by Richard Morrison
April 9, 2008

Washington, D.C., April 9, 2008—This week committees in both the Senate and House of Representatives will be holding hearings on whether global warming will cause future harm to human health. As they examine this question, the Competitive Enterprise Institute urges them to consult the extensive statistical evidence that warmer temperatures and climates are overwhelmingly safer and healthier.

“We are skeptical that the warming predicted by activists will ever appear, but even if it does, the available evidence suggests that slightly warmer temperatures would be a boon for human health and well being,” said CEI Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis. “The threats from extreme cold dramatically outweigh those from extreme heat, and whatever possible influence future warming may have on extreme weather, the record of the 20th century—allegedly a period of ‘unprecedented’ global warming—is clear: Both mortality rates and aggregate mortality related to extreme weather have declined dramatically since the 1920s.”

In addition to fewer cold-related deaths, a slight warming caused, in part, by increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, would increase agricultural productivity, reduce heating costs and improve transportation safety. Despite dramatic rhetoric that a warmer world would represent a categorical disaster for mankind, most people would likely experience an increase in overall well being.

“Not only do global warming alarmists ignore the advantages of a warmer world, but, even more troublingly, they advocate policies that we know would make the world poorer and less resilient to changes of any kind,” said Lewis. “The central policy they advocate – limiting access to affordable energy – would have a far worse impact on poor and vulnerable populations around the world than any expected rise in average global temperatures.”

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. For more information about CEI, please visit our website at www.cei.org.