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.
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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: