Cutting Health Care Costs With Global Warming

More in the ongoing debate at Freakonomics.  This post, about whether or not global warming belief is a religion, has prompted a mini-debate in the comments.  In the course of responding to another commenter, I Googled the phrase “unexpected benefits of global warming” and found an interesting academic paper.  My Freakonomics post is here:

“STOP THE PRESSES!

I have stumbled over the trump card for this debate. I Googled the phrase, “unexpected benefits of global warming” and this is the first link that came up: http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/health.html

And, in the second paragraph of the Section II, “Health Effects” was this line:

“Thus the gain in reduced health costs from a warming of 2.5deg.C would be on the order of $3.0 billion in 1971 dollars or $21.7 billion in 1994 dollars, adjusting for population growth and price changes (using the price index for medical care).”

Why, this paper from Stanford is just full of interesting tidbits:

“Other studies of the influence of climate change on human health have examined a rather narrow set of potential medical areas. The underlying research has generally referred to Lyme disease, malaria, dengue and yellow fevers, and encephalitis, none of which is a major health problem in the United States. The IPCC (1995, p. SPM-10) has asserted that the “geographical zone of potential malaria transmission in response to world temperature increases at the upper part of the IPCC-projected range (3-5deg.C by 2100) would increase from approximately 45% of the world population to approximately 60% by the latter half of the next century.” On the other hand, the WHO notes that until recent times, endemic malaria was widespread in Europe and parts of North American and that yellow fever occasionally caused epidemics in Portugal, Spain and the USA. Stringent control measures … and certain changes in life-style following economic progress, have led to the eradication of malaria and yellow fever in these areas. (WHO 1990, p. 21).

Concern about tropical and insect-spread diseases seems overblown. Inhabitants of Singapore, which lies almost on the equator, and of Hong Kong and Hawaii, which are also in the tropics, enjoy life spans as long as or longer than those of people living in Western Europe, Japan, and North America. Both Singapore and Hong Kong are free of malaria, but that mosquito-spread disease ravages nearby regions. Modern sanitation in advanced countries prevents the spread of many scourges found in hot climates. Such low tech and relatively cheap devices as window screens can slow the spread of insect vectors.”

I’ve only skimmed this and will look further into it over the weekend, but lemme ask something: What about that “scientific consensus”?

Attack at will.

— DaveyNC”

Can’t wait to see the responses that that provokes.