Guest Essay by Kip Hansen — 20 September 2024 —1500 words
The United Nation’s World Health Organization is at it again, pushing Climate Change as the root of all evil:
Here’s the claim:
“The number of cholera deaths reported globally last year increased by 71 percent from deaths in 2022, while the number of reported cases rose 13 percent. Much of the increase was driven by conflict and climate change, the W.H.O. report said.” [ NY Times ]
Let’s see the stats:
And where did these cholera outbreaks occur 2023?
I have added in the country names for all nations experiencing more than 100 cholera deaths. [For comparison., New York City alone had over 100 pedestrian fatalities in 2023.]
[One oddity is Afghanistan—reported by WHO to have had well over 200,000 cholera cases, and only 101 deaths.]
The World Health Organization issued their annual report titled: “Cholera, 2023 — World Health Organization” [.pdf].
Important excerpts include:
“In 2023, very large outbreaks, >10 000 suspected and confirmed cases per country, were reported by 9 countries on 3 continents (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Haiti, Malawi, Mozambique, Somalia and Zimbabwe).”
“Conflict, climate change, limited investment in development and population displacement due to emerging and re-emerging risks all contributed to the rise in the number of cholera outbreaks. This trend reflects a lack of long-term development investment, particularly in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Cholera outbreaks indicate that the sustainable development goals for WASH are not on track to meet the 2030 objectives, despite the United Nations General Assembly’s recognition in 2010 that access to safe drinking-water and sanitation is a fundamental human right.”
“The surge of cases in southern Africa that began in 2022 continued into 2023, with Malawi’s outbreak expanding (32 530), while Mozambique (39 101), South Africa (1478), Zambia (4531), and Zimbabwe (14 148) all reported the highest number of cases in ≥5 years. It is notable that, with some significant sub-national exceptions, the outbreaks occurred in stable areas not affected by conflict. Long-term investment in climate change-resilient WASH systems could significantly reduce the risk of recurring outbreaks in these areas.”
The entire 14-page WHO report only makes mention of climate change as a general talking point the two times quoted above. What WHO means when it says “climate change” is bad weather conditions – there has been no change in local or regional climates – mostly too much rain causing flooding – which is a common in Eastern Africa.
Cholera is caused by “People living in places with unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation, and inadequate hygiene are at highest risk of cholera.” “Cholera is an infection of the intestines caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae.“ “People usually get cholera from drinking water or eating food that contains traces of poop from someone with cholera. The disease can spread quickly in areas where sewage and drinking water aren’t adequately treated. … Cholera is not likely to spread from person to person or from casual contact with someone with cholera.” [ CDC ]
In plain English, when human waste (feces) gets into the drinking water supply, cholera can and does break out. Cholera is not (normally) spread person-to-person like diseases like the flu or colds.
And, it is true that when underdeveloped countries experience floods, it can overwhelm both their sanitation infrastructure (human waste management) and their drinking water infrastructure. Unfortunately, in many areas, there simply is NO proper sanitation and NO clean drinking water supply. Lacking such infrastructure means the people are using dug latrines and hand-dug water wells or collecting water from streams and lakes.
The NY Times article makes the claim: “Cholera’s spread in southern Africa has been propelled by catastrophic weather events, including both floods and droughts.” The reference for this is another earlier NY Times article which supplies no evidence for the claim, only this: “The devastation is linked to increasingly ferocious storms, a shortage of vaccines, and poor water and sewer infrastructure, public health experts said.”
And in that we have two of the true major contributors to cholera outbreaks:
1. Poor or non-existent clean drinking water and inadequate or non-existent sewage infrastructure
2. A shortage of cholera vaccines (exacerbated by lacking pubic healthcare delivery infrastructure).
The third major contributor is population displacement due to conflict, which pushes people into refugee camps and already crowded cities.
The not-in-evidence “ferocious storms” have not affected the broad area of our world map above showing cholera outbreaks. The 2023 North African Monsoon (.pptx file) was ‘above average’ but not catastrophically so, just bit wetter. The 2024 African monsoon has not been particularly wet in most areas:
The map of cholera outbreaks itself is some small evidence against the “caused by climate change” claim. Haiti occupies 1/3 of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, the other 2/3 of the island is the country of the Dominican Republic. Haiti has a major cholera outbreak, while the Dominican Republic has none. They share the island, its weather and its climate. Haiti however is far poorer, has basically no operating central governance and tends towards lawlessness, especially in the cities. The Dominican Republic is likewise poor but not as poor as Haiti. They have an operating democracy and more-or-less dependable, if flawed, civil service.
Sudan, a generally very dry nation, is one of the worst hit countries, with a very high Case Fatality Rate. Sudan sees floods in the monsoon season, regular as clockwork, and this can be seen in the African Monsoon image above – with a broad swath of higher precipitation across the middle of the country.
“Flooding is an annual challenge in Sudan in August and September. Around that time each year, monsoon rains pour into the Ethiopian Highlands and flow down to the Blue Nile and White Nile. As the rivers wind their way north through Sudan and South Sudan, floodwaters often swamp riverside communities.”
“The annual flooding happened again in 2024. But this time, heavy rains also fell in the north of the country, fueling destructive flash floods in areas less accustomed to receiving so much runoff.” [ source ]
Armed conflict has severely impacted the country’s economy and ability to respond to humanitarian needs – this means limited health services such as vaccinations and limited or no repairs to sewage and clean water infrastructure.
In the end, here is why Sudan floods in the monsoon season:
The flow of the Victoria Nile – the Upper Nile, southern end of the Nile Rivers – is mainly controlled by dams in Uganda (shown in white on the left-hand map) and the GERD Dam in Ethiopia. Almost literally all of the rain that falls in the annual monsoon west of the Horn of Africa flows into the Sudan, a country torn in two by civil war.
Poverty — at all scales from personal, familial, national, and regional – makes these areas prone to cholera outbreaks when adverse weather strikes or conflict forces people to flee their homes.
Bottom Line:
Cholera Outbreaks are not caused by Climate Change. There is no evidence of climates changing in the areas of cholera outbreaks.
Cholera is cause by the presence of Vibrio cholerae, a bacterium, in drinking water supplies (sometimes in food made with tainted water or foods washed in tainted water). This is caused by the contamination of drinking water with human feces. The contamination of drinking water with human feces (thus the bacterium) is a result of poor or nonexistent safe drinking water and sewage handling infrastructure (infrastructure coined by the U.N. WHO as WASH).
Any disruption of civil society in areas that lack adequate safe clean drinking water and proper sewage handling infrastructure can lead to cholera outbreaks: including weather (floods, severe droughts) — armed conflict (or even the threat of armed conflict), breakdown of normal civil governance.
All of that has been compounded by an international shortage of cholera vaccines and difficulties delivering and administering those vaccines in areas affected by cholera.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
As usual, the United Nations’ World Health Organization uses climate crisis language as demanded by the enforced UN narrative that all bad things are caused by Climate Change. Any weather that is unwanted is claimed to be evidence of Climate Change – even normal weather for the region involved.
Weather, expected or rare, is not Climate Change. If the Sudan or other normally arid regions of Africa were to become, over a couple of decades, rain forests or some other major shift in Köppen climate type, that would be climate and environmental change. Even then, that change would not cause cholera – cholera is not caused by climate type.
The U.N. and all of its related agencies are major purveyors of Climate Crisis Propaganda, feeding fuel to the fire spread by the U.S.’s National Public Radio, the UK’s BBC, and Australia’s ABC and several international climate propaganda news cabals.
Weather is not climate, diseases are neither caused or spread by climate change.
Thanks for reading.
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Since when does anyone care about the science?
Indeed. Just put the words ‘climate change’ into a paper will virtue signal you care and are on the right side of the money tree where and when the fund fruits fall down. Doesnt hurt does it? Ok, well maybe Science but hell, who cares?
Excellent article.
Blatant misinformation!
But where are the ‘fact checkers’ ?
Too busy making up their own “facts” to check. Only the right facts must be checked.
I’m getting down voted..
To clarify, the misinformation is the NYT and WHO, not Kip’s excellent research.
Copy that.
David ==> Most of the “fact checkers” have algorithms/policies that demand that “official sources” are always TRUE and any contradiction of those official sources must be mis/disinformation. In this case, “official” means the UN’s WHO. Even the NY Times considers the NY Times an official dependable source, thus they use their own work as ‘sources’ even when the source presents no evidence whatever of a “fact”.
This is like AI eating its own output. I could put this much more crudely, but will pass.
Guano in, guano out.
Correction: Official leftist sources.
Imagine if all the money WASTED world-wide on intermittent electricity sources and destroying the reliability of western society’s electricity supplies…
…. had been spent on building clean water infrastructure and reliable power supplies in third world countries.
Only a tiny percentage of that expenditure could solve essentially all water, sanitation and hygiene problems throughout the world.
Not sure of the tiny percentage expression, but otherwise, yes. A lot of good has been avoided to cause a lot of bad.
bnice ==> One of the major projects my wife and I worked on in the Dominican Republic, with LDS Humanitarian Services and the DR Federal Water Bureau, was the installation of 500 safe clean water wells in small communities.
I don’t know where you live, but imagine having to go and collect all the water you use in your home every day in 5 gallon plastic pails….where would you get the water? Is it safe? And when the rains come and turn everything to a mud slurry ?
It has been a long since the WHO went off on a weird tangent and discouraged chlorine as a disinfectant for drinking water. (I can’t find anything on the internet about it now, but people died as a result).
Before there can be any efficiency in constructing reasonable infrastructure, the #1 goal needs to be benefit of the people served (and that those people are as equal & deserving as those that manage the programs/money).
Not world politics, not local politics, not local preferences, not diversity, not anything but efficiency and safety.
(But once constructed the will for adequate operation/maintenance will fall by the wayside and you will be stuck with an expensive nothing. Culture would need to change … which takes back to the need to recognize that diversity for the sake of diversity is stupid)
I remember a story from years ago when “disinfection byproducts” was a big scare in the US. (I’m a retired drinking water plant operator.)
There was a disaster in some country south of the US. (A hurricane? Flooding?)
In that country emergency water/equipment to purify water was supplied. But whoever did that paid too much attention to the “disinfection byproducts” meme. The result was they cut way back on the chlorine.
Lots of cholera deaths was the result.
byproducts is still a big deal
‘Dead-legs’ is a scary term introduced to plumbing code recently. (No dead ends over 2x the dia of the pipe, unless they can be drained). All it does is confuse plumbers and regulators.
My bias is that cancer causing ‘byproducts’ are slow to develop & all one needs is a well designed distribution system … it is the lack of maintenance and crappy modifications that create byproducts situations.
Disinfection byproducts can, maybe, be a problem after long time exposure.
But short time in an emergency situation?
You’re stranded near a creek with no water left in your canteen.
But you do have some bleach.
Do you refill your canteen from the creek and drink it or add a few drops of bleach first and wait a minute or two before drinking?
You use water purification tablets. Or you boil the water. Bleach is not particularly useful.
If you have purification tablets. (Iodine or some form of Chlorine). Boiling is the best if you have the means to boil it. But once it cools it’s susceptible to contaminations by pathogens. Iodine or some form of chlorine will leave a residual which can continue to protect.
Household bleach is about 5.25% sodium hypochlorite. Chlorine.
(I did see an add for “straw” that claimed to be able filter out pathogens from untreated water. I don’t know how long they would last without a mans to clean the filter after it clogged.)
Millions of people die every year in poor countries due to a lack of clean water and hygiene, and a real-life issue that is easily resolved, yet we water $$$$$ on trying to cure climate.
Send them here as we don’t have enough cholera and other third world diseases.
Done!
I have a gas stove. Let’s see them pry it out of my cold dead hands.
They won’t care if you keep the stove. They will just see that you can’t get any fuel for it.
It is illegal in my town to have a propane storage tank to supply the household.
All gas used must be natural gas piped in and sold by one supplier who seems to only buy its gas supply during the high priced winter heating season. Natural gas prices have never been higher. There is no shortage, there has never been a gas outage. They easily deliver as much as demand calls for. Yet, every year, the gas utility sends out multicolored mailers urging you to set your thermostat to 65 degrees to “save money and energy”.
There is no science behind the theory of CAGW and zero supporting data.
Humans have been in this place many times before and the truth will out eventually. It’s just a pity we never seem to learn from past mistakes even those being revealed as we live through the current torrents of lies and half truths.
The CC narrative (or any other flavor of the day) follows the $$…which WILL dry up…when the next ‘favored’ narrative arrives. The real problem is sheeples’ addiction to narratives to provide meaning and purpose in their lives, vs independent, rational thought.
We are not programmed to respond in that area.
— I Mudd
A Star Trek fan!
(Maybe if we reversed the AI’s polarity …) 😎
This isn’t drying up in the foreseeable future.
There are no attempts to explain how CC supposedly contributes to the increased incidence of cholera no references no footnotes, it is merely assumed readers will expect CC to be involved indicating how successful the propaganda campaigns have been.
Yes. We are not winning.
Chris ==> The UN (and mass media formula) is Bad Weather = Climate Change.
Yes.
Did they ever think that, then, Good Weather must also = Climate Change?
(But good weather rarely get a Headline.)
They used to claim that “climate is not weather”. Now they claim that climate change causes bad weather.
Which was laid first? The chicken or the egg? 😎
(Of course, what passes for science today, it might have been the rooster!)
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
Existence, as you know it, is over.
— Climate Borg
It’s not just cholera, but polio, which is also spread via the orofaecal route, and intestinal worms.
If these places are also sites for parasitic worms (helminths) then there’s a reason why a bacterial infection or a viral infection can increase in morbidity, and it’s nothing to do with climate change but is a function of a person’s immune system. Helminth infestation causes the immune system to switch to fighting the parasite, unfortunately that mode switch makes the immune system less effective at fighting bacterial and viral infections.
What is needed is clean sanitation, both drinking water and toilet facilities. Not pontificating about weather.
If it were weather, then why were there cholera outbreaks in London in the halcyon days of the 19th century when Carbon dioxide was 300 ppm and temperatures were colder than now ?
JohnC ==> Intestinal worms are ubiquitous in the 3rd World. One program we ran was distributing “3rd world Children’s Vitamins) to school children along the DR/Haitian border. We had to supply de-worming medicine at the same time or the worms would have simply absorbed all the vitamins intended for the children.
My thoughts are that this is why anti parasitics appeared to be effective against COVID, when in fact they allowed the immune system to respond to the virus instead of the parasite.
Please do not confuse people with the facts.
The truth? They can’t handle the truth.
(Borrowed, with apologies, from A Few Good Men)
What is obviously the real root cause with cholera outbreaks is not climate change, but political change.
It only takes a few seconds looking at the locational map of areas/nations that have the highest cholera cases are also the most politically unstable nations in the world, being either in the midst of or aftermath of civil war and/or major regime changes, such as Afghanistan and much of Africa.
The obvious physical link between cholera cases and political instability is the creation of large, concentrated refugee communities that lack any sanitation at all, and the destruction of existing clean water production and distribution infrastructure.
I guess it must have been climate change in the late 18th century that caused more than half of all Continental Army and colonial militia forces either dying or being disabled by cholera at any given time during the Revolutionary War, when large numbers of soldiers were living in tent cities with no sanitation for months at a time during the winter “non-fighting season”. Which cases mysteriously disappeared when those same forces moved out of their camps during the warm “fighting season”
and thus were not drinking each other’s poop. The warmer it was, the fewer the number of cholera cases.
Throughout all of human history until the 20th century, when modern sanitation facilities first became widely spread in combat areas, diseases, including cholera, were the single biggest source of war casualties. Other diseases also spread in densely populated military camps, including yellow fever.
What percentage of those places in
“the midst of or aftermath of civil war and/or major regime changes”
are not due to differences of religious viewpoints?
Seems somewhat like “climate change” beliefs.
American Civil War as well.
I would note that all of the countries involved are run by socialists, kleptocrats, or reactionary theocrats, with those characterizations not being mutually exclusive.
Tom ==> Mis-governance is a primary cause of a great deal of misery.
Mis-governance would merely be incompetence. These are mostly malicious dictators.
Climate: definition: long term average of weather in a location or area. In the case of micro climate, it is usually 30 years.
Climate change: definition: long term changes in weather patterns. Again in a location or area and usually in the micro climate definition of 30 years. In the case of ice age cycles, over the course of 100+ thousand years.
When the “science” pays your salary … you train your dogs by giving them rewards / treats.
Story tip:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2011/02/22/196987/when-the-butterfly-effect-took-flight/
This was published in 2011 but bears repeating. It is the discovery of the “butterfly effect” by Edward Lorenz (MIT).
It points out that in chaotic systems (such as weather), a small variation in input parameters can have vastly different results (in models).
“the imprecision inherent in any human measurement could become magnified into wildly incorrect forecasts.”
Having read it, it seems CO2 is the butterfly in the climate models. The value of the RCPs (Representative Concentration Pathways) in projecting the future therefore are useless. Model ensembles are useless unless they include input cases that vary by tiny amounts, on the scale of the imprecision of measurements.
“Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?”
Recall “runaway greenhouse effect” followed by runaway “global warming.”
This may be the missing piece of the puzzle as to why climate models are so bad and also that climate models cannot possibly project very far into the future.
Sparta ==> stay tuned,,,,covering that again soon. [I did an entire series on Chaos and Climate here years ago…]
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/15/chaos-climate-part-1-linearity/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/23/chaos-climate-part-2-chaos-stability/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/04/chaos-climate-part-3-chaos-models/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/22/chaos-climate-part-4-an-attractive-idea/
There were a couple more somewhere…
https://judithcurry.com/2016/10/05/lorenz-validated/
“The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
https://archive.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/index.php?idp=501#:~:text=The%20climate%20system%20is%20a,of%20ensembles%20of%20model%20solutions
“Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?”
No. The effects of a butterfly’s wings are swamped immediately by any very tiny breeze.
What anybody should ask when they look at Figure 1, the WHO cholera data, is: “What the heck happened in 2017?
Kevin ==> Zambia Cholera Outbreak…. late 2017 thru 2018.