Climate Change And Health: The Final Frontier - Forbes

Climate Change And Health: The Final Frontier

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Vintage illustration of Hippocrates and his wife attending to the medical needs of a sick young boy ... [+] (screen print), 1959. (Photo by GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)

Climate alarmists leave no stone unturned in their aim to scare people into supporting increasingly draconian regulations to “save the planet” from climate Armageddon. The linking of climate change to human health, while not new, has been turned up a notch in the past year.

From as ‘fit as a fiddle’ to being ‘under the weather’, from a ‘clean bill of health’ to being ‘sick as a dog’, health is the greatest treasure each and every person holds on to dearly. From prince to pauper, from Silicon Valley plutocrat to factory worker in flyover country, health – or the lack of it—is the great leveler. As the global Covid-19 lockdowns over 2020 – 2021 showed, if enough people are scared–rightly or wrongly—about risks to their health, there is almost nothing governments cannot do in taking away long-held civil liberties and instituting drastic control measures in response to the proclaimed “medical emergency.”

Indeed, totalitarian controls on social behavior in workplaces and neighborhoods are demanded of governments by a fearful populace. We saw, temporary measures for “two weeks to flatten the curve” morphed into permanent “health emergency” controls across most Western countries with only Sweden notably bucking the trend in the shutting of schools, imposing social distancing, work-from-home schemes, mandating masks, and rushed vaccines.

It did not take long for the climate alarmists to notice how the hastily instituted Covid lockdowns provided a model for what could be termed a program of ‘ climate lockdowns’. One well-cited study published by Nature finds that the drop in global carbon emissions seen during the early days of the pandemic and global shutdowns “would need to be matched every two years for the rest of the decade in order to meet the goals outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement”.

Piecemeal restrictions would effectively lead to long-term societal and economic lockdowns in the name of the ‘common good’ (that is, ‘saving the planet’ from an alleged impending climate catastrophe). In many Western countries, these restrictions already include mandates to force the replacement of gas stoves with electric stoves, gas-fueled heating with electric heat-pumps, and gasoline and diesel fueled vehicles with electric vehicles. Other proposed measures and restrictions to reduce the use of fossil fuels include “15-minute cities”, driving less, restricted air-miles, eating less meat and so on.

Health Risks and Climate Change: “Health Day” At COP28

The coupling of climate change to health risks is now normal parlance among influential institutions and leaders. Vanessa Kerry, daughter of John Kerry who is the Biden administration’s Special Climate Envoy, was appointed as the first-ever Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health for the World Health Organization in June. Asked about her appointment with the WHO by France24, Vanessa Kerry explained that "the climate crisis is a health crisis" with "seven million people a year dying from air pollution". In her keynote address to the first-ever day dedicated to health at a COP conference, Ms. Kerry claimed “the climate crisis is a health crisis. And it’s killing us.”

Ms. Kerry can count on the support of The Lancet, a peer-reviewed general medical journal which is among the world’s highest-impact academic publications. The “Lancet Countdown” is an international research collaboration that “independently monitors the evolving impacts of climate change on health”. The 2023 report, we are told, drew on “the expertise of 114 scientists and health practitioners from 52 research institutions and UN agencies worldwide to provide its most comprehensive assessment yet.” Doubtless, reference to such high-powered research credentials is meant to impress its readers. The report repeated its previous year’s claim that “people’s health is at the mercy of fossil fuels.” It proceeds to state that “the health risks of a 2°C hotter world underscore the health imperative of accelerating climate change action.”

The WHO’s latest “ factsheet” on health and climate change repeats The Lancet’s claims, stating that “climate change represents a fundamental threat to human health”. It asserts that climate change is a “threat multiplier” to decades of health progress. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros in his end of year message said on Tuesday: “The need to address the health impacts of the climate crisis were elevated to the highest political levels, with governments, scientists and advocates putting health, for the first time, prominently on the COP28 agenda, and issuing a global declaration on climate and health.”

Climate Change and Malaria

The case of malaria provides an illustration of how human health is turned into a climate change issue. Martin Edlund, CEO of “Malaria No More” states that "By putting people at the center of climate action and investment, we can help inspire the transformative action that the moment demands." This view is in contrast to almost two centuries of the knowledge and practice of public health which focused on clean water, sanitation, and hygiene as key to public health. In this view, endemic malaria was one aspect of poverty and lack of economic development.

Humanity has been afflicted by malaria for thousands of years.. For most of that time, people were exposed to the disease without any defense. Before the advent of better hygiene and public health in the 2nd half of the 19th century, malaria was common in most parts of the world. It was prevalent in Europe and North America. Both Oliver Cromwell and Abraham Lincoln contracted the disease. Over the course of the 20th century, the disease was eliminated in most parts of the world except for the tropics, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

Three factors, all broadly related to economic development, led to the global curtailment of malaria. The drainage of swampland for agriculture restricted the breeding grounds for mosquitoes as a side effect. Health measures, especially in the widespread use of insecticides to attack mosquitoes, were as important. Improvements in urban infrastructure, drainage and public hygiene constituted the third factor. Insecticides, land use change, and public health improvements were key to eradicating malaria since the industrial revolution in mid-18th century in most parts of the world.

Yet, when Pakistan suffered severe flooding in the summer of 2022, the surge in malarial infection was cast by the WHO as an outcome of climate change: “the recent floods were a massive setback for Pakistan’s fight against malaria and a warning for the world of how climate change will impact disease response efforts.” Curiously, the WHO leaves out the well-understood requirements of public health established by two centuries of successful economic development experience undergone by the now-developed countries in the West as well as parts of east and south Asia which have enjoyed rapid economic growth since the 1980s.

Clean water supplies, effective drainage, wastewater and sewage treatment systems, levees and flood alleviation infrastructure in rural and urban areas, and other vital infrastructure – all based on access to affordable fossil fuels and coal or natural gas-based power generation – are not mentioned anywhere. Nor is the need for reliable energy supply to control deforestation, a major cause of flooding, mentioned by the WHO. That is no surprise, given that coal or gas-based power generation is anathema to the climate ideologues and their supporting institutions such as the World Bank.

Eco-Imperialism Once Again

Mikko Paunio writes of the public health miracle in today’s affluent countries based on successful economic development since the industrial revolution which included constructing water, sanitation and health infrastructure. Yet this avenue is denied to today’s developing countries because the prevailing doctrine demonizes access to affordable fossil fuels-based energy. In his words, “the green lobby’s energy obsession is harming the world’s poorest”. Indeed, it is not “climate change” but the anti-fossil fuel policies adopted in response to it that are the problem afflicting the poor and their health the most.

The coupling of climate change to public health, spearheaded by institutions like the WHO and The Lancet, represents the final frontier in the global scheme to scare the public into accepting the brave new world of Green Utopia.

The author would like to thank Martin Edlund, CEO of “Malaria No More”, for an extended and informative video interview. The views expressed in this article are, of course, mine alone.