Voice of America (VOA), a U.S. government funded international news agency, posted an article titled “Heat, Disease, Air Pollution: How Climate Change Impacts Health,” which claims that climate change threatens human health because it worsens extreme heat, air pollution, infectious diseases, and mental health problems. Each claim is false, with none being supported by existing evidence. Each of these health problems existed before the industrial revolution and amidst modest warming most are getting better.
The article reports that the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared climate change the “single biggest health threat facing humanity,” and that avoiding a temperature rise exceeding 1.5°C warming above pre-industrial levels as countries committed to in the Paris climate agreement is essential to prevent catastrophic health impacts.
Four categories of health threats are particularly highlighted in the VOA article, the first being “extreme heat.”
VOA writes that this year is “widely expected to be the hottest on record,” and heat “is believed to have caused more than 70,000 deaths in Europe during summer last year,” and also cites a Lancet study that claims by 2050 five times more people will die of heat each year if 2°C warming occurs.
There has been a lot of media coverage claiming that this year is the “hottest on record,” focusing on individual months and the northern hemisphere in particular. However, the data used is suspect, not only because the land-based temperature record is flawed and contaminated with the urban heat island effect, but also as discussed in “Media Fails to Examine Actual Data in Making “Hottest Summer Ever” Claims,” media conflate measured average temperatures with average temperature anomaly measurements, which are not interchangeable.
The planet began modestly warming even before the industrial revolution began, meaning 2023 is just a continuation of a multi-century trend. Blaming emissions for this year’s heat in particular ignores other natural factors, like increased water vapor from a massive volcanic eruption, an the onset of a powerful El Niño, and increased solar activity.
As described in Climate at a Glance: Temperature Related Deaths, because research shows that cold temperatures actually kill between 10 and 16 times more people than hot temperatures, the slight warming over the past century has likely reduced premature mortality related to temperatures by as many as 166,000 people from 2000 to 2019. The clear evidence shows that cold temperatures kill far more people than hot temperatures and, as a result, as the Earth has modestly warmed, deaths related to non-optimum temperatures have declined significantly.
The next category of health threats discussed by VOA is air pollution. The VOA cites the WHO to assert that outdoor air pollution driven by fossil fuel emissions kills “more than four million people every year,” partially in the form of PM2.5. This figure is not supported by real world data.
Worse still for the claim, VOA admits that deaths from air pollution have fallen over time, not increased, even as the Earth has warmed. As a result, it’s unclear how this category even relates to climate change at all. According to the IPCC, there is no consensus on even the existence of any effects of global warming on “air pollution weather,” or temperature inversion conditions that may cause ground level ozone.
The claim that infectious diseases are on the rise due to climate change has been refuted at Climate Realism many times, for example, here, here, and here, and VOA makes no new claims in this regard. VOA claims that because of animal migration, the risk of infectious disease will spread, especially those spread by mosquitos like dengue, chikungunya, Zika, West Nile virus, and malaria.
The fact remains that no matter what the computer models say, more than a dozen peer-reviewed studies demonstrate that temperature alone is not enough to guarantee migration or longer survival of mosquitoes or mosquito-borne illnesses like malaria. Human interventions like the use of DDT, emptying standing water, mosquito netting, and other methods, far outweigh any effect of temperature.
Paul Reiter, a scientist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explained in a paper that “it is facile to attribute this resurgence [of malaria in some regions] to climate change.”
Looking at other animal sources of disease outbreaks like the Bird Flu, the exotic animal trade and wet markets are much more likely candidates.
There is no evidence that modest warming has caused disease outbreaks due to animal migration nor that continued modest warming it threatens to do so in the future.
VOA devotes only a small section to the final category, mental health, writing “Worrying about the present and future of our warming planet has also provoked rising anxiety, depression and even post-traumatic stress — particularly for people already struggling with these disorders, psychologists have warned.”
This shouldn’t be hard to explain, since media and government alarmism has been significantly ramped up over time. Despite data to the contrary, the mainstream media has increasingly used words like “catastrophe,” “crisis,” and “uninhabitable” to describe the condition of the planet. Some media outlets have tried pointing out that this scaremongering is counterproductive, but it hasn’t stopped, with CNN recently declaring that “no place in the US is safe.”
In the light of this near daily the barrage of climate scare stories, it is no wonder that people struggling with or prone to mental illness in particular are deeply afraid. Survivors of a natural disaster may also struggle with PTSD or similar ailments, but it doesn’t mean that climate change is the cause, as discussed in “Wrong, Mainstream Media, Climate Change is Not Causing PTSD.”
In the end, objective scientific data does not show that human health is being negatively impacted by climate change, and it is certainly not the biggest health threat facing humanity. Because almost every claim in the story is refuted by hard data, it actually throws suspicion on much of the good work unrelated to climate alarm that the VOA and the WHO do. It is especially bad that VOA included the WHO’s unverified mental health claims in the story, since it is fearmongering by mainstream media outlets, like VOA, that are the source of climate (reporting) related mental health problems, not climate change itself.
https://www.heartland.org/about-us/who-we-are/linnea-lueken
Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy. While she was an intern with The Heartland Institute in 2018, she co-authored a Heartland Institute Policy Brief “Debunking Four Persistent Myths About Hydraulic Fracturing.”
The reverse is much more obviously the case. The end of the Roman Warming Period was accompanied by the worst year in recorded history to be alive. A huge volcanic eruption in Iceland eliminated most sunlight and prevented most crops around the world for two years. This disaster was accompanied by an emergence of the bubonic plague as a global phenomenon. The population, weakened by starvation, lost as much as 1/3rd of the total population.
More recently, the Black Death of 1346-53 also killed nearly 1/3rd of the world’s population. It too was accompanied by a severe downturn in world average temperatures with the onset of the Little Ice Age.
The willingness of the warmistas to murder established historical fact is one of the great reasons why decades ago I rejected the AGW narrative. Any scientific hypothesis which has to fabricate evidence this consistently is obviously false.
The cold period that ended the RWP fatally weakened both the Romans and the Persians, allowing Muhammad to sweep them away.
That was the reason Islam spread.
200 years later he would have been destroyed.
That’s the way the ball bounces
200 years earlier, meant to say
Agreed. Both those Empires exhausted themselves because of a crippling climate, the devastation of Justininan’s plague and fighting a thoroughly destructive war between them 602-628. Prior to these assorted disasters, no one had to take the Arabs in the Hijab as a significant power in any way.
But the climate disasters of the 6th century also destroyed North Africa as one of the ancient world’s great food production regions.It also crippled Iran’s ability to produce grain and marked the beginning of Persia’s very sharp and immediate decline and overthrow. The Eastern Romans only survived because the Sand Thieves had no ability to get across the Dardanelles. The recovery would have to wait until the 8th century.
Even now the cold weather we have every year causes about 4.6 million deaths a year globally mainly through increased strokes and heart attacks, compared with about 500,000 deaths a year from hot weather. We can’t easily protect our lungs from the cold air in the colder months and that causes our blood vessels to constrict causing blood pressure to increase leading to heart attacks and strokes.
‘Global, regional and national burden of mortality associated with nonoptimal ambient temperatures from 2000 to 2019: a three-stage modelling study’
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext
In the US, it’s Voice of America and PBS/NPR trying to spread the most climate alarmism. In Canada, it’s the CBC; in Britain, the BBC and the Guardian; in Australia, the ABC and so on in most of the developed world. I maintain that the funding these media get from governments and environmental groups is contingent on their presenting one-sided, sky-is-falling viewpoints on climate issues while downplaying or ignoring any evidence that pokes holes in their theories.
Yes they are paid to promote.
I got a lifetime ban from the cbc for posting the comment “there is still scientific debate over the causes and severity of recent climate change”.
Debate, to them, is them listing the limits and us staying within them.
Defund, destroy, burn to the ground, salt the earth.
Or turn it into a homeless shelter.
The only thing that will bring about unbiased environmental reporting by the CBC will be a Conservative majority in the next federal election. Then we’ll see a cutback in funding for the network and a better balance on climate issues.
That wouldn’t work in the US. RINOs would join with Democrats to protect their funding, as they did in 2016.
They get their money from the rich who are making lots of money off of “climate change” and from the governments that are controlled by politicians who are getting lots of campaign contributions from the rich
So the UN is saying that all those people moving from California (nice climate) and New York (cold climate) to Texas and Florida (both hot climates) are killing themselves?
Yes.
Every winter we see hundreds of thousands of climate refugees leaving canada for the USA
And see precisely zero Floridians heading to canada except maybe for a few days skiing then fast escape back to warm climate hell.
It was just as warm in the past as it is today and none of those bad climate change things climate alarmists dream up, happened then.
There is no unprecedented warming today, contrary to what climate alarmists would have us believe. We’ve been here before, and we’re still here. No Problemo!
So much nonsense.
Malaria was common all the way up to St Petersburg in the past when it was cooler, to cite a simple example.
Climate change alarmists need to treated the same way we treat pedophiles, child abusers destroying kids lives.
I was having a beverage last night after curling, one of my teammates got a call from his son’s school to report he skipped. But he has skipped every day for 6 weeks since he learned he can opt out at 16. Instead he’s “living his best life now” because he thinks he’s going to die.
Just like Greta.
Pedophiles, all of them.
Quite so. Malaria was common in Upper Canada (later Ontario) during the 19th century. It was eliminated by the draining of the large swamps in central-southern Ontario in the area known as the Holland Marshes along with a number of other large drainage projects in the Province.
Certainly they are child abusers.
Climate alarmists are driving a lot of adults crazy, too.
It really is a cabal of globalist behind all this . Narcissistic individuals with more money and power than most of us could even conceive of. And they are supported by citizens that do not even attempt to investigate any other possibilities. Truly useful idiots.
It is just that simple. All the evidence is out there. The Cabal doesn’t even hide their intentions anymore. Do take the time to “ vent” ( verbally of course) on these people when it all unravels and our nations are in shambles . This would have been easy to stop if not for the useful idiots that vote for the fools that support the cabal’s end game.
Yup. It’s all about money and power.
I think our Marxist school system has contributed to the number of useful idiots we see today.
The Marxists snuck up on us and brainwashed, or attempted to brainwash, a couple of generations of students.
Of course, not all students buy into the Marxist “Oppressor/Victim” world viewpoint, but enough of them do to make things problematic for the rest of us.
Plato expressed his opinion on this subject some time ago.
VOA has always been about promoting American propaganda. When I was a teenager listening to shortwave radio, it used to be 100% anti-communist broadcasts. Times have changed.
It’s literally (officially) propaganda.
Just another fear and mongering theory to capture the populace.
By blaming all sorts of things on CO2 & climate change, authorities can sidestep the need to do something about the issues raised in the post. Their solution to tackle “climate change” demands money and control which, bless their little hearts, they feel worthy of.
There is plenty of evidence there is not a climate crisis and, further, CO2 is not causing the oceans to boil, Antarctic ice to melt, or bears to stop pooping in the woods.
Very nice Linnea. The hottest temperature ever is pretty meaningless. Here is a problem I have. The 1.5 or 2.0 C increase from pre industrial times is what the CAGW crowd is using to scare people. Here is the thing they already admit that the average global temperature is 1.1 C higher than pre industrial times so that means we only have .4 C to go till Armageddon. So we have hottest ever weather but have still not crossed the 1.5 threshold and we only had .4 C to go. Color me not worried.
Pre-industrial time was the end of the Little Ice Age which had famines and starvation, and millions died.
Two things:
What, exactly does a 1.5 C increase mean? Does it mean that the normal high and low are going to go up by that amount everywhere? What else could it mean? Every sentient being, upon reflection, would find that claim ridiculous. Even the climate fascists admit that the 1.5 C number is an arbitrary one, unrelated to any empirical fact. If it were even true, what would its effect actually be? It’s the same as the 6 foot “social distancing” metric from the Covid mania. A number was picked because a number was needed. That particular number had no relationship to reality and neither does the 1.5 C figure. In a pseudo-scientific world where any relationship must be expressed in numerical form to gain acceptance, getting warmer just isn’t good enough.
There probably is some truth in that a certain number of at-risk individuals have suffered anxiety attacks from their exposure to climate pornography. But at the same time, not mentioned anywhere is the fact that perhaps an even greater number of people with a well-developed talent for critical thinking and analysis have come to consider government and scientific shrieking on climate change propaganda with an unsavory motive. This results in these same people having even less confidence in every other pronouncement by these spokespeople than they already have. Why should one believe government statements on international relations and economics if it’s obvious they aren’t telling the truth about other important matters? This cynicism spreads throughout the population and adds to the political and societal divisions that exist at the best of times.
I managed to download the Lancet Countdown 2023 report. PDF 49 pages.
There is lots of climate change doom and gloom, based on CO2 emissions and SSP models.
Maybe the “climate change” crowd got to them.
This recent study from the Lancet shows that the cold weather we have every year causes about 4.6 million deaths a year globally mainly through increased strokes and heart attacks, compared with about 500,000 deaths a year from hot weather. We can’t easily protect our lungs from the cold air in the winter and that causes our blood vessels to constrict causing blood pressure to increase leading to heart attacks and strokes.
‘Global, regional and national burden of mortality associated with nonoptimal ambient temperatures from 2000 to 2019: a three-stage modelling study’
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext
This study from 2015 says that cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather and that moderately warm or cool weather kills far more people than extreme weather. Increased strokes and heart attacks from cool weather are the main cause of those weather-related deaths.
‘Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multi-country observational study’ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0/fulltext
CO2 emission went up at a slightly faster rate when much of the world’s production was shut down and millions were laid off because of COVID-19 in 2020.
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
With respect to it being the hottest day, week, month year ever: The Alarmists have painted themselves into a corner. What about next year? Is that going to be the new hottest year ever? The Alarmists must always up the ante.
“The Alarmists must always up the ante.”
And they do. Look at the difference between the UAH satellite chart and NASA/NOAA’s charts. Look at the differnence between how UAH treats 1998 and 2016, and how the NASA/NOAA charts depict them. Look at how there were no “hottest year evah!’s” between 1998 and 2016 on the UAH satellite chart, whereas NASA/NOAA claim there were 10 years between 1998 and 2016 that they could declare to be the “hottest year evah!” And so they did. NASA/NOAA loudly proclaimed that almost every year after 1998 was the “hottest year evah!”
But if you go by the UAH chart you will see that is not the case. None of the years after 1998 were hotter than 1998, until 2016 was reached.
That’s the reason NASA/NOAA don’t quote the UAH chart because it doesn’t allow them to scare people about the temperatures. They couldn’t say “hottest year evah! for 17 years, if they used the UAH chart. They would have to zip their lip about ‘hottest year evah!”.
We see what you did there.
As far as I can see this is a “it’s wrong because I say so” article with links to articels on their side. And from what I’ve seen these articles also reference their own articles as sources.
Then I suggest you take each point and research the scientific study that backs it up, that’s what most of us have already done. As far as your comment goes, it’s fatuous – you say the article is based on “it’s wrong because I say so” then provide no refutations or counter-arguments – you are repeating “it’s wrong because I say so” without even any sources to back that up. Try again or go away, I don’t care either way.
From the article: “like increased water vapor from a massive volcanic eruption”
https://phys.org/news/2023-10-hunga-tonga-hunga-haapai-eruption-depleted-ozone.html
October 20, 2023
New study shows Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha’apai eruption depleted ozone layer
by Bob Yirka , Phys.org
“A large team of atmospheric specialists has found that when the Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha’apai volcano erupted last year, it took part of the ozone layer with it. Their findings are published in the journal Science.
Prior research has shown that the Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha’apai eruption was one of the more powerful explosions ever recorded. It was also unique in that instead of spewing just volcanic material, dirt and rocks, it also sent a very large amount of ocean water into the atmosphere. In this new effort, the research team have found that all that saltwater reacting with other chemicals in the atmosphere, resulted in breaking down O3 in the ozone layer. . .
As the balloons continued to monitor the plume as it floated across the Indian and then Pacific Ocean, they found depletion totals of approximately 5%. The depletion, they found was due to ocean water reacting with molecules in the atmosphere that contained chlorine, leading to a breakdown of ozone—in amounts that had never been seen before in such a short time. . .
And Olaf Morgenstern, with Atmosphere and Climate, NIWA, noted that “… the speed of the observed ozone depletion challenges our understanding of the chemistry occurring on the surfaces of these particles and droplets.”
end excerpts
So the depletion of the ozone layer is not unprecedented, but I’m looking for a connection between the volcanic eruption and the sudden increase in temperatures we saw recently.
I haven’t seen a connection, but the eruption of Hunga-Tonga is the only unique event that happened during this timespan.
We will know if there is a connection eventually, I think.
It doesn’t actually mention when the observations were made, although the study was published this year. Before the study was put into print that 5% ozone depletion would have been replaced. As to the temperatures I’m currently experiencing colder than usual temperatures and I want my warmth. The El Nino buildup was also very marked this year so you have 2 events that might be having similar, or opposite, effects on the weather.