Testimony before the Senate Health, Labor, and Pensions Committee Hearing on the Health Effects of Global Warming

The World Health Organization has claimed that global warming killed 150,000 people in 2000 and that warmer temperatures will put 65 % of the world's population at risk for insect borne tropical diseases. Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute, an expert in vector disease studies says that the WHO is not providing reliable information. I refer staff to his work and focus here on the health effects of warming.

I assert that people suffer more from cold than from hot around the globe and in the United States and the evidence is unequivocal.

Daily change in temperature in any location on the planet is more than even the most exaggerated warming projection changes of the IPCC: Any discussion of human health effect should start first with the concept that the human species has a wonderful ability to adapt to temperature change. In a year the adaptation in temperate climes is 100 degrees F. or more.

More important for human health are the basics--clean water, good nutrition, effective sewage and quality clothing and housing (including heat and air conditioning as needed). Modern medicine works around the edges, but the life expectancy of Americans is effected more by basic quality of life and infrastructure than modern medicine. Read the reports of cholera, typhus, dysentery, malaria and yellow fever epidemics, all seen in America and all eliminated by basic housing and infrastructure improvements. Vaccines are important, but adequate quality of living is essential.

So is warm good or bad for health? I say bring on the warm.