The Quality of Life for the World’s Poorest Can Be Advanced Farther, Faster, Cheaper and More Surely Through Adaptation than Through Zero-Carbon Technologies
Guest Post By Indur M. Goklany
A few days ago, Tom Nelson had a link to a blog posted by Mr. Bill Gates titled, Recommended Reading on Climate Change, in which he claims that the risk of “serious warming” from anthropogenic climate change is large enough to justify action. Mr. Gates adds,
“I agree, especially because even moderate warming could cause mass starvation and have other very negative effects on the world’s poorest 2 billion people. This is one of the reasons why I’ve gotten very interested in new energy technologies that could move us toward zero carbon emissions. As I said at TED, my dream is to create zero-carbon technologies that will be cheaper than coal or oil. That way, even climate skeptics will want to adopt them, and more of the world’s poorest people will be able to benefit from the services and the improved quality of life that energy makes possible.”
Over the years I have been very impressed by Mr. Gates’ desire and efforts to improve the quality of life for the world’s poorest people and to literally put his money where his mouth is, but the notion that “even moderate warming could cause mass starvation and have other very negative effects on the world’s poorest 2 billion people” is fundamentally flawed. And there are far better and more effective methods of improving their quality of life than through squandering money on zero-carbon technologies.
So, to make these points, I fashioned a response to Mr. Gates’ post, but was frustrated in my efforts to post it either on the specific thread or via the General Inquiry form at his website. Accordingly, I decided to write Mr. Gates an open letter to convey my thoughts. The letter follows.
I thank Mr. Watts for publishing it on his invaluable blog.
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Dear Mr. Gates,
For a long time I had admired your perspicacity and acumen in trying to address some of the world’s truly important problems (such as malaria and hunger) rather than signing on to the latest chic causes (e.g., global warming). But having read your entry, “Recommended Reading on Climate Change” at http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Learning/article.aspx?ID=127, on the Gates Notes, I fear my admiration may have been premature.
First, the analytical basis for the notion that “even moderate warming could cause mass starvation and have other very negative effects on the world’s poorest 2 billion people” is, to put it mildly, weak. Virtually all analyses of the future impacts of global warming impose the hypothetical climate of tomorrow (often for the year 2100 and 2200) on the world of yesterday (most use a baseline of 1990). That is, they assume that future populations’ capacity to cope with or adapt to climate change (also known as “adaptive capacity”) will be little changed from what it was in 1990!
Specifically, they fail to consider that future populations, particularly in today’s developing countries, will be far wealthier than they were in the baseline year (1990), per the IPCC’s own emissions scenarios. In fact, as shown in Figure 1, under the warmest IPCC scenario, by 2100 the average inhabitant of developing countries would be more than twice as wealthy as the average US inhabitant in 2006, even if one reduces GDP per capita to account fully for the loss in GDP from global warming. Thus, developing countries’ adaptive capacity should by 2100 substantially exceed the US’s adaptive capacity today.
Figure 1: Net GDP per capita, 1990-2200, after accounting for losses due to global warming for four major IPCC emission and climate scenarios. The net GDP per capita estimates are extremely conservative since the losses from global warming are based on the Stern Review’s 95th percentile estimates. For 2100 and 2200, the scenarios are arranged from the warmest (A1FI) on the left to the coolest (B1) on the right. The average global temperature increase from 1990 to 2085 for the scenarios are as follows: 4°C for AIFI, 3.3°C for A2, 2.4°C for B2, and 2.1°C for B1. For context, in 2006, GDP per capita for industrialized countries was $19,300; the United States, $30,100; and developing countries, $1,500. Source: Goklany, Discounting the Future, Regulation 32: 36-40 (Spring 2009).
And Figure 1 does not even consider secular technological change, which over the next 100 years would further increase adaptive capacity. [Since you have been in the forefront of technological change for quite some time now, you probably appreciate better than I that no confidence should be placed on the results of any analyses that assume little or no technological change over a period of decades.] For instance, the analyses of food production and hunger ignore the future potential of genetically-modified crops and precision agriculture to reduce hunger, regardless of cause. These technologies should not only be much more advanced in 2100 (or 2200) than they are today, but they should also be a lot more affordable even in the developing world because they will be wealthier (see Figure 1) while the technologies should also become more cost-effective.
In any case, because future increases in adaptive capacity are largely ignored, future impact estimates are grossly exaggerated, including any findings that claim there will be “mass starvation” from “even moderate warming”.
Second, even if one uses these flawed analyses that grossly exaggerate global warming impacts, one finds that the contribution of global warming to major problems like cumulative mortality from hunger, malaria and extreme events should be relatively small through the foreseeable future, compared to the contribution of non-global warming related factors. See Figure 2.
Figure 2: Deaths in 2085 Due to Hunger, Malaria and Extreme Events, with and without Global Warming (GW). Only upper bound estimates are shown for mortality due to global warming. Average global temperature increase from 1990-2085 for each scenario is shown below the relevant bar. Source: Goklany, Global public health: Global warming in perspective, Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 14 (3): 69-75 (2009).
Figure 2 also tells us that eliminating global warming, even if possible, would reduce mortality in 2085 by, at most, 13% (under the warmest, A1FI, scenario). On the other hand, there are adaptive approaches that could address 100% of the mortality problem (including the contribution of global warming to that problem).
The first such approach is focused adaptation, i.e., adaptive measures focused specifically on reducing vulnerability to climate sensitive threats. The rationale behind focused adaptation is that the technologies, practices and systems that would reduce the problems of, say, malaria or hunger, from non-global warming related causes would also help reduce the problems of malaria and hunger due to global warming. See “Climate Change and Malaria”.
The second adaptive approach is to remove barriers to and stimulate broad economic development. This would reduce vulnerability to virtually all problems, climate-sensitive or not. That this approach would work is suggested by the fact that, by and large, wealthier countries have lower (age-related) mortalities regardless of the cause (and, therefore, higher life expectancies).
The fundamental principle behind these adaptive approaches is that since global warming mainly exacerbates existing problems rather than creates new ones. If we solve or reduce vulnerability to the underlying problem — think malaria, hunger or extreme events for “focused adaptation” and the general lack of adaptive capacity for “broad economic development” — then we would also be reducing vulnerability to the contribution of global warming to that problem.
As shown in Table 1, human well-being would be advanced lot more cost-effectively through either of the two adaptive approaches than by curbing global warming.
Table 1: Comparing costs and benefits of advancing well-being via emission reductions (mitigation), focused adaptation, and broad economic development. MDGs = Millennium Development Goals. Entries in red indicate a worsening of human or environmental well-being. Source: Goklany, Is Climate Change the “Defining Challenge of Our Age”? Energy & Environment 20(3): 279-302 (2009).
So, if you want to advance the well-being of the poorest countries, you could advance it farther, more surely and more cheaply through adaptive approaches than through zero-carbon technologies. Adaptive approaches would also advance well-being more rapidly, since curbing warming is necessarily a slow process because of the inertia of the climate system.
I also note from your blog posting that you appreciate that quality of life is dependent on energy use. Given this, I would argue that for developing countries, increasing energy use should have a much higher priority than whether it is based on non-zero carbon technologies.
Finally, following this letter, I have listed recommended readings on climate change that elaborate on the points I have striven to make.
With regards,
Indur Goklany
Website: http://goklany.org; E-mail: igoklany@verizon.net
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REFERENCES (in which the ideas advanced in this letter are more fully developed)
1. Deaths and Death Rates from Extreme Weather Events: 1900-2008. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 14 (4): 102-09 (2009).
2. Climate change is not the biggest health threat. Lancet 374: 973-75 (2009).
3. Global public health: Global warming in perspective. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 14 (3): 69-75 (2009).
4. Discounting the Future, Regulation 32: 36-40 (Spring 2009).
5. Is Climate Change the “Defining Challenge of Our Age”? Energy & Environment 20(3): 279-302 (2009).
6. What to Do about Global Warming, Policy Analysis, Number 609, Cato Institute, Washington, DC, 5 February 2008.
7. Climate Change and Malaria. Letter. Science 306: 55-57 (2004).
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Indur,
Yes, sitting on the fence can be uncomfortable.
Unfortunately, your letter to Mr. Gates strikes me (and many others) as an obsequious and useless exercise in convenient white lies.
Mr. Gates shills for establishment ideology because he is a part of that establishment. He wouldn’t know CO2 from H2S. He just signs whatever his staffers prepare to “join the chorus of the moment.”
You play along with a delusion that Mr. Gates actually has some informed opinions on the AGW subject? Thereby you play along with the AGW crowd, period.
Re: the idea that Anthony is “selling out”, I think that is ridiculous. He is allowing voices with various shades of opinion to speak, and I am not so insecure in my own opinions that I only want to hear messages directed at a certain choir.
I’d rather read about those various shades here, and get the reactions to them from an audience I know from experience to be well-informed and thoughtful, than at blogs where I can only count on the audience being robotic followers of propaganda.
There is no other blog like this anywhere on the Web. The thousands who freqent it are testimony to its success and effectiveness. Anthony is doing something very right, and without WUWT, God only knows how great the despair we’d all feel at not being able to find an oasis of commonsense and conviviality.
Indur Goklany is attempting to predict the future and in doing so (correctly of course) wants Bill Gates to move away from zero-carbon technology (is that really even possible?) and toward other things, like better agricultural methods.
As any “real” skeptic will tell you, you cannot predict the future, either way.
For example: Todays poor will be far richer 100 years from now.
What if they aren’t, even in a cooling world?
What if there is a serious breakdown within the economies of the rich countries? Who will feed the poor, let alone advance their standards?
This letter to Bill Gates (who, yes, seems off-track) is typical well written and meaningless garbage.
“Future populations … will be far wealthier than today”. I give that one a 50-50 just because I’m feeling generous.
Zero-carbon technology. There is a saying that a fool and his money are soon parted. AGW supporters, meet Mr. Gates.
DirkH: “Linus Thorvalds .. created Linux as a clone of MINIX because he didn’t agree with MINIX’ licensing terms.”
Linux was never a clone of Minix. There is a fundamental technical difference (monolithic kernel versus microkernel) that was hotly debated by Torvalds and Tanenbaum from the moment that Linux first emerged.
Mr. Gates also said that no one would ever need more than 64kb of memory.
So much for the visionary Mr. Gates.
“Since you have been in the forefront of technological change …” Mr. Gates has been on the forefront of technological stagnation and monopolistic business practices that would make the old-style industrial robber barons blush. There is something very wrong with an economic system that results in us spending huge amounts of our time trying to make billionaire’s products do what they were designed to do.
Co2 does not drive climate.
We need to remind people what the phrase “Climate Optimum” means– healthier and more abundant life forms because of higher temperatures than today’s.
“I do know that there is an inherent conflict between established authority and independent thought. … I think that if Galileo’s case symbolizes anything, it symbolizes the inherent conflict between authority and freedom rather than any ineradicable hostility of religion toward science. It was an accident of Galileo’s time that authority happened to be vested in a particular religious institution and that his field of independent thought happened to be the creation of modern science. ” { Stillman Drake, in the foreword to Galileo, Science and the Church by Jerome Langford, 1966. }
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/science/conflict.htm
The conflict is still going today, and “climate change” is one of the battlegrounds.
When Indur Goklany says “Over the years I have been very impressed by Mr. Gates’ desire and efforts to improve the quality of life for the world’s poorest people” I can agree with him on motive, but Bill Gates’ efforts would be much more helpful if they were aimed at increasing freedom rather than authority. There are many ways in which this can be done, the excellent micro-loans programmes are an example.
Larry Fields and Steve from Rockwood
1. Both of you raise the issue of what if developing countries are not as wealthy in the future as projected — not “predicted” – under the IPCC scenarios?
I get this argument quite frequently – usually from folks who want to push emission reductions. [Clearly, Steve, you are not one of those.] My response to this is that if developing countries’ economic growth is not as rapid as the IPCC projects then CO2 emissions will be lower than it projects, as will the amount of anthropogenic warming, and any resulting impact of that warming (as estimated by the flawed impacts models).
2. What if, moreover, the world cools, as Steve from Rockwood asks?
RESPONSE: My adaptive approaches are not specific to warming or cooling. They would help societies adapt regardless of the direction of warming, because both build adaptive capacity and resiliency.
Mike Jonas: “Bill Gates’ efforts would be much more helpful if they were aimed at increasing freedom rather than authority.”
RESPONSE: Couldn’t agree with you more. Freedom, particularly economic freedom, is a necessary ingredient of economic growth. And, in my opinion, we cannot be free if we do not have economic freedom. See The Improving State of the World: Why We’re Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet.
Bill Gates. Isn’t he the one that said the internet wouldn’t amount to much?
I am sure glad he never touched any of my servers and Unix stuff in my company. It is so much faster and more reliable than his low quality software.
How about an honest look at the eugenics movement roughly a hundred years ago, and how it has been building up steam once again. The Gates family was never about being kind to others. It’s about not wanting to share the planet with what they consider inferior people. Bill and Melinda Gates have the right to make copies of their DNA, because they are so darn special, while his so-called humanitarian work sterilizes women without their consent. Read, for instance, a recent article on Eugenics: The Secret Agenda at http://oneworldscam.com/?p=8077
Mike Jonas says: (September 11, 2010 at 5:23 pm) … more helpful if they were aimed at increasing freedom rather than authority. There are many ways in which this can be done, the excellent micro-loans programmes are an example.
Fully endorse that, Mike.
Mr. Gates would have done us a greater service were he to devote his energies toward being a venture capital investor, further encouraging new and innovative solutions. Becoming an ‘enlightened’ businessman and donning the mantle of noblesse oblige is just a short, slippery slope toward that of an attitude of master toward the lesser mortals he surveys from his high perch.
If Mr Gates wishes to help mankind, he should bankroll the building of a large bio-dome, (maybe buy an old football field and gut the inside)
The dome should be divided into 4 identical wedges, each insulated from the other. Each should be furnished with various vegetation, rocks, soil and water pools (all identical).
Two diagonally opposite each other should be filled with plain air, the other two with double the amount of CO2.
Then it’s a matter of taking T readings throughout the day. Within a few months, we will have empirical evidence of CO2s effect on climate.
By the way, whatever happened to those bio-domes built back in the 60’s 70’s? I wonder if there is any data from those still in existence.
I agree with Gaylon. People such as Bill Gates like to appear as philanthropists and humanitarians but all their billions inevitably end up being wasted and we see no real change in situations where they try to ‘help’. They are part of the elite power structure and only care about their own agendas and nothing else. I’m sure Gates is well aware of the truth concerning CAGW but being a part of that group, publicly he toes the line and follows the religion. There is more than enough wealth and resources in the world today for the elite to make real change in the third world if they wanted to. But the reality is they just want to appear to be helping while pushing their depopulation/eugenics agenda.
AGW belief is a business kiss of death! From Enron to Gore, by falling into such a focus, Gate and (by proxy) MS’s leadership and acumen become suspect. Like the former, MS may soon reap the consequences. Gates/MS could not have done many things more to question their grasp on what it takes to focus on their future success.
My own speculation is PG&E will be another victim; scratch this a bit, and perhaps you’ll find their the embrace and lobbying for the scam indirectly leads to other bad business practices (like failing to diagnose and fix a neighborhood San Bruno, CA gas leak, when multiple customers call-in with the gas-smell odor reports). Hey, in this case global warming (or at least the embrace there of) may have led to increased fires?
tarpon says:
September 11, 2010 at 4:26 am
….It’s the same thing with DDT, it’s amazing how fast the death rates drop from malaria, and mostly for children under the age of 5. Some 35 million children in Africa have died from malaria, a mostly preventable disease, since DDT was banned. Quite a record of genocide, if you ask me…..
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Speaking of the human history of genocide, the good old USA was still practicing it in the 1970’s when DDT was banned.
” The enormity of government-funded sterilization has been compiled by a masters’ student in history, Sally Torpy, at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Her thesis, “Endangered Species: Native American Women’s Struggle for Their Reproductive Rights and Racial Identity, 1970s-1990s,” which was defended during the summer of 1998, places the sterilization campaign in the context of the “eugenics” movement.
No one even today knows exactly how many Native American women were sterilized during the 1970s. One base for calculation is provided by the General Accounting Office, whose study covered only four of twelve IHS regions over four years (1973 through 1976). Within those limits, 3,406 Indian women were sterilized, according to the GAO…”
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/sterilize.html
If those in power in the “greatest free” country, the USA, were sterilizing its own citizens
If the same country just recently funded spermicidal corn and may be shipping it to poor countries in their humanitarian “care packages”
If the current US science adviser coauthored a book advocating forced birth control and stating
“The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being. Where any of these essential elements is lacking, the resultant individual will be deficient in some respect.” source
And if more recent information suggests DDT was not the health hazard it was hyped to be, there is good reason to think the world wide removal of DDT was done for reasons of genocide and not for environmental reasons.
The occasional peeks behind the curtains of power reveal some really warped thinking. Bill Gates has recently joined that club and has been showing signs that he is aligning his thinking with that of the rest of the group. Remember if the world Corporate and Banking leaders decide he is getting out of line his company is history. They can essentially shut him down.
It’s sad, really. Bill could do so much good with his wealth. Instead he chooses folly over philanthropy. I don’t begrudge him his 60,000 square foot house or other baubles of extreme wealth, but he might fund common sense instead of irrational hysteria.
tarpon said:
In 1972, about two million people died from malaria, worldwide.
In 2008, about 880,000 people died from malaria, worldwide. That’s fewer than half the mortality the year the U.S. stopped DDT spraying on cotton.
If it’s cause-effect you were trying to establish, I think you missed.
Gail Combs says:
September 12, 2010 at 4:48 am
Gail et al have offered links to information which support the idea that CAGW does indeed have underpinnings tied to a general belief by the elitist intelligencia that ‘the herd must be thinned’. Owing to unsupported comments that we have all read about the “sustainability of the planet”.
I have tried in the past to find a source concerning comments about the so-called benign / harmless effects of DDT. I found one today, and it is illuminating.
It describes DDT as having a number of beneficial health effects on humans, including the reduction of cancers in new-born infants. The writer has himself ingested full tablespoons of commercial DDT when giving talks on the benefits of this pesticide to various groups. The spurious alarms and lies were begun by environmental activists AKA: The World Health Organsization (WHO). Turns out that Mr. Gates is heavily invested with the WHO. Anyone suprised?
As I alluded to earlier in this thread, and ‘TWE’ stated more succincly than I:
http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-34.html
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/Fall02/Mosquitoes.html
Sorry, hit the ‘Post Comment’ by mistake (I hate it when that happens!), here’s TWE’s post:
“TWE says:
September 11, 2010 at 11:00 pm
I agree with Gaylon. People such as Bill Gates like to appear as philanthropists and humanitarians but all their billions inevitably end up being wasted and we see no real change in situations where they try to ‘help’. They are part of the elite power structure and only care about their own agendas and nothing else…”
I think this strengthens the case that Gail has made repeatedly here at WUWT concerning the root of the CAGW alarmism meme, its apparent successes, and further dogged propogation.
Gates Foundation programs to fight malaria have achieved remarkable results in decreasing malaria over the past five years, in just waking up the anti-malaria efforts (see also here), and also in the actual decline of malaria:
Not only is the death toll half what it was when DDT was legal in the U.S., but total malaria infections have been dramatically reduced in nations who have adopted the Gates Foundation’s suggested strategies.
We may not beat malaria by 2014, but it won’t be because the Gates Foundation is on the wrong path.
Ed Darrell says:
September 13, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Ed,
Not sure about your numbers, check the link below for data up to 2007 in this 2008 WHO report. In Nigeria malaria cases have grown from just under 1 million in 1990 to almost 3 million in 2007. Your link did cite global locations, the link I post below only cites African locations, so it’s not apples to apples. I do cite the same report as portions of your source link.
I didn’t see many African countries reporting fewer cases over the last 10 years (quick scan though). Anyway, the issue, the point is that the WHO banned DDT in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence that proved it harmless to vertebrates, and in some instances it was beneficial (lower cancer rates in newborns: see link in my previous post above).
This is what the WHO did, this is who the Gateses have aligned themselves with. Right path, wrong path is irrelevant at this point. Gates, if he truly wanted to make a difference should/could have easily started his own relief efforts to ease the suffering.
A good first, inexpensive (as far as Gates is concerned), effective, and QUICK way would be to support the use of DDT and buy a couple of those big Army transport planes (C-147?) fill them with the stuff and dump away.
In other words the WHO said: let them die. And that is exactly what they did to the tune of over 10 million deaths, mostly children under 5 years old. Just so we might be more “sustainable”. Sound good to you?
So…why would anybody do that? Might it be in response to Ehrlich’s book ‘The Population Bomb’? And as it relates to this thread: why/how, would/could, anyone objectively looking at the available data on climate change come to the conclusion that we are all going to burn in the near/distant future due to runaway global warming?
Mr. Goklany raises good points. Will Mr. Gates heed him? I don’t think so. As I said before: It’s an AGENDA! Reduce population size to support the sustainability of the planet and Cap & Tax to control energy usage thereby controlling populace. YOU, ME, and all of US. You are aware of the axiom: correlation does not prove causation? Well it equally applies to the thin veneer of “humanitarian” that people such as Mr. Gates wears. Sheep in wolves clothing if ever there were…
We need to speak out against these people, take them to task, and shut them down. Period.
http://malaria.who.int/wmr2008/malaria2008.pdf