I can’t let this pass – Global Warming and Sub Saharan Africa

Malaria is a huge problem in Africa. More than 90% of the one million that's ONE MILLION people that die of the disease every year live there. Now the Global Warming folks claim that if the temperature goes up two degrees in the next 90 years, 3 percent more people will be subjected to the ravages of malaria. The cost to reduce that number is $40 trillion. That 40 thousand billion and assuming that "global warming" is in fact something we can do something about, not settled science at all, spending the $40 trillion will reduce the number of folks exposed to malaria by 3%. Read all about it here in the Wall Street Journal.

In a study done by the Danes, it turns out that if you invested $3 billion a year for 10 years on mosquito nets, DDT sprays (interior), and subsidies for new drugs to fight the disease, you would halve the number of people infected with the disease.

It seems the problem with malaria isn't temperature, its poverty, lack of health care and minimal fighting against the mosquito. If that's not the case, why don't we have malaria outbreaks in Florida, or Southern Mississippi, Louisiana or Texas. Hmmmm.

See – global warming activists see only one thing, the possible rise in global temperature. They don't see the result of what their so called solutions mean to the poor. The rich countries will survive. The poor ones will bear the pain.

One sidebar – We have enough oil, shale, natural gas, and the like in North America to run our cars, factories, and power plants cleanly for many decades. But we won't drill for it because we are afraid of environmental disasters. We have the most stringent environmental controls on the planet. When we drill its clean and pristine. Just ask the Alaskans.

So what do we do – Drill? No – we pay the Brazilians to drill. They have very little environmental controls and are and will be soiling the planet. So let's see – It's OK for Brazil, the folks and the Middle East and that paragon of green energy, Russia, to drill and spoil the earth in so doing, but it's not OK for us to drill here at home where we can control the environmental damage AND have energy independence.

Did we just fall down the rabbit hole?
JVH

Comments

[Clyde Wilson]

Great article John: I was at an air show this weekend and saw an airplane that I have seen many times in the last few years and one that I have followed over the last 10 plus years. The airplane is Glacier Girl. Now Glacier Girl is a P 38 lightning from WWII that in 1942 was on a flight from the US to England. They ended up ditching in Greenland. The crew survived so they have known the location of the aircraft all these years. In 1996 it was decided to go find the plane and bring her back. When they got to the location they found her buried under 250 feet of ice. So let's see; in the last 54 years during the height of industrialization when we were causing global warming the Greenland Ice cap was adding an average of 4.5 feet of new ice every year. Let's see; in 1000 years at 4.5 feet a year that will be almost a mile of ice. Damn, this global warming is causing a new ice age. Now what are we going to do.
CBW

[BC]

Just a few thoughts:

-You have to have a substantial amount of Anopholes mosquitoes in order to have a substantial malarial problem. I don't think the southern US has a lot of these mosquitoes but they do have poverty, minimal health care (poor people cannot afford it) and if there was a malarial outbreak, would there be maximum fighting of the disease? I still recall Katrina....
- DDT is still to this day only "suspected" of causing cancer in humans
- "Clean and pristine" - ask the Alaskans about the Exxon Valdez......
- Drill? Nimby's won't even allow a windmill to generate clean energy in their backyards, drill, I think not.
- Foreign Oil - the US could not survive without an aggressive trade program with other countries and what do these countries have......oil
- how do Brazil, Russia and the Middle East "spoil the earth" when they drill and yet the Alaskans don't? Stringent environmental rules? Do the Alaskans drill differently than the rest of the world?

Some things you just can't let pass........

[JVH]

For BC...Heh My comment about the US south was perhaps overdrawn a bit, but people living in the Southern part of the US are nowhere near in the "poverty" level as those in Sub Saharan Africa, and I'm not too sure what the Katrina straw man has to do with this discussion.
As for DDT -- The use of the chemical in very diluted solutions is a major factor in stopping the mosquitoes in indoor applications. No harm to humans, harm to mosquitoes.
You would have us do nothing that "might" harm the environment. The Exxon Valdez accident was horrible, but we learn from our mistakes -- I would suggest that we could just stay in bed surrounded by cotton wool. Work in the oil patch has brough technology which makes drilling safe and enviornmentally sound.
NIMBYs are hypocrites. As you well know. Fight for wind, except where I live. But it's ok where you live.
Yes, in fact we in the US do drill differently than in the rest of the world. We also have different environmental rules. Don't believe it -- go to Manila or Shanghai and try to take a deep breath. And before you say it, yes you can take a deep breath in Los Angeles.
JVH

[bath mate]

Great posting...I this this blog...

Bathmate