If earth were warming, it would save a lot of lives
First, if the earth was warming at a rate of about 1 or even 2 degrees per century in recent decades, there are reasons to believe that's slowed or stopped. One of those reasons is that the "global warming" fanatics have abruptly shifted their rhetoric, adopting instead the new nonsense euphemism "climate change."
This is a clear attempt at inoculation: If it turns out the globe is indeed cooling again, they will merely take their same pre-set, ulterior agenda -- huge energy tax hikes to finance bigger government, cripple capitalism and destroy the freedom-giving automobile, instead forcing everyone to pile like lemmings into mass transit -- and declare that an identical agenda is now needed to fight "global cooling." And we dare not lose any time in debate! Hee-haw!
Furthermore, even if the earth did warm a bit in recent decades, there's no reason to believe man's activities played a substantial role. Carbon dioxide is not a particularly effective greenhouse gas, nor the most prevalent. (Water vapor is.) The amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide generated by man's activities is infinitessimal.
And third, even if the earth is warming and mankind somehow contributed to the process, no regulations promulgated by the U.S. government can have any useful impact, because the U.S. government has no authority over the activities of fast-industrializing India and China, where new coal-fired generators come on line weekly.
But let us, for the sake of argument, stipulate to all three flimsy links in this chain. Let us stipulate that the earth is warming noticeably and will continue to do so; carbon dioxide generated by mankind plays a dominant role in this process; and some set of expensive, Draconian regulations that can be promulgated and enforced by the EPA or a high-handed White House can end or substantially reduce global warming.
OK. We're still left with an important question: Should that be done? That is to say, is there any scientific reason to believe that moderate global warming will do more harm than good to the health and safety of mankind?
And the answer is ... no.
"The maximal increase in atmospheric CO2 from combustion of hydrocarbon fuels cannot harm human health directly," points out Howard Maccabee, Ph.D., M.D., in the November 2008 newsletter of the group he heads, the Tucson-based Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. Rather, the "hypothetical mechanism of harm" now being used to justify EPA intervention under the Clean Air Act is through global warming.
"Many scientists dispute the predictions from the U.N. IPCC computer models," Dr. Maccabee notes. However -- here's the killer -- "even if the models are correct, warming would be a net benefit to human health. Hence the EPA has no legitimate authority to regulate CO2 emissions."
The doctor then proceeds to spell that out.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (a political organization) gives an average temperature increase of 4.5 Centigrade as a worst-case scenario. There is historical precedent for increases of this magnitude, Dr. Maccabee points out. Stalagmite proxies in South Africa indicate increases of up to 4 C in the Medieval Warm Period (formerly called the Medieval Climate Optimum). Because of the urban heat island effect, large cities have shown temperature increases as much as 3 C (e.g. Tokyo 1876-2004) to 4 C (New York City 1822-2000). We thus have data to evaluate the health effects of climate change.
In 1995, Thomas Gale Moore published the first of his pioneering efforts, "Why Global Warming Would be Good for You," and in 1998, "Health and Amenity Effects of Global Warming." He estimated that a temperature increase of 2.5 C in the United States would cause a drop of 40,000 deaths per year from respiratory and circulatory disease, based on U.S. mortality statistics as a function of monthly climate change. Two other studies, one by the Eurowinter Group in 1997 and one in 2000 by the British Medical Journal -- hardly a fringe of flaky publication -- examined mortality as a function of mean daily temperature.
In 2006, A.J. McMichael et al. assume, in "Climate Change and Human Health: Present and Future Risks," that the maximum daily mortality in higher temperature periods will be equal to or greater than the maximum mortality in cold periods, resulting in heat-related deaths increasing far more than the lives saved by warming of the cold periods. But "this hypothesis is inconsistent with U.S. data showing that mortality due to cardiac, vascular and respiratory disease in winter is seven times greater than in summer," Dr. Maccabee and Doctors for Disaster Preparedness now report. "This ratio is about nine to 10 in Europe, from the data of Keatinge, et al."
In early 2008, a United Kingdom Department of Health study found that there was no increase in heat-related deaths from 1971 to 2002, despite warming in summers, suggesting that the UK population is adapting to warmer conditions. But cold-related mortality fell by more than a third in all regions. The overall trend in mortality for the warming from 1971 to 2002 was beneficial.
"The data from the Eurowinter Group (Lancet 1997) on mortality versus temperature can be used for a quantitative estimate of mortality benefits from warming," Doctors for Disaster Preparedness conclude. "This would lead to an estimated 25,000 to 50,000 fewer deaths in the U.S. per year for a 1-degree C temperature rise. This can be compared to 30,000 deaths per year from breast cancer, 30,000 for prostate cancer, or about 40,000 from motor vehicle accidents."
Global warming (if it were happening) would save lives -- lots of them. The "climate change" we should really worry about is the next Ice Age, which could see everything north of Columbus, Ohio, covered by an ice shelf a mile thick.
Do the global warming fanatics think we can prevent that by burning lots of coal and putting lots of miles on our SUVs? If so, shouldn't we start right now, just in case?
Meantime, can someone explain again why Barack Obama gets to play commander in chief of the auto industry, wave his magic wand, and declare that an industry already in bankruptcy will have to charge an extra $1,500 per vehicle to limit carbon dioxide emissions to "fight global warming" ... when it turns out global warming would save human lives?
The full text of Dr. Maccabee's comments, together with figures and references, are posted at www.ddponline.org.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the books "Send in the Waco Killers" and "The Black Arrow." See www.vinsuprynowicz.com/ and http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/vin/
