By Bjørn Lomborg (via his Facebook page)
About a quarter of all deaths in the developing world comes from mostly easily curable, infectious diseases.
The biggest environment problem, by far measured in human deaths, is air pollution.
Global warming, which creates a lot of attention, is on an entirely different and smaller level. The World Health Organization estimate (a very maximal estimate) is about one-fortieth of the deaths from air pollution. Even if you assume all deaths from floods, droughts and storms, the number is an even smaller two-hundredth of air pollution.
And no, the number of deaths from global warming won’t increase, but more likely decrease over time, as many infectious deaths will disappear because of increasing wealth, and because fewer cold deaths will increasingly outweigh increasing heat deaths.
Source: Communicable deaths and air pollution deaths from Global Burden of Disease, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61766-8.
Infectious diseases are about 10m of 52.6m global deaths, and 9.2m of 39.7m developing world deaths.
Air pollution lies between 3.5m and 6.9m (indoor and outdoor air pollution is somewhat overlapping, because indoor air pollution contributes 16% to global outdoor air pollution, and because there is no good estimate of how close most people stay to homes when outside). Here, just using the mean, which is likely an underestimate.
WHO global warming estimate is 141,000 deaths (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/). Lower estimate is just 28,266/year for the past decade , using estimates of deaths from flooding, droughts, heatwaves and storms, and assume they’re all from climate change, (http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_23.pdf).
Long-term development of deaths from Richard Tol’s chapter for my upcoming book, How Much have Global Problems Cost the World? A Scorecard from 1900 to 2050 (http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/economics/economic-development-and-growth/how-much-have-global-problems-cost-world-scorecard-1900-2050).
For now, see the estimates from Bosello et al. for 2050 showing global warming *saving* about 850,000 lives (1.76m saved from cold, vs 820,000 more dead from heat), http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800905003423.
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Besides, a good fraction of “air pollution”, is quite natural; like forest fires, and sand storms. Anything natural, is NOT pollution.
It may be hazardous; so stay away from it; or quit complaining; like polar bears for example are not pollution, just because they are extremely dangerous.
Gail,
I recognize there is quite a bit of contradictions in both the mainstream Conservative and Progressive brands of politics. Most mainstream Conservatives (not Libertarians) see nothing wrong with banning abortion or regulating drugs, prostitution, gambling, and some wouldn’t even have a problem regulating sexual activity between consenting adults. Mainstream Conservatives and Libertarians also readily conflate the rights of individuals with those of corporations as as does our legal system, which in my view wrongly decided this issue a long time ago and now persists in extending the error to ever greater lengths of absurdity.
I am trying to find a sort of middle way between Progressive and a Libertarian approach based primarily on the a few key ideas: 1) Governments should mostly stay out of the lives of individual; 2) Governments have a role to play in fostering an environment for prosperity of its citizens; 3) Corporations are fair game to regulate since they are government creations at their core, although any regulation should be carefully weighed as to its potential negative consequences.
If your references to eugenics in any way are a reference to a Julian Huxley posting on my blog, please note that I explicitly disavowrf any of Huxley’s views on that issue.
=========================================================================
Jimbo, I’m surprised at you! You should know that differentiations between “weather” and “climate” only matter as to placing the fulcrum for the “hockey stick” as a lever to power.
James Cross says: @ur momisugly July 21, 2013 at 10:55 am
I recognize there is quite a bit of contradictions in both the mainstream Conservative and Progressive brands of politics….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I agree with much of what you have said.
Remember it is the Ruling Class who wants to shove us into little labeled boxes so they can keep the “Let’s You and He FIGHT” crap going on so we do not see what they are actually up to.
Me? I consider myself a ‘civilized human being’ and on employment applications I always mark “Other” for race because I refused to play the mind games.
The whole idea of government boils down to two basic concepts:
1. We are free individuals and as civilized humans we ALLOW others to form a government with OUR CONSENT and act in OUR INTERESTS.
2. The government’s ( often called society’s) interest are more important than that of any individual and therefore the individual’s freedom of action are always subordinate to that of the government. The government grants us only the freedom of action it wishes and can deprive us of that freedom of action any time it wishes to. In other words we are the serf/slave belonging to the government.
If you have not looked at Rummel’s Democide – Death by Government you should.
@- Gail Combs
“The problem is C3 plants like trees stop growing at ~180 ppm and certainly do not have the ability to grow flower and produce seed. … At 180 ppm Class 4 plants (grasses) could possibly survive but would not have the “energy” to produce seed. At 200 pm CO2 trees starve…”
The influence of lower CO2 during the glacial period in displacing tropical forest with grasslands is well known.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2486.2003.00577.x/abstract
The evolution, and dominance of C4 plants over C3 plants during the last few million years is driven by the lower CO2 levels during glacial times. Biology is rarely so neat in its distinctions that at precisely 180ppm ALL C3 trees and plants go extinct. There would be selection of the variants most able to withstand the low CO2 levels.
Extinction clearly did not happen, pollen from such plants coexists with evidence of the low CO2 levels. But those low levels certainly did favor C4 plants and the shift in pollen ratios shows that.
Its another indication of the two-way link between CO2 and climate.
I am disturbed by Lomborg’s uncritical acceptance of World Health Organization statistics on air pollution.
Although I can’t comment authoritatively on air pollution generally, I do have some technical and personal experience with a small but (according to the WHO) significant portion of it – that of indoor Radon pollution.
Any reader can do a quick search of on the websites of the WHO, the EPA, and Health Canada, and find there unanimity that indoor Radon pollution is the second greatest cause of lung cancer after cigarette smoking. However, he will also find the suggested building mitigation thresholds to be set at 2.7, 4.0, and 5.0 picoCuries per Litre, respectively.
If he digs a little deeper, he will also find that, until five years or so ago, the mitigration threshold was set at 20.0 pCi/L by Health Canada.
What he will not easily find is any explanation of these varying thresholds between organizations with access to the same data sets. Nor will he likely find details of the methodology by which the statistical assertions as to the health risks of inhaling Radon were generated.
Another search on Radon alarms and Radon detectors, their operative limitations and costs, in comparison with existing EPA maps of Radon pollution by county in the USA should have any critical thinker wondering what secret technology might have produced the data from which these maps were generated.
Then, if the intrepid reader is not yet sufficiently uncertain about the magnitude of the threat, he need only jog over to:
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/nuclear.html
to review the totally contrarian position – that a minimal amount of Radon absorption is (as with some trace minerals, such as Selenium) essential to good health, and that, in lab mice at least, removal of all Radon from food, water, and air was reported to cause a 25% reduction in longevity.
Lomborg’s eagerness to jump on any bandwagon going his way undermines his credibility.
otropogo
Hormesis? Not such a wild idea. A low dose of something bad is good but too much, of course, is still bad. The line between good and bad might be thin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis
There was a fad, I think, at one time of going into old mines specifically to be exposed to radon. If you goggle around, you can find mines still open for this.
Lomborg and the rest of we CAGW skeptics may be unaware that the global warming issue is only a small fraction of what a world-changing juggernaut freedom lovers face on all fronts. Nine billion a year is spent already by “benevolent” foundations alone in ever increasing restrictions on space and permissible activities. “Priorities” are not the sensible arrangements Lomborg visualizes. We are to a large degree being unwittingly shepherded into pens to be managed and choked off for ever. Lomborg’s stuff reads like we have a little problem called global warming advocacy. Man, this is only arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The Michigan Militia’s priorities might turn out to have been more along the lines of what we should be taking up. I think CAGW is merely a distraction.
From: Eco-Fascists: How Radical Conservationists are Destroying our Natural Heritage, by Elizabeth Nickson (who tried to subdivide16.5 acres of land on Saltspring Is. British Columbia she shared with a friend who had had a stroke and needed the cash from his share for his medical care). Elizabeth Nickson is a journalist – former foreign correspondent for Time magazine, European bureau chief for Life magazine; later, she was a columnist for The Globe and Mail and the National Post.
“Let us look closer at the coalface of how actual operations work. Here is an“ example: An ENGO takes control of the debt of a poor country in exchange for a tax receipt issued to the (usually) Western bank to which the debt is owed. The ENGO, now owning the debt of the poor country, offers to liquidate it in
exchange for land that can then be conserved forever as pristine wilderness. This means that it is to be purged of human beings. New villages are promised. Healthcare is promised. Green ecotourism jobs are promised. Windmills and solar panels are promised. (Have we heard this before?) What we get are armed guards protecting the new wilderness park by keeping humans away from their former homes. So far, we in the rich countries have created approximately
20 million displaced persons in this way, which compares favourably with the 4 million created in the aftermath of World War II. The ENGOs involved? The sainted World Wildlife Fund, the blessed Nature Conservancy and the holy UN- affiliated Conservation International….”
Gene Selkov says:
So when you see any figures named, you can be certain they are not based on measurements. These figures are no more credible than the number of deaths from climate change.
————————————–
That is not true. If an effect is as large as air pollution on life expectancy, it can be easily detected and measured:
See here for Europe
http://www.environment.no/PageFiles/1069/part_matt_00_en.gif
And here for China:
“Researchers studying the health impact of China’s air pollution say that people in the south of the country are living on average 5.5 years longer than their counterparts in the north”
http://www.voanews.com/content/air-pollution-in-northern-china-blamed-for-drop-in-life-span/1697885.html
Various responses……..
OK, my question was rhetorical because I know they are pulling facts right out of their arses. According to the IPCC and the WMO climate is 30 YEARS or more of weather data. Claims of climate deaths in the last 25 years are just lies. Sorry, I’m just following consensus.
george e. smith says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:29 pm
I don’t understand that. The indoor pollution is the smoke from the wood, coal, or dung that they burn in their stoves, which pollutes the indoor air, sometimes horribly, particularly in winter when you don’t want to open windows. How is that not air pollution? And despite the nay-sayers, yes, breathing thick wood smoke every day of the year for a lifetime does indeed kill women, although their death certificate may say “pneumonia”.
Again, I don’t understand your point here. In the mud huts of the poor of the world, someone in their 50s may well be the oldest person in the family, and the only risk factor anyone in the family has is being blindingly, crushingly poor. Following your brilliant plan, they pay all the attention they have to that risk factor … and they’re still blindingly, crushingly poor.
So why would either they or I care if your ex-relative paid attention to her special risk factors? What does that have to do with women going blind from trachoma as a result of a lifetime of indoor coal smoke?
w.
Thomas says:
July 21, 2013 at 7:02 am
Thomas, do not speak of a carbon tax. Call it what it is. It is an energy tax, and it is the most regressive tax in the world. It hits the poor harder than any other tax, because there is no exemption and no bottom limit. If you make less than $X you pay no income tax … but even the poorest of the poor pay energy tax.
So It is much, much worse than just about any imaginable tax. See my post called “Firing Up The Economy, Literally“, as well as my posts on the many, many problems with the BC energy tax.
w.
@ur momisugly Willis Eschenbach
“””””…..
Now you did say “older women”, didn’t you Willis ? A person to whom I used to be related, is the only member of her family who ever made it more than half way through their 50s. She’s two decades beyond that, by paying attention to her special risk factors.
Again, I don’t understand your point here……”””””
The subject was apparently premature deaths due to “air pollution”.
As evidence of that, you cited an anecdote about some women of your acquaintance who had various apparently respiratory diseases. I pointed out that you described these women as “old”, which doesn’t jibe with premature death.
So I cited an also anecdotal case of a woman with known disease risk factors, who nevertheless, had avoided problems by simply not doing high risk activities.
No I never expected, that you would care about the case I cited; that’s not why I cited it.
So how many readers here do you suppose care much about the situation YOU described. We all tend to deal with issues where we might be able to make a difference.
You can bankrupt the entire developed world; and it wouldn’t make a dent in the problems of the undeveloped world.
You can’t force people to change their behavior, simply because someone says they are doing things that might harm them.
You only have to look at immigration into the United States, to realize that even bringing people into a land of plenty (used to be), will not stop them from conducting themselves in the same manner that created the problems that meddlers want to eliminate. (usually with other people’s money).
Is this it Crispin, Spill the beans please.
Thanks. Here’s a link to the YouTube demo:
It looks very nice. It has a water heater attachment & wheels. Weighs 113 lbs. Zig-zag gravity feed runs 1 day or 36 hours on low. Two combustion trays stacked above ash tray. Holes in bottoms. Empty ash tray once a day. Clean once a year outdoors with water hose. Costs $1600-2200.
Order from 541-946-8108
gary@wisewaypelletstoves.com
James Cross
“Hormesis? Not such a wild idea. A low dose of something bad is good but too much, of course, is still bad. The line between good and bad might be thin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis
There was a fad, I think, at one time of going into old mines specifically to be exposed to radon. If you goggle around, you can find mines still open for this.”
Presumed thinness of such lines needlessly delayed the adoption of Selenium supplementation for decades in North America, even many years after it had been massively applied in China. This situation persists today with Vitamin D supplementation, where, after years of clinical tests with thousands and even tens of thousands of milligrams per day of supplementation for weeks or months showing no “toxic” effects, the RDA is still set a a few hundred mg., and some savants persist in claiming that no one needs D supplementation beyond that provided by sun-exposed skin.
The position of the EPA has been particularly schizophrenic when dealing with nuclear radiation. While maintaining that no amount, no matter how small, of ionizing radiation should be tolerated where Radon is concerned, it quickly reverses itself when pollution caused by nuclear weapons plants or nuclear reactors is concerned, deeming its injurious effects unproven or “harmless”. This is hypocrisy is documented gruesomely in the excellent book”Full Body Burden”:
http://www.amazon.com/Full-Body-Burden-Growing-Nuclear/dp/0307955656
and was clearly in evidence during the Fukushima nuclear meltdown and its aftermath.
It’s no different up here in Canada. Where pharmacists co-operated with the federal government in refusing to provide thyroid-blocking tablets to the public, supporting the government lie that it could and would distribute these to the public “if and when” needed.
In China, even while it was publicly reported that radioactive cesium and iodine had been found in leafy vegetables as far West as Beijing, it was equally impossible to buy thyroid blockers. The Chinese government characterized the level of radioactive pollution as “harmless”, and this evoked no objection from either the EPA or the WHO that I could see. Yet the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo stocked a supply of thyroid blocking tablets sufficient to protect every Canadian in Japan.
As for Radon therapy being a “fad” – I find this characterization unfairly dismissive. Unfortunately, clinical analysis of the benefits of breathing Radon are difficult, if not impossible, to find online. However, I recall watching documentary footage of people suffering from advanced osteoarthritis who reported that an hour or two of breathing Radon in a mine shaft resulted in several months of significant pain alleviation for them.
I believe it’s a crime against science and humanity that such reports have not and are not being properly investigated due to prejudice in the awarding of research grants.
Is death rate the only criterion? How about quality of life, ability to trade? Shelter?
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/weather-economy/more-areas-becoming-uninsurable-due-volatile-weather?elq=2d89bc90956b40ac82fc691ae4d4b1df&elqCampaignId=2399
Ed Darrell: you are so right to ask this question. Death is really not a good moment to measure the impacts of anything, except perhaps bullets. At death, you don’t have a simple, testable system — it is usually very messy — and, of course, forget about controlled experiments.