You Ought to Have A Look: Global Warming Will Make the Earth Uninhabitable and Other Cli-Fi Funnies
Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger You Ought to Have a Look is a feature from the Center for the Study of Science posted by Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. (“Chip”) Knappenberger. While this section will feature all of the areas of interest that we are emphasizing, the prominence of the climate issue is driving a tremendous amount of web traffic. Here we post a few of the best in recent days, along with our color commentary. ——– A favorite global warming chesnut is that human-caused climate change will make the planet uninhabitable for Homo sapiens (that’s us). The latest iteration of this cli-fi classic appears in this week’s New York Times’ coverage of the U.N. climate talks taking place in Lima, Peru (talks that are destined to fail, as we point out here). Back in September, The World Health Organization (WHO) released a study claiming that global warming as a result of our pernicious economic activity will lead to a quarter million extra deaths each year during 2030 to 2050. Yup, starting a mere 15 years from today. Holy cats! That raised the antennae of Indur M. Goklany, a science and technical policy analyst who studies humanity’s well-being and the impact of environmental change upon it. Goklany detailed many of his findings in a 2007 book he wrote for Cato, The Improving State of the World: Why We’re Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet. As you may imagine, Goklany, found much at fault with the WHO study and wrote his findings up for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)—a U.K. think tank which produces a lot of good material on global warming. In “Unhealthy Exaggeration: The WHO report on climate change” Goklany doesn’t pull any punches. You ought to have a look at the full report, but in the meantime, here is the Summary: In the run-up to the UN climate summit in September 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) released, with much fanfare, a study that purported to show that global warming will exacerbate under nutrition (hunger), malaria, dengue, excessive heat and coastal flooding and thereby cause 250,000 additional deaths annually between 2030 and 2050. This study, however, is fundamentally flawed. Firstly, it uses climate model results that have been shown to run at least three times hotter than empirical reality (0.15◦C vs 0.04◦C per decade, respectively), despite using 27% lower greenhouse gas forcing. Secondly, it ignores the fact that people and societies are not potted plants; that they will actually take steps to reduce, if not nullify, real or perceived threats to their life, limb and well-being. Thus, if the seas rise around them, heatwaves become more prevalent, or malaria, diarrhoeal disease and hunger spread, they will undertake adaptation measures to protect themselves and reduce, if not eliminate, the adverse consequences. This is not a novel concept. Societies have been doing just this for as long as such threats have been around, and over time and as technology has advanced they have gotten better at it. Moreover, as people have become wealthier, these technologies have become more affordable. Consequently, global mortality rates from malaria and extreme weather events, for instance, have been reduced at least five-fold in the past 60 years. Yet, the WHO study assumes, explicitly or implicitly, that in the future the most vulnerable populations – low income countries in Africa, Europe, southeast Asia and the western Pacific – will not similarly avail themselves of technology or take any commonsense steps to protect themselves. This is despite many suitable measures already existing – adapting to sea level rise for example – while others are already at the prototype stage and are being further researched and developed: early-warning systems for heatwaves or the spread of malaria or steps to improve sanitation, hygiene or the safety of drinking water. Finally, the WHO report assumes, erroneously, if the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report is to be believed, that carbon dioxide levels above 369 ppm – today we are at 400ppm and may hit 650ppm if the scenario used by the WHO is valid – will have no effect on crop yields. Therefore, even if one assumes that the relationships between climatic variables and mortality used by the WHO study are valid, the methodologies and assumptions used by WHO inevitably exaggerate future mortality increases attributable to global warming, perhaps several-fold. In keeping with the topic of bad predictions, check out the “Friday Funny” at the Watts Up With That blog where guest blogger Tom Scott has compiled a list of failed eco-climate claims dating back nearly a century. He’s collected some real doozies. Here are a few of the best: “By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” -Paul Ehrlich, Speech at British Institute For Biology, September 1971 Some predictions for the next decade (1990’s) are not difficult to make… Americans may see the ’80s migration to the Sun Belt reverse as a global warming trend rekindles interest in cooler climates. -Dallas Morning News December 5th 1989 Giant sand dunes may turn Plains to desert – Huge sand dunes extending east from Colorado’s Front Range may be on the verge of breaking through the thin topsoil, transforming America’s rolling High Plains into a desert, new research suggests. The giant sand dunes discovered in NASA satellite photos are expected to re- emerge over the next 20 to 50 years, depending on how fast average temperatures rise from the suspected “greenhouse effect,” scientists believe. -Denver Post April 18, 1990 There are many more where these came from. To lighten your day, you ought to have a look!
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