85, fewer than 500m people required international disaster-assistance; in 2001-05, the number reached 1.5 billion…..(see chart 3)….”
The 50% increase in population affected by climate-related disasters 2001-05 (chart 3) could not have been caused by global warming.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:2001/to:2005/plot/uah/from:2001/to:2005/trend
I, for one have chosen as a tactic to pick one newspaper web site (French Language) an react to every AGW story with facts disproving AGW. Thank you so much WUWT for providing such facts. This means readers of that site always get to see the other point of view, at least if they read the comments. I’ve been doing that for months. If each of us did that on one or a few newspaper web sites, people would at least become aware of the fact that the issue is not settled. MSM’s approach is “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”. Well, I say : repeat the truth often enough and the public may begin to question the lies.
Sounds like the Economist has gone down the same route as New Scientist. Fine until it loses objectivity on climate change and is then all government-sponsored spin and propaganda – science and objectivity goes out of the window (as Paul Boyce says). I stopped subscribing to new Scientist after many many years of enjoying reading it.
I got back on terra firma today after a month offshore (on an oil rig getting paid to make millions for big oil) without access to the likes of BBC TV and CNN. Once I got booked into my hotel and in to my room I put on CNN news and there it was! ‘Climate change.’ I repeat: ‘Climate change.’ It was a report about the ‘climate change’ talks going on in Bangkok at the moment. (Nice place for a jolly, eh boys? – next stop Copenhagen…) And then Rio in 2016…
Basically CNN were saying exactly what the Economist article said: that more and more people were dying because of ‘climate change’ and that it was all the rich West’s, i.e., America’s, fault.
Can I start a “bring back ‘global warming’ ” campaign? This new fangled ‘climate change’ business seems to be infinitely more dangerous. Are we causing ‘climate change’ as well as ‘global warming’? Nasty stuff, this seeohtoo, eh? And to think we all breathe a couple of lungfulls of it out every couple of seconds. Well, I do, but, then again, I’m a skeptic – probably, a denier – definitely.
Time for a beer…
evanmjones (21:18:38) :
“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.) ”
Good stuff Evan – but would they get it over at RC?
All that matters is having good infrastructure, and that means development and the use of all forms of energy.
The Economist was once the world’s most respected voice for free markets and economic freedom. But somehow they managed to back Obama for president.
So a two trillion dollar deficit and a couple of scuppered free trade deals later, the Economist’s past editors must be turning in their graves.
Facts aren’t needed with propaganda.
Outstanding rebuttal !!!!!!!!!!
To add to what Indur Goklany said here is a view about climate refugees published on 29 September 2009 by Cecilia Tacoli. Dr Cecilia Tacoli is a senior researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
“Fears of millions of “climate refugees” crossing national borders are not supported by evidence on the ground, says Cecilia Tacoli.”
“There is a real risk that alarmism will divert attention from real problems, resulting in policies that fail to protect the most vulnerable people.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/8278515.stm
The Economist’s article is Green journalism at its finest. For sheer dishonesty and mind-numbing drivel it far exceeds any Yellow journalism.
Its biggest lie of course is that when Warmists speak of “climate change” they mean their mythical pseudo-scientific fantasy land man-made climate change, where anything bad that happens is magically the fault of “climate change”.
The writing itself is of poor quality, as shown by this gem:
“Less often realised, though, is that global warming does far more damage to poor countries than they do to the climate.”
Not only has the writer mysteriously changed the subject from “climate change” to “global warming”, but this “global warming” has now become both humanized and
pluralized as “they”. So, his mythical (and now human apparently) “global warming” not only “damages” poor countries, but also somehow “damages” climate. It’s amazing they actually pay people to write that sort of nonsensical drivel.
The drumbeat leading up to Copenhagen keeps getting louder, as the Greenie hordes prepare to make their onslaught on science, reason, and on humanity itself.
Like many posters, I have been a regular reader (and subscriber) to the Economist. I always appreciated their rational approach and was even prepared to forgive their drift towards AGW alarmism, as they are not really a scientific journal. Their stance, to a large extent, was based on Lomborg in accepting AGW, but arguing that there were more imoprtant problems to address.
However, as was pointed out above, by jumping on the Obama bandwagon they even deserted their free-trade roots (the basic tenet upon which the magazine was founded in the 19th century). I was not aware of the Soros involvement, although this explains a lot. They have become more strident in supporting legislation to reduce CO2 and have even begun referring to it as ‘carbon’ instead of CO2. This lack of rigour in the language makes me shudder – even more so in a magazine for which grammar and style are supposed to be paramount.
It is tiring when one has to read a journal with a filter in one’s mind about where the slant in the journal is coming from. I used to be able to read the Economist without this – not any more.
Smokey (21:06:29) :
“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,[…]”
Yeah, when Newsweek became Newsweak, I quit subscribing.
Ron de Haan (20:41:50) :
And along comes White House science czar John Holdren……
I In what way you may ask? Read the article.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2357965/posts
Thanks eehh….Ron for that link. From the article:
Holdren based his prediction on a theory that human emissions of carbon dioxide would produce a climate catastrophe in which global warming would cause global cooling with a consequent reduction in agricultural production resulting in widespread disaster.
Good posting Indur. But can you or anyone respond to this gibberish our appointed Science Czar writes.
I’m going to be sick.
My dad called me a week or so ago to tell me that his beloved Pheasants Forever is printing AGW scareditorials.
In reply to John Peter. Your estimate of a 200 ppm increase
having the same effect as the prior 100 ppm increase from 280 to 380 ppm is off. Since the effect is logarithmic,
the prior increase was to 380/280 = 1.357 times the original 280 ppm CO2. Multiply that 380 by 1.357 and you’ll get an increase from 380ppm to 515.65 ppm will have the same effect on wattage increase as 280 to 380 ppm. The effect on TEMPERATURE would be less than the effect on wattage. Temperatrue is proprotional to the 4th root of wattage, and the current
flux is about 390,7 watts, giving us an avg temp of about 288.15 K. A doubling of CO2 is suppose to increase the flux by about 3.8 watts. Ln2 = 0.693. Ln 380/280 = .305.
The wattage increase should have been (305/693)* 3.8 = 1.67 watts.
Add that to the 390.7 original wattage flux, and the new tepmerature will be roughly
(392.37/390.7)^0.25 *288.15 = 288.46. The temperature increase due to the CO2 increase to 380 ppm would have been about 288.46 -288.15 = 0.31 C so far. The diffrence between this and actual increase of 0.7 or 0.8 C is due to the sun, mismeasurement of the UHI effect, natural variation, etc.
An increase to 515.65 ppm will have another 1.67 watt increase.
This will increase the flux from 390.7 to 390.7 + 2*1.67 ,
or 394.04 watts/square meter.
The temperature increase should be to about
(394.04/390>7)^0.25 * 288.15 = 288.76, or a 0.61 C increase. That second wattage increase resulted in a temperature increase of 0.3 C rather than the prior 0.31 C. The effect becomes more pronounced the greater the wattage increase. Those small CO2 increases were practically linear.
The difference between the calculated 0.61 C increase and the 4C increase due to climate models is on doubt due to imaginary water vapor feedbacks.
Nice article, Look who is complaining about Economic problems due to Global warming, the Saudis. Interesting read
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Saudis-ask-for-aid-if-world-apf-3969669764.html?x=0&.v=1
Good for you. I also wrote to them recently and told them I was appalled and threatened to cancel my subscription (after 20 years) if they continued reporting hysterical climate catastrophe nonsense.
My point was that if they are incapable canof getting basic facts right and are resorting to “National Enquirer” tactics to sell news then why should I bother to continue to pay for their newsmagazine.
All I can hope is that thousands of other readers were affronted and also wrote in.
I used to justify buying the Economist because I felt it was the least bad of what is extremely naive incompetent journalism on a grand global scale…now I wonder.
Is it me – am I just getting too old or cycnical? Or does everyone agree that the new generation are generally unable to think in a balanced and critical manner anymore? What happened in our school system? What happened to real science? How did we end up with a sub-prime crisis where management thought it made sense to loan money to people who coudl not afford to pay it back? Since when did a whole generation become TOTALLy disconnected from REALITY…
Just an observation from a layman’s perspective, but isn’t it strange that a great many of those pushing the ‘man made climate change / global warming’ agenda appear to be ‘economists’?
Like with (alleged) Playboy photoshopping, it must be something to do with their predilection for statistics rather than data in the raw.
I am hoping that The Economist, still being one of my favourite newspapers, is actually on a 5 year mission to set up a straw man regarding climate change – a straw man that I. Goklany so thoroughly ignited. Am just waiting for when they start pulling the stuffing out themselves.
It’s nice to find company. I too have subscribed to the Economist for decades, and was mystified when it abandoned intelligent scepticism about AGW, and joined the mob (the cover that week was a desert and cacti, with the caption ‘the heat is on’; I haven’t time to go back and find exactly when it was – 2003 perhaps?). Ever since I have been intermittently pondering angry letters. A change of editorial personnel was the only explanation I could think of for so sudden and feeble a turnaround, and it is interesting to have some insights into this from contributors here.
This is my first contribution to a blog, anywhere ever. I hope the Nobel prizes eventually come your way.
Wow. There are some very interesting stats in there. I would love to grab a daily quip or ‘fun facts for skeptics’ handbook. Us amateurs need a calendar with 365 ‘did you knows’ regarding ice caps, polar bear populations, tree rings, hockey sticks, surface stations, the mid evil warming period, hurricane activity and historical death rates due to extreme weather.
The english New Scientist magazine has also gone down the toilet.
“This is my first contribution to a blog, anywhere ever. I hope the Nobel prizes eventually come your way.”
Speaking of Nobel prizes…
Michael, I just discovered it yesterday at 22:23:47… LOL. Of course not, but as the propaganda keeps piling it becomes so obvious that even folks not educated on the subject are becoming suspicious. As policies are implemented, many realize these have nothing to do with saving any planet, that the whole stunt is a pretext.
My view is that the Green revolution will lead to a form of civil war through totalitarism and terror inspired from the Robespierre era during the French Revolution sooner or later. So called “friendly” competitions for the greenest at every level of society will be instigated, from office to neighborhoods, communities to citys, States or Provinces with eachothers.
As a result, the designed ugly ducklings will be singled out and have to publicly confess and repent when not sent to Gore inspired boot camps. Neighbors will report on eachothers in order to gain some precious carbon indulgences.
I am not inventing: Homer-Dixon an economist stalwart of globemedia’s propaganda suggested it in the August 7th Globe and Mail issue:
“A former student of mine recently put these insights to use on the job.
Working in a federal ministry in Ottawa, she was bothered by the casual, everyday inefficiencies and waste in her co-workers’ office practices – such as copying documents on only one side and leaving unused computers and other equipment running for long stretches. So, being an activist at heart, she decided to try to change these behaviours. She went around to her co-workers and asked them individually to volunteer to have their office practices monitored, rated and publicly advertised. A colour-coded badge was then posted outside each volunteer’s office, indicating that person’s progress in reducing his or her environmental impact.
The result was dramatic. A friendly competition developed to see who could do the best. Doing well became a matter of pride and reputation, and new norms started to take root.”
The idea those resisting AGW acceptance were sick was hammered the same day. Let’s quote the article by Anne-Marie Tobin, a Canadian Press writer who wrote about “the psychology of climate change” published in the Globe in August: “There’s also a sense of social comparison, he said.
“If I ride my bike to work and other people don’t, is it fair? It’s not equitable that I should make a sacrifice when my colleagues are not. Or why should I put solar panels on my house and spend money if nobody else is going to do it?”
Psychologists can collaborate with climate scientists in helping educators and decision-makers understand some of these perceptions and psychological barriers, Ms. Swim said.”
Everyone from scientists, economists to psychologists are virtually offering their professional expertise in order to help the new order take over, openly. They want to “help”. Replace “AGW deniers at large” with any ethnic group and the plot appears in its full horror. This is what Jonathan Little wrote about in his novel “Les Bienveillantes”, how horror can come from and be served by ordinary people doing their “job”, not only psychopatic monsters.
The methods are known to have been employed by the most repressive, thought controling regimes during the XX century. The best description that comes to mind is Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn.
Ron de Haan (20:41:50) :
Earlier, this man Holdren thought we were headed for an ice age caused by all the particulates mankind was putting into the atmosphere.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=112073
Now he’s covering all bets. We are either going to freeze to death or cook to death, both caused by global warming.
This Sunday I have a sure thing on the Broncos. They will either win or lose (maybe tie).