Report Finds Global Warming Causes 'No Net Harm' to Environment or Human Health
Chicago, IL (PRWEB) March 31, 2014 -- The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) today released Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts. The 1,062-page report contains thousands of citations to peer-reviewed scientific literature -- and concludes rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels are causing “no net harm to the global environment or to human health and often finds the opposite: net benefits to plants, including important food crops, and to animals and human health.”
Click here to read the full report in digital form (PDF). An 18-page Summary for Policymakers is available here. Print versions of the full report and the summary will be released by NIPCC in Washington, DC the week of April 7. Individual chapters of the full report can be downloaded at the Climate Change Reconsidered Web site. (Look at middle of page and scroll down.)
Among the findings in Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts:
• Atmospheric carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is a non-toxic, non-irritating, and natural component of the atmosphere. Long-term CO2 enrichment studies confirm the findings of shorter-term experiments, demonstrating numerous growth-enhancing, water-conserving, and stress-alleviating effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 on plants growing in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
• There is little or no risk of increasing food insecurity due to global warming or rising atmospheric CO2 levels. Farmers and others who depend on rural livelihoods for income are benefiting from rising agricultural productivity around the world, including in parts of Asia and Africa where the need for increased food supplies is most critical. Rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels play a key role in the realization of such benefits.
• Rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels do not pose a significant threat to aquatic life. Many aquatic species have shown considerable tolerance to temperatures and CO2 values predicted for the next few centuries, and many have demonstrated a likelihood of positive responses in empirical studies. Any projected adverse impacts of rising temperatures or declining seawater and freshwater pH levels (“acidification”) will be largely mitigated through phenotypic adaptation or evolution during the many decades to centuries it is expected to take for pH levels to fall.
• A modest warming of the planet will result in a net reduction of human mortality from temperature-related events. More lives are saved by global warming via the amelioration of cold-related deaths than are lost due to excessive heat. Global warming will have a negligible influence on human morbidity and the spread of infectious diseases.
NIPCC scientists and experts from Washington, DC-based think tanks will be in Washington the week of April 7 to publicly release the final two volumes of the Climate Change Reconsidered II series: Biological Impacts, which is available online at http://www.climatechangereconsidered.org, and Human Welfare, Energy, and Policies, which will become available online during the coming week.
Credentialed media are invited to attend a press conference Wednesday, April 9 at the National Press Club to learn more about the report and question some of the scientists who produced it:
What: Breakfast press conference with authors and reviewers of Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts and Climate Change Reconsidered II: Human Welfare, Energy, and Policies
When: Wednesday, April 9, 8:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Where: National Press Club, Bloomberg Room, 529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC
Who: Joseph Bast, president, The Heartland Institute; Dr. S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia; Dr. Craig D. Idso, founder and chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change; and other speakers to be announced.
For more information about the report, NIPCC, and The Heartland Institute, contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at jlakely(at)heartland(dot)org or 312/731-9364 (cell).
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The Heartland Institute is a 30-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.
The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) is an international panel of scientists and scholars who first came together in 2003 to provide an independent review of the climate science cited by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). NIPCC has produced five major scientific reports so far and plans to release one more in the coming weeks. These reports have been endorsed by leading scientists from around the world, been cited in peer-reviewed journals, and are credited with changing the global debate over climate change. No corporate or government funding was solicited or received to support production of these reports.
Jim Lakely, Heartland Institute, +1 (312) 377-4000, [email protected]
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