There are many legitimate reasons to be concerned about climate change (such as its likely effects on water supplies. The potential of a warmer world to spread insect-borne diseases is not one of them, however. Given current technology, climate is a relatively insignificant factor in the distribution of malaria and other such ailments around the world. As Paul Reiter and Roger Bate explain, those who wish to combat malaria and other insect-borne diseases have better things to worry about than climate change.
It may come as a surprise that malaria was once common in most of Europe and North America. In parts of England, mortality from "the ague" was comparable to that in sub-Saharan Africa today. William Shakespeare was born at the start of the especially cold period that climatologists call the "Little Ice Age," yet he was aware enough of the ravages of the disease to mention it in eight of his plays.
Malaria disappeared from much of Western Europe during the second half of the 19th century. Changes in agriculture, living conditions and a drop in the price of quinine, a cure still used today, all helped eradicate it. However, in some regions it persisted until the insecticide DDT wiped it out. Temperate Holland was not certified malaria-free by the WHO until 1970.
The concept of malaria as a "tropical" infection is nonsense. It is a disease of the poor. Alarmists in the richest countries peddle the notion that the increase in malaria in poor countries is due to global warming and that this will eventually cause malaria to spread to areas that were "previously malaria free." That's a misrepresentation of the facts and disingenuous when packaged with opposition to the cheapest and best insecticide to combat malaria – DDT.
It is true that malaria has been increasing at an alarming rate in parts of Africa and elsewhere in the world. Scientists ascribe this increase to many factors, including population growth, deforestation, rice cultivation in previously uncultivated upland marshes, clustering of populations around these marshes, and large numbers of people who have fled their homes because of civil strife. The evolution of drug-resistant parasites and insecticide-resistant mosquitoes, and the cessation of mosquito-control operations are also factors.
Of course, temperature is a factor in the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases, and future incidence may be affected if the world's climate continues to warm. But throughout history the most critical factors in the spread or eradication of disease has been human behavior (shifting population centers, changing farming methods and the like) and living standards. Poverty has been and remains the world's greatest killer.
In other words, those concerned with disease control in the developing world should devote their energies to increasing wealth and distributing available medical technologies, rather than cooling the earth.
Look at the map of the distribution for malaria and see if you can spot the pattern. The CDC says:
"As temperatures rises temperate poor nations will face a longer malaria season."
If the billions being wasted on "global warming" are instead used to help the the poor nations become wealthy nations, then malaria will not be so much of a problem.
Japan was a poor, bombed out nation after WWII with very few natural resources. Just sixty years later they are among the wealthiest people on the globe.
"Poverty has been and remains the world's greatest killer."
Eliminating trade barriers is one of the best ways we help the worlds poor. We might start with agricultural subsidies.
ERH and Tim.
Johnathan said, "Given current technology, climate is a relatively insignificant factor in the distribution of malaria and other such ailments around the world."
He didn't say it was not a factor, big difference.
The two of you would score zero points in a debate.
This never fails to amuse me. Care to expand on your thesis?
Long ago I learned "the fundamental principal of microbial ecology was everything is everywhere."
or
Is it the Globalization of the Biosphere? Life is programmmed to spread and cannot be contained. The common cockroach, Norway Rat, Cholera and Polio are not native to North America.
Exercise for the reader: see if you can spot the stupid in the above statement (hint, it's towards the end). This is why getting your ideas from the WSJ editorial page is a bad idea. They have a strict policy on bad ideas.
Problem is that Michigan is damp, much of the land is clayey so it drains poorly, and standing water, which is necessary for mosquito larvae, is common.
Now?
Climate change? Yeah, that fixed up Michigan so that the 'ganders all think of malaria or something like that as a tropical disease. Riiiight.
So you're suggesting that DDT was/is banned?
If you had read to the end of the CDC article, then you will have noted the following statement as well:
But this doesn't mean that climate is an "insignificant" factor and that the climate-disease link has been "debunked". If global temperatures go up several degrees, the incidence of malaria will go up significantly (all else equal).
Hawaii is lucky in that there were no mosquitoes present before European contact, and there are still no Anopheles mosquitoes present.
So it wouldn't matter how poor Hawaii was, it can't have malaria without the mosquitoes.
You are getting there. The "Debate" point is that the "first responders" above are trying to bend the topic of the discussion, they are not debating the premise of the discussion. I would agree with the fact that malaria cannot incubate below 68 degrees and respond that that only reinforces Johnathan's premise. The point still stands that poverty does more to spread disease than climate. There is no evidence submitted that the CDC report addressed the poverty of nations affected by malaria at all, and thus the conclusion they reached is to a different argument.
Malaria is spread by mosquitoes in hot, wet climates. Florida is hot and wet, therefore Florida has malaria. That is a Non sequitur fallacy. Florida doesn't have huge outbreaks of malaria because Florida used DDT, modern medicine (bless you big-Pharma) and hard work over many generations to eradicate it . Those actions took money. As you put it "If global temperatures go up several degrees, the incidence of malaria will go up significantly (all else equal)".
Money creates a situation where "all else" is definitely not equal, so the results of the CDC report are not admissible.
http://www.cdc.gov/Ncidod/eid/vol6no1/reiter.htm
The reason for the arm-waving over mosquitoes is to attempt to obscure the fact that the central tenet of AGW [anthropogenic global warming] is the repeatedly falsified hypothesis that carbon dioxide causes empirically measurable warming. It does not. CO2 does cause very insignificant warming, but nothing more. Be extremely skeptical of the CO2/AGW conjecture -- which has been falsified through the peer-review process -- that a global increase in CO2 will cause a global increase in temperature, and that an decrease in global CO2 must result in a global decrease in temperature. In fact, they do not.
During the Cambrian, CO2 increased from about 4,800 ppm [parts per million] to about 7,000 ppm -- while the Earth's temperature remained relatively unchanged, instead of increasing as the popular assumption says must happen following such a dramatic increase in atmospheric CO2.
During the Ordovician, atmospheric CO2 increased from about 4,100 ppm to about 4,500 ppm, while the global temperature underwent a globally catastrophic and glacial decrease of some 10 degrees C, instead of elevating the planet's temperature as Gore insists must occur.
As the Silurian began, atmospheric CO2 underwent a very dramatic decrease, from about 4,500 ppm to about 3,000 ppm, while the global temperature underwent a rapid increase of ~10C, contrary to the Gore/Hansen hypothesis that a dramatic decrease in CO2 should have caused an equally dramatic decrease in the planet's temperature.
During the Early Devonian, atmospheric CO2 rapidly spiked up from ~3,000 ppm to ~4,000 ppm, while the planet's temperature declined, despite the Gore/Hansen/UN assumption that very large increase in CO2 would have required an equally great increase in global temperature -- which never occurred.
The failure of any linkage between CO2 and temperature was demonstrated once more in the Late Jurassic, as CO2 levels more than doubled from ~1,200 ppm to ~2,600 ppm -- while the global temperature abruptly decreased by ~5.5 degrees C, contrary to the UN/IPCC's failed assumption that increasing atmospheric CO2 levels must result in an increase in the planet's temperature.
As the Jurassic ended and the Cretaceous began, global CO2 levels began a long term decline, from ~2,200 ppm to a range of ~280 to 380 ppm -- while the global temperature rapidly increased by ~6 degrees C -- directly contrary to the climate alarmists' debunked belief that the planet's temperature must decrease when CO2 levels decrease, and vice-versa.
The geological record [from the Vostok ice core data, oxygen isotope ratios, peer-reviewed proxies, etc.] clearly indicates that the Earth has almost always experienced significant long term changes in CO2 which are uncorrelated with temperature changes: CO2 levels increased significantly, sometimes over millions of years, while temperature decreased; occasionally, CO2 levels increased following an increase in temperature; CO2 remained steady, as temperatures rapidly increased; temperature remained steady - or declined - when CO2 rapidly increased; temperature remained steady as CO2 decreased; and temperature increased as CO2 levels plunged. There is no correlation between changes in CO2 and temperature, except when cherry-picking extremely short periods, which are not representative of the Earth on geologic time scales.
No credible linkage between significant changes in CO2 levels and equivalent changes in temperature has ever been empirically demonstrated. In addition, it must be remembered that according to the Scientific Method, those putting forth a hypothesis have the obligation to defend it from falsification. But James Hansen, Al Gore, and the UN/IPCC continue to insist that "the science is settled," and fiercely resist any public debate proposals on their hypothesis. In fact, the science points directly to the conclusion: there is no cause-and-effect between atmospheric CO2 levels and the Earth's temperature [although there is some correlation between rising CO2 levels ~700 - 1300 years after cyclic increases in the Earth's temperature].
Finally, the Earth's atmosphere is currently at the very low end of its historical CO2 concentration. CO2 levels have routinely exceeded 2,000 ppm [and sometimes exceeded 7,00 ppm], compared with today's very low level of under 400 ppm. And make no mistake, increased carbon dioxide levels are very beneficial for all life on Earth.
The only reasonable conclusion must be that the AGW/global warming climate deceivers have an unstated agenda.
Get ready to open your wallets wide.
Anopheles Range Map
Anopheles Quadrimaculatus and Anopheles Pseudopunctipennis are vectors for malaria. Thus, an increase in temperature isn't going to matter greatly for the US, as we already have a vector species living here.
Malaria control isn't about eradicating entire mosquito species, it's about breaking the infection cycle long enough to drain the disease reservoir.
Only areas that do not currently contain a vector species due to temperature and moisture are likely to see a problem.
Except for the fact that it is an incomplete summation of an extremely complicated historical comparison?
And what does "They have a strict policy on bad ideas." mean?
So far, Mr. Adlers supporters have all of the points, so unless there is reasoned debate left, I call him the winner. Congratulations Mr. Adler, and thanks for the article
But that problem was not solved by DDT; Michigan had a large population without significant occurrence of malaria long before DDT was invented. Mostly, it was reduced by
draining the swampsdestroying the wetlands. Towards the end of the 19th century, the remaining Anopheles breeding waters were eliminated by simply treating them with a little oil, which formed a film on the top that suffocated the mosquitos when they rose to the surface. Until that was discovered, simply sealing houses tightly enough that mosquitos rarely got inside at night did much to reduce the incidence of malaria in humans, and drugs derived from quinine greatly improved the condition of those that still became infected.Where malaria is a problem still, it's because of poverty. First, they were too poor or too disorganized (at either government or big business levels) to drain the swamps before they became protected wetlands. Second, they are too poor to pour a little oil on the standing water, to build mosquito-tight houses, or to buy adequate supplies of anti-malarial drugs. And having a good portion of the population too sick to work tends to maintain the poverty.
BUT Michigan's first settlers were pretty poor themselves. However, they were ambitious and hard-working. They didn't ask for a far away federal government or relief agency to drain the swamps, they got together with their neighbors (often at township government meetings, but not necessarily) and dug the necessary ditches. They didn't live in a leaky hut while waiting for the government to give them a better house; they cut logs and swapped labor with their neighbors to build houses, and saved their pennies to buy window glass and screening.
So perhaps the real culprit is government - in the modern world, poverty correlates very well with corrupt, ineffective, or too effective (overly bureaucratic) governments. Corrupt and ineffective government teaches people that seeking to improve themselves will merely make them targets for thieves who are either protected by the government or steal in the knowledge that laws won't be enforced. Too-effective government teaches people that seeking to improve themselves will merely bring them into conflict with all sorts of silly regulations, so it's better to wait for their masters to provide.
The benefit and wealth of others is "a good thing", perhaps ala John Forbes Nash.
I am not convinced that said belief is generally held.
I share it myself. I do know others, though who harbor jealousy over wealth.
Here's a hint: what's wrong about comparing morality rates in the past in one area to morality rates today in a different area as a means to establish that a problem used to be just as bad in one place as it now is in another?
Further, your closing statement is a rather underhanded attack on a strawman: "those concerned with disease control in the developing world should devote their energies to increasing wealth and distributing available medical technologies, rather than cooling the earth."
Who is trying to "cool" the earth, when we not only face the future long-term effects already in the pipeline from current GHG levels, but the certainty of climbing levels in the face of rapid growth from China and India, and a continued rise in GHG releases from the developed nations?
Is this that same Jon Adler who said the following in his Sanford post?
Or is this post by a different Jon Adler, who thinks it is constructive to provide rhetorical cover for those who don`t accept that there are any climate risks generated by human activity, and to attack strawmen of those who believe that there are such risks?
"Morality rates"????
Mortality rates maybe?
Please just make you point. Asking questions is no way to debate and it will loose you points.
No one has mentioned what is probably the biggest reason malaria has been all but eradicated in richer nations: most people spend the bulk of their time inside buildings protected by screened windows. And if someone does get sick with malaria they are isolated in a hospital where mosquitos can't get to them, suck the parasite out of them and spraed the disease. For a somewhat similar reason bubonic plague, though a definite danger in the western US, does not turn into a calamitous epidemic: we are kept far enough apart from rats and their fleas that's it's very rare for someone to pick up the plague bacillus. Very simple and low tech measures can prevent the spread of many epidemics diseases.
Yes, there are low tech solutions, but they came from 19th and 20th century research that identified vectors and the disease life cycles. Cheap screens for windows, cheap nets for beds, cheap potable water, cheap soap, draining swamps and public sewer systems and sanitiation are low tech now but at one time they were technological breakthroughs and for a long time people did not understand their connection to preventing disease.
Just a couple of months ago, however, a fever broke out in Italy that confounded the doctors. Turns out is a tropical disease never seen before in Italy, but common in warmer parts south of Italy. This would seem to support the notion that when the average temperature increases, we are at greater risk of more tropical disease.
Either that, or Italy has suddenly become a poor country.