The missing context to climate alarmism

Article Title

Author: Bjorn Lomborg

1. Posted on: Sat, September 2, 2023
2. Category: Academia
3. Tags: heatwave, climate-change, fire, flood, death, US, Europa, Africa, emission

Introduction

As surely as temperatures rise during the summer, climate alarmism serves up more stories of life-threatening heat domes, apocalyptic fires, and biblical floods, all blamed squarely on global warming. Yet, the data to prove this link is often cherry-picked, and the proposed policy responses are enormously ineffective.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being

Heatwaves are clearly made worse by global warming. But saturation-level media coverage of high temperatures in summertime fails to tell the bigger story: Temperature-driven deaths are overwhelmingly caused by cold. Globally, a recent Lancet study found 4.5 million cold deaths, which is nine times more than global heat deaths. The study also finds that temperatures increasing half a degree Celsius in the first two decades of this century have caused an additional 116,000 heat deaths annually. But warmer temperatures now also avoid 283,000 cold deaths every year. Reporting only on the former leaves us badly informed.

SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy

Avoiding both cold and heat deaths requires affordable energy access. In the US, cheap gas from fracking allowed millions to keep warmer with low budgets, saving 12,500 lives each year. Climate policy, which inevitably makes the most energy more expensive, achieves the opposite.

Policy Recommendations

Even if all the world’s ambitious carbon-cutting promises were magically enacted, these policies would only slow future warming. Stronger heat waves would still kill more people, just slightly fewer than they would have. A sensible response would focus first on resilience, meaning more air conditioning and cooler cities through greenery and water features. After 2003 heat waves, France’s rational reforms that included mandatory air conditioning in care homes reduced heat deaths 10-fold, despite higher temperatures.

SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

A sensible response would focus first on resilience, meaning more air conditioning and cooler cities through greenery and water features. After 2003 heat waves, France’s rational reforms that included mandatory air conditioning in care homes reduced heat deaths 10-fold, despite higher temperatures.

Climate Change Misconceptions

Along with temperature spikes, alarming images of forest fires share the front pages this summer. You’d easily get the sense that the planet is on fire. The reality is that since NASA satellites started accurately recording fires across the entire surface of the planet two decades ago, there has been a strong downward trend. In the early 2000s, 3 percent of the world’s land area burned each year. Last year, fire burned 2.2 percent of the world’s land area, a new record-low. Yet, you would struggle to find that reported anywhere.

This year, fires have burned much more in the Americas than over the past decade. This has constantly been reported in the media. But fires have burned much less in both Africa and Europe compared to the last decade. Cumulatively to Aug. 12, the Global Wildfire Information System shows that the whole world has actually burned less than the average over the last decade.

Pointing wrongly to climate change is dangerous because cutting emissions is one of the least effective ways to help prevent future fires. Much faster, more effective and cheaper solutions include controlled fires to burn away vegetation fuels that could otherwise result in wildfire, improving zoning and enhanced forest management.

SDG 13: Climate Action

Pointing wrongly to climate change is dangerous because cutting emissions is one of the least effective ways to help prevent future fires. Much faster, more effective and cheaper solutions include controlled fires to burn away vegetation fuels that could otherwise result in wildfire, improving zoning and enhanced forest management.

Conclusion

Floods are similarly routinely ascribed to global warming. However, the UN Climate Panel’s latest report has “low confidence in general statements to attribute changes in flood events to anthropogenic climate change.” The experts emphasize that neither river nor coastal floods are currently statistically detectable from the background noise of natural climate variability. Indeed, the UN Panel finds that such floods won’t be statistically detectable by the end of the century, even under an extreme scenario.

In the US, flood damage used to cost 0.5 percent of GDP in the early 1900s. Now, it only costs one-tenth of that, because greater resiliency and development vastly outweigh any residual climate signal.

While climate alarmism reaches new heights of scariness—with the UN secretary-general’s “global boiling” claims entering ridiculous territory—the reality is more prosaic. Global warming will cause costs equivalent to one or two recessions over the rest of this century. That makes it a real problem, but not an end-of-the-world catastrophe that justifies the costliest policies.

Policy Recommendations

The commonsense response would be to recognize that both climate change and carbon-cutting policies incur costs. We should carefully negotiate a middle pathway where we aim for effective approaches that do the most to reduce damages at a reasonable cost.

SDG 13: Climate Action

To do better on climate, we must resist the misleading, alarmist climate narrative. Panic is a terrible advisor.

About the Author

The writer is president of the Copenhagen Consensus, visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and the author of, most recently, Best Things First.

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators Analysis

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
• SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
• SDG 13: Climate Action

The article discusses the impact of climate change on health, energy access, urban resilience, and climate policy, which are all relevant to the mentioned SDGs.

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

• Target 3.4: By 2030, reduce by one-third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being.
• Target 7.1: By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services.
• Target 11.5: By 2030, significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected and substantially decrease the direct economic losses relative to global gross domestic product caused by disasters, including water-related disasters, with a focus on protecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations.
• Target 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries.

These targets address the specific issues discussed in the article, such as reducing premature mortality from temperature-related causes, ensuring affordable energy access, enhancing urban resilience to extreme weather events, and strengthening adaptive capacity to climate change.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

• Indicator 3.4.1: Mortality rate attributed to cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, or chronic respiratory disease.
• Indicator 7.1.1: Proportion of the population with access to electricity.
• Indicator 11.5.1: Number of deaths, missing persons, and directly affected persons attributed to disasters per 100,000 population.
• Indicator 13.1.1: Number of deaths, missing persons, and directly affected persons attributed to disasters per 100,000 population.

These indicators can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets by tracking mortality rates from non-communicable diseases, access to electricity, the impact of disasters on population, and the capacity to respond to climate-related hazards.

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators Table

Behold! This splendid article springs forth from the wellspring of knowledge, shaped by a wondrous proprietary AI technology that delved into a vast ocean of data, illuminating the path towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Remember that all rights are reserved by SDG Investors LLC, empowering us to champion progress together.

Source: thejakartapost.com

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