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Roger

Many thanks for posting Indur Goklany's rejected letter. One day, someone will have to publish a whole book of all the countless letters rejected by Nature and Science on the global warming debates.

With regards to the effects of moderate warming on human health during the 20th century, it is important to emphasise that the benefits outweigh the costs by far (see: http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/0000000CA90D.htm) and
here http://reason.com/rb/rb042501.shtml).

Benny

Hi,

Indur Goklany almost always writes well. But it's unfortunate he didn't address the probability that, to date, global warming has probably saved more lives than it has cost.

As Benny Peiser notes in his opinion piece, multiple studies support the idea that extreme cold weather is a significant danger to human health. So why, other than simple bias, would the WHO not attempt to quantify the deaths avoided by a reduced number of extreme cold weather events?

In a similar manner, indoor air pollution from burning of fuels causes an estimated 1.4 million deaths each year, worldwide. It seems likely that at least some of the burning of fuels is for heating, and that such fuel usage could be reduced by warmer weather. Why not attempt to address this possibility?

Most of the deaths from indoor burning of fuels results from cooking using fuels with 0.000001 heating value in India and China (aka dried animal droppings and such in polite company). These are also major contributors to carbon particulate emissions from those areas (Asian brown cloud). However, efforts to improve the stoves and substitute better fuels have not worked very well because most of the people who do this have no income.

It is not something that will be effected much by warmer or colder weather, but cash would help.

Links in Benny Peiser's comment above should be:

http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/0000000CA90D.htm

http://reason.com/rb/rb042501.shtml

I wrote, "In a similar manner, indoor air pollution from burning of fuels causes an estimated 1.4 million deaths each year, worldwide. It seems likely that at least some of the burning of fuels is for heating, and that such fuel usage could be reduced by warmer weather. Why not attempt to address this possibility?"

Eli Rabett responded, "Most of the deaths from indoor burning of fuels results from cooking..."

I don't dispute that MOST of the estimated 1.4 million deaths per year from indoor air pollution due to burning solid fuels are probably from solid fuels for cooking (versus heating).

But let's take a guess that 95% of the deaths are due to using solid fuels for cooking, and only 5% of the deaths are due to solid fuels for heating. That would still leave 70,000 annual deaths related to indoor air pollution from using solid fuels for heating. Those deaths would decrease (if only slightly) from warmer winters.

Further, in Beijing and other major cities in China, there are measurable increases in OUTDOOR particulate levels associated with burning coal for heating in winter. There must be deaths related to these increases in particulate concentrations in winter. Such deaths would decrease (if only slightly) due to warmer winters.

So why did the WHO not try to quantify these decreases in deaths that might occur due to global warming?

That's really a rhetorical question. The answer is that the WHO isn't interested in an unbiased examination of whether global warming causes a net increase or decrease in deaths. And neither is Nature.

An amusing quote from the WHO report:

"Change in world climate would influence the functioning of many ecosystems and their member
species. Likewise, there would be impacts on human health. Some of these health impacts would be beneficial. For example, milder winters would reduce the seasonal winter-time peak in deaths that occurs in temperate countries, while in currently hot regions a further increase in temperatures might reduce the viability of
disease-transmitting mosquito populations. Overall, however, scientists consider that most of the health impacts of climate change would be adverse."

Oh, well! If (unidentified!) "scientists" "consider" something to be true, then obviously it must be true! No need to present or even consider any actual evidence on the matter!

Unbelievable. This from a "scientific" organization! (And of course parroted in Nature.)

Let us not take a wild guess Mark. Why don't you look it up.

Correct link for McMichael et al.:

http://www.who.int/publications/cra/chapters/volume2/1543-1650.pdf

Eli Rabett writes, "Let us not take a wild guess Mark. Why don't you look it up."

You mean, why don't I look it up...as opposed to you implying that the number is zero, without providing any supporting evidence at all?

But as a matter of fact, I *did* try to "look it up." (Did you, when you implied the number was zero?)

All I could find was this study, which seemed to indicate that the number of deaths attributable to cooking was considerably higher than the number of deaths attributable to heating. But I knew that already...it makes sense that the exposure levels are much higher standing right over a cooking flame than if the stove is being used for heating.

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/162/4/326

In any case, I freely concede that the combined number of deaths reduced (from reductions in indoor and outdoor air pollution) would probably be very small (probably in the low 10s of thousands). However, the number of deaths that the WHO attributes to global warming (er, "climate change") is also incredibly small (at 150,000), as Roger Pielke Jr. pointed out.

My point still stands...why didn't the WHO calculate the human health benefits due to more CO2 and a warmer world? The answer is (obviously) that they had no interest at all in trying to objectively assess whether there might be a net *benefit.*

P.S. BTW, you might try to "look up" your "0.000001 heating value" number...which doesn't even make any sense, without any units.

**klaxon**

Bahner alert!

**klaxon**

I enjoyed Benny's arty: "It's the cold that kills, exceptin' when it's the heat that kills", thank you for the link.

The true test will be when the cheap fuel that allows personal climate mitigation becomes scarce, or as we all know, when folk don't have fossil fuel systems to mitigate extremes. As in Yurp.

And all the poor in Chicago who died of the heat a few years back. Remember them?

Best,

D

Dano

Nice try - but you're wide off the mark. FYI: I didn't write the headline to my short comment on excess winter vs excess summer deaths and the general health benefits of moderate warming.

I'm afraid you are also misguided with your reference to the 1995 Chicago heat wave. The 500-700 excess deaths were primarily due to a power failure that left some 50,000 citizens without electricity during the heat. The heat wave of 1999, in contrast, 'only' caused 100 excess deaths due to heat-related illnesses.

By far the most important point to understand in this context is that in the U.S. - and much of the developed world - the average number of heat-related excess deaths has *significantly* declined during the last three or four decades - inspite of rising temperatures; see:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/443213in.html

Finally, let me recommend a brand new book that was published today by Cambridge University Press. It might help to lessen your apparent anxiety about both the alleged scarcity and the future impact of fossil fuels. It would appear that the rumours about the end of the fossil fuel age are greatly exaggerated.
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521861799

Benny

I forgot the link to the following paper:

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2003/6336/6336.html

Benny

"the average number of heat-related excess deaths has *significantly* declined during the last three or four decades - in spite of rising temperatures"

Yes, that's my point Benny - this number of deaths is in spite of rising temps, because we mitigate extremes via energy consumption. Those who cannot afford energy consumption to mitigate extremes are vulnerable.

Thank you for helping me clarify my point.

Best,

D

P.S.: Oh, thanks for the EHP linky. My, aren't there some familiar names in the pub.!

And the very first two sentences of the abstract certainly are an...er...interesting comparison to your Spiked arty:

Abstract
Heat is the primary weather-related cause of death in the United States. Increasing heat and humidity, at least partially related to anthropogenic climate change, suggest that a long-term increase in heat-related mortality could occur.

My.

Dano

I recommend informing yourself before cherry-picking individual sentences. I'm not so sure that heat-releated mortality is "the primary weather-related cause of death in the United States." The data appear to be contradictory. The National Center for Health Statistics, for instance, indicates that on average four times more people in the United States die of “excessive cold” conditions than of “excessive heat.”
http://ams.allenpress.com/amsonline/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2FBAMS-86-7-937

But you are right: poor countries and poor people suffer more from the impact of climatic stress than those with higher living standards. This is exactly why free-market environmentalists like Goklany, myself and many others argue that economic growth and development significantly enhances adaptive capacities and thus tends to be more beneficial to human health, and certainly more cost-effective, than current attempts to 'stop' climate change by curtailing the supply of cheap energy.
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V9/N3/B2.jsp

Benny

BenBenBen,

You'll note I made no claims to the accuracy of the conflicting information YOU provided to support your claim. I apologize for pointing out it didn't support your claim as you wished.

But I don't apologize for pointing out your insistence on presenting simplistic binary argumentation on peak oil, combined with your use of CO2 Sci makes me wonder whether thou doth protest too much, methinks.

Best,

D