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The Unsexy Stuff
Given all the attention it has received recently, it’s worth considering climate change’s potential implications in perspective. That is, even if we take some of the worst-case scenarios at face value, what kind of problems are on the table?
Via Bjorn Lomborg, the World Health Organization (hardly a conservative source) estimates that there are 141,000 deaths each year attributable to climate change. I haven’t been able to track down a more recent number, but — given that we’re trying to do a worst case-scenario and that the WHO currently estimates that this number will climb to 250,000* by 2030 or 2050 — let’s just call it 200,000 per year now. For the sake of argument, let’s further stipulate that this is mostly human-caused. (By the way, I have this farm that I’m looking to sell, cheap. I mean, I’d like to make make money on it, but if you’re really interested…)
Now, that’s a lot of people, the equivalent of about 75% of the 2004 Asian Tsunami each year. Obviously, we’d like to see that number lowered and there are doubtless a great many small things we could do to reduce harm at the margins. But before we put on our do-gooder hat, we should consider two additional questions: 1) What are the costs (economics and human) of ameliorating this harm?; and 2) Are there other harms that are equally or even more worthy of our attention?
The answers to both of these questions — or, indeed, either individually — strongly suggests that a concerted effort to “stop” climate change is a lousy way to save human lives (though there may well be other benefits that make it worthwhile). Pollution caps of the variety that might actually matter in this context are unbelievably expensive and would disproportionately hurt the poor, denying them access to the economic, medical, and social boons allowed by inexpensive and reliable energy sources.
Second, even with those dire numbers, we’re still not looking at the biggest causes of preventable death in the developing world. For starters, consider Lomborg’s hobbyhorse of malaria deaths, which are currently estimated to be around 580,000 per year — plus millions more made sick — and are overwhelmingly preventable and at relatively little cost. Or the 840,000 annual deaths from diarrhea from unsanitary water supplies. Consider further the 3.8 million people who die early from indoor smoke inhalation, something — ironically — that could be directly prevented by swapping indoor fireplaces for oil, gas, and electricity. (All these stats, by the way, are from the WHO).
There is no shortage of suffering in the word and a great deal of it can be prevented through our action. But even if climate alarmists are right in all their predictions of harm, they’re certainly wrong in their prescriptions. Fossil fuels are the source of many of the modern world’s blessings and surprisingly few of its tragedies.
* Update: A friend rightly points out that the WHO statistics on deaths attributable to global warming are limited “malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress” and do not include, say, deaths from climate-caused natural disasters. However, that same report states that all deaths from “weather-related natural disasters” are about 60,000/year on average. If — again, to worst-case scenario this — we attribute half of those to anthropogenic climate change, we’re not substantially changing the numbers.
Published in Environment, Science & Technology
So I disagree with Tom’s premise here. Climate change activists have made a hobby of finding ways to make the data not bare out the obvious conclusion: Extreme cold kills more people each year than extreme heat.
You don’t need to take my word for it, you can simply read the past several official reports on climate change. Over time, deaths which correlate strongly with extreme cold have been purged from this category. Most diseases kill more the colder it gets. These tend to be ignored from a perspective of cold deaths, while malaria is included in the deaths caused by heat.
On the net, a warming Earth saves lives, separate from any human actions to save them.
I would challenge that number itself on the basis that it is almost certainly a gross number and not net of those deaths prevented by changes to the climate.
For example, assuming arguendo that the world is warming, there might be more deaths due to heat, but fewer due to the cold. The total death number should be the net of the two. There might be deaths attributed to forest fires but deaths averted due to fewer hurricanes.
The problem is that it is not possible to count how many deaths did not occur because of the very climate changes blamed for causing some deaths. But, since more people die from the cold every year than from the heat, it stands to reason that climate change is, on net, not responsible for very many deaths at all.
I wonder what reasons the climate hysterics give for why they don’t care about these deaths much if at all? Is it because they don’t see how avoiding these deaths will help with their broader goals of consolidating power and destroying capitalism?
Like Frank, I have a problem with the premise. It’s far easier to determine the number of people who die from diarrhea, malaria, and even smoke inhalation. I defy someone to approach that level of accuracy with regard to something as evanescent as “climate change.”
But, with that out of the way, Tom is exactly right. If, for purposes of argument, you accept the number thrown out by the WHO, the world would be far better off attacking issues that it can actually do something about: cleaner water and killing mosquitoes, for example. DDT does the latter very well, thank you very much, Rachel Carson.
So, even if all the warmist stuff is true, the solution is not to shut down world commerce.
We’re stepping over dollars to pick up Weimar Germany’s marks.
I think if environmental options were explained more as tradeoffs, people would understand them better. The environmental left wants to spend a trillion dollars to reduce global atmospheric CO2 concentration by 0.002%. For that same money, we could supply clean water to all of sub-Saharan Africa, clean up the Pacific garbage gyre, and set up game preserves for endangered species.
A rational person would say clean water and animals, man. But leftists, failing to understand economics or the concept of finite resources would say, “Can’t we do both.”
Those are both very relevant points, but my point was that even if we grant the assumptions of the other side, the numbers still don’t make the point they think they does.
Or, one could tie the subject to Max’s article on Carly, and compare the (purported) global warming deaths to the deaths via abortion, just in America.
I am not going to claim that my approach is objectively better, but I generally avoid this line of argumentation these days.
Most people aren’t trying to maximize efficiency in life. Telling them that far more lives can be saved for far less money by addressing other issues isn’t very compelling to most people.
“Sure, fighting malaria with mosquito nets is a good idea. Let’s do that AND fight global warming. Look how many more lives we will save then!”
Rachel Carson is a big hero here in Pittsburgh. Her Book Silent Spring is considered by many to be the origin of the modern environmentalist movement. Unfortunately, I have been stunned to look up some studies that completely blow away her whole premise in the book, which led to the banning of DDT. So, due to this American hero, over 50 million folks have died of malaria needlessly. I really don’t think these people care one bit about how many people are dying one way or the other.
Almost every argument i have with climate change alarmists boils down to the idea that man has been polluting the environment only since the Industrial Revolution, so even if it isn’t so bad now it will only get worse. Plus, the oil and metals in the earth will eventually run out. Our free-market capitalist lifestyle is not sustainable, they say. They also all believe that earth is already vastly over-populated, and that genetically modifying food to feed all these people is a dangerous idea.
Even if/when you convince them that people aren’t really dying from carbon emissions, etc., they still say that climate change will eventually be a problem.
This post comes very close to addressing my biggest problem with the climate alarmists: it is a given in their minds that if the phenomenon exists (which I am willing to concede is possible), then we must accept their bundle of solutions and turn the world economy over to AlGore and his minions. There is a chance that the climate is changing due to anthropogenic causes: if so, the process has been going on for at least half a century and we have already been dealing with it. The whole thing is just a new sledge hammer/boogie man for the left to beat/scare us with as they try to jam us into their little utopia.
Can you imagine the people of 1900 trying their damnedest to predict and then solve the problems of 2000? They wouldn’t have a clue what those problems would be nor would they have a clue about the ability of today’s people and our technology to solve those problems.
Likewise, consider the hubris of people who think that they know today what the problems will be 100 years from now and what technology will available to solve them.
I’m not the smartest guy in the room but I will offer some anecdotal evidence about the water problem and health. When our family lived in India my mom supervised the boiling of water that was to be used for cooking and washing vegetables. Every morning she would watch our cook to make sure that the water was boiled because she didn’t trust him to carry out that order without her direct supervision. According to mom we were the only family assigned to the US Embassy that did not contract a single case of hepatitis during our 2 year tour in New Delhi. This was long before global warming or climate change was on the world’s radar.
When we came back to the States a customs official wanted to place our family in quarantine because of a cholera epidemic in India. My dad told him there was a cholera outbreak every other week in India and we weren’t going to be quarantined, and we were allowed to leave the airport.
No they don’t care about people. Once something is put out in public especially when one takes the position of being an expert, it seems it takes many times more effort to get information out to challenge it. The first one with a message has the biggest impact. Offense is better than defense.
It would seem we could be a little suspicous of the proposals of activists calling for broad control of people using scare tactics to make people think they have to act against their own interests.
It is all about the tax money that can be harvested and not about what actually could be done. There is a total disconnect between the claims of what awful things will happen and how those that promote it actually live. Follow the money.
http://www.principia-scientific.org/time-to-stop-the-insanity-of-wasting-time-and-money-on-more-climate-models.html