The health benefits of geological fuels and CO2

I woke up to hear a really crazy “doctor” on the radio this morning (who else but the Biased Broadcasting Company). He must have been dipping into the medicine cabinet as I’ve not heard anyone so delusional for quite some time (but I stopped listening to the BBC – so that might explain it!). After stating as a fact that temperatures were rising and would be 4C by the middle of the century (surely I misheard?) …  he went on to talk about diesel fumes which are a totally different subject and then just totally lost the plot. It was such a mad rant I was half expecting him to go onto HIV-Aids and then perhaps how the mother ship was going to save him but annihilate the rest of humanity …
This is so typical of the evil people who want to deny the benefits of geological fuels to the third world. Because they hate industry (i.e. the private sector) they are like sponges soaking up anything bad so that when someone like the BBC squeezes them, out comes all their vile hatred in one irrational stream.
However, on the positive side, it did start me thinking that I’ve not tried to detail the health benefits of industry and rising CO2. So, this is a first attempt to quickly jot down the health benefits of CO2 or more accurately the geological fuels that just happen to be enhancing atmospheric plant food.
Wood smoke = Smoking
Anyone who thinks cooking on wood is a good idea should be forced to live in an iron-age house in winter. The air is thick with smoke, and having been in one with a nice through draft (only possible in summer) I found that within 30 minutes watching a demonstration of iron-age life my eyes were stinging and I was starting to feel the acrid taste of condensed smoke at the back of my throat.
Wood smoke is similar to cigarette smoke. It is largely harmless but if regularly inhaled it does cause long term health problems. Those who deny the third world geological fuel power are in effect condemning them to a lifetime of cooking on wood which is equivalent to condemning them to a life time of smoking. And as many don’t even have access to wood but use far less pleasant things like animal dung on open hearths – you’ve got to be pretty heartless to want to see people living that way.
By far the biggest benefit of industrialisation is to women who in traditional societies stay at home with children and cook. So again, this shows the blatant sexism of the alarmists (mostly male). After clean drinking water and sanitation, if people want one thing, it is to be able to cook without turning their homes into a stinking smoke filled haze.
OK, it’s much the same as smoking cigarettes. People chose to smoke. But isn’t it ironic that the alarmist zealots (used to) claim we denied the effects of smoking – whereas those really denying the effects of smoke on health are the alarmist & sexist zealots (alarmist only for their own health!! And sexist as they are quite happy to leave women breathing in smoke.)
CO2 = Increased food production
The second major health benefit is that increasing CO2 & modern geological fuel powered farm equipment is undoubtedly leading to record harvests worldwide (for more see previous article). And so there is a direct relationship between geological fuel use, CO2 emissions and health.
There is (almost) no evidence of adverse trends
Despite almost daily predictions of adverse trends in severe weather a few years ago, not one of them has come true with the possible exception that we have more rain. As many third world countries suffer from droughts this is probably a benefit to them. (for more see previous article)
Flooding
If there could be a problem trend it would be from more rain and possibly flooding. But first, flooding is highly beneficial and flooding is one of the biggest benefits to health as floods act as natural fertilisers and allow many more people to live. In other words, it is totally indisputable that more people are alive because of flooding than have died (and would be alive) because of flooding.
Moreover, if even a fraction of the budget wasted on “global warming” had gone into flood forecasting and warning, then the death toll would be far less. So, again global warming research is causing deaths, by diverting money from vital research on forecasting floods in the third world where the money will save lives.
Possible melting of land ice
Whilst the evidence for melting ice both in terms of polar ice caps and glaciers is far from conclusive, we can see that there was a “large” (i.e. mms)  increase in sea level after the little ice-age, so it is not unreasonable to expect a rise if temperatures do rise (and we don’t get my predicted decrease). The yearly scale of any change is minuscule, so it has no measurable impact whatsoever on yearly events. But over a lifetime we might see a few cms of change. In total at the extreme we could be talking 1m increase (or decrease if we get cooling).
Almost the only places that would see any significant effect even from a meter change in sea level would be the lower flood plains of large rivers, where we have large areas close to sea level with very low gradients. But as these are some of the most productive areas BECAUSE OF PREVIOUS FLOODING the net impact could actually be very positive OR it could be negative (not very, because we are comparing lives saved by continuous increase in food production to lives lost from one off flooding events).
And another thing is that many coastal communities rely on fishing. So, one mustn’t just assume that rising water reduces food output. I can’t think of an easy way to quantify the effect of any sea level rise. From my experience reading the academics in such areas I wouldn’t even bother to read their work as it will be crazy non-science.
Tropical diseases
I often feel medicine still has a hint of racist imperialist colonialism in that some diseases are “black” and therefore bad, whilst others a “white” and therefore good. So e.g. men die earlier than women in Britain. This is not considered a health problem (for women) nor indeed do they believe it suggests a sexist attitude by the health profession who just accept men will die earlier because that’s the British way. But if one tropical disease patient so much as dares to step into Britain – all hell brakes lose!
So, there is a distinct bias against “black” diseases with those of the third world being considered the worst for white men to contract, but it seems OK for blacks!
The simple fact is that people thrive throughout the world where there is enough water for agriculture in all places but the most cold. It’s also unfortunate that many diseases thrive in the same beneficial climate. So both humans and diseases benefit from the climate nearer the equator which far far far outweighs the “benefits” of living in colder areas (i.e. with snow!).
One false assertion often made is about malaria. Malaria carrying mosquitoes love colder places and some of the worst malaria epidemics have been in colder areas. These areas now benefit from industrialisation and so malaria is actually concrete proof of the health affects of industrialisation.
The benefits of industrialisation
Most people who hate CO2 do so because they listen to those like the BBC who broadcast a doctrine of hatred toward industry. This doctrine not only created the anti-industrialisation of Thatcher, it also created the anti-industrialisation culture of Blair, of the Lib Dems and is the single biggest reason the CO2 scam took hold so explosively in the UK. Because it provided yet another way for rich southerners to attack the “uncouth northerner” – a battle that has persisted in the UK since rich upstart northerners started making money to the utter disgust of the “gentlemen” in BBC heartland of the SE.
But hatred of industry is one of the daftest doctrines ever taught. For industrialisation is undoubtedly the greatest thing that ever happened to humanity. The industrial economic structure provides a standard of living that would be the envy of kings just a few centuries ago. We have food from all the world; Advanced healthcare (Kings would give anything for their life); Education; law & order; democracy; entertainment at the flick of a button (A king would have given their entire wealth to watch TV!!), and transport (A horse a horse, my kingdom for a Landrover?). Modern industrial farming means most of us in the west don’t have the backbreaking jobs working the land and those that do often sit in air-conditioned machinery. The list goes on and on.
We don’t usually think of things like Law and order as a health benefit – but if you lived in a country without law and order your life expectancy is much lower. Likewise education. This doesn’t immediately equate to improved health, but study after study shows those with highest education live longest. Reliable food is obvious – I forgot to mention reliable sanitation (Mr crapper & colleagues probably saved more lives than all healthcare professionals put together). Early industrialisation did cause pollution – but in comparison to the pollution from cooking on open fires and kids playing on cowshit covered floors as was typical on peasant farms, the “pollution” of industrialisation was healthy and now is far far healthier now we’ve cleaned up the air. Yes, we can improve air pollution levels in cities – but in comparison to living in the country, that air is better for their health!!
And yes there are problems of this life of luxury – and academia because of its hatred of industry focusses exclusively on these – but there are far more and bigger health benefits.
People didn’t leave the countryside to move to industrial plants in the towns because it was worse for their health! They did so because it was healthier working in the clean factories, than wallowing in the squalor, filth and cold of the countryside. Factories were also probably safer. Farm workers also worked with heavy equipment – horses pulling ploughs – moving large trees, etc. These types of occupations still have more accidents, but we get a false sense of industry as being worse for the health precisely because there was far more rigorous health and safety which meant accidents were recorded in industry in a way they never were in the countryside.
If anyone doubts the health benefits of modern life – please watch the series “10,000BC”. When I told my daughter I was thinking of going on it, here main concern was that my health would suffer – and that was just two months of living the “green life” of pre-industrial society.
Winter Deaths
There have been around 1 million extra winter deaths in the colder months in the UK alone since this global warming scam started. This undoubtedly shows that colder weather is a killer, as is also shown by the way many of the worst famines in Britain are directly attributable to periods of cold:

The Lancet recently had research showing around 20x as many people die from cold as heat.  And you really have got to be a heartless bitch to put up fuel bills in a country like Scotland where we have seen a massive increase in fuel poverty during this scam. And again fuel poverty is linked to deaths link,
[GIR Warning – Guardian induced Rant follows !!]
…. oh Fucking hell!! (swearing is needed!!!!) … I have just found these two hypocritical liars in chief on global warming!! Here’s the Guardian crying their crocodile tears as these zealots for global warming push the knife into the poor with higher fuel bills: “The scandal of Britain’s fuel poverty deaths “, and here’s another “let’s make ourselves rich by scaring the public/jumping on the global warming bandwagon” – fiends of the earth.
This just shows evil really does exist! These heartless callous organisations are amongst the leaders pushing up fuel prices for the poor in Britain and they then have the outrageous audacity to campaign on the fuel poverty they created! It’s one big scam for these people. They make money from pushing global warming, then they make money campaigning to end the problem they created. SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM!

Addendum
Reading WUWT, I find that this idiot doctor i heard this morning is part of a more general idiocy. It appears their main claim is this:

“The report shows that the direct health effects of climate change are linked to increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, especially heatwaves, floods, droughts and storms.“

So, they’ve swallowed hook line and sinker the lies about everything getting worse whilst ignoring all the evidence that it isn’t. As such it is amongst the most ridiculous reports I’ve ever heard about.
It has the credibility of voodoo medicine – it doesn’t matter if there’s any evidence of increasing floods, heatwaves, droughts, storms, snow, polar bears or whatever, they just keep saying there’s a problem and if they shout it long enough and often enough then some idiot will buy their snake-oil.
Addaddendum
indefatigablefrog on WUWT,  pointed me to this quote from Lomborg which neatly sums up the case that when considering extreme events, there’s no doubt we are now better off:

“The best way to see this is to look at the world’s deaths from natural disasters over time. In the Oxford University database for death rates from floods, extreme temperatures, droughts and storms, the average in the first part of last century was more than 13 dead every year per 100,000 people. Since then the death rates have dropped 97% to a new low in the 2010s of 0.38 per 100,000 people… ”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/bjorn-lomborg-the-alarming-thing-about-climate-alarmism-1422832462