The Civil Society Report On Climate Change

Civil Society Report on Climate Change Civil Society Report on Climate Change Produced by the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change Civil Society Report on Climate Change About the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change Produced by the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change The Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change seeks to educate the public about the science and economics of climate change in an impartial manner. It was established as a response to the many biased and alarmist claims about human-induced climate change, which are being used to justify calls for intervention and regulation. ISBN 1-905041-15-2 Published November 2007 by International Policy Press Third Floor, Bedford Chambers The Piazza London WC2E 8HA UK t: +4420 7836 0750 f: +4420 7836 0756 Designed and typeset in Latin 725 by MacGuru Ltd [email protected] Cover design by With Relish www.withrelish.co.uk Printed in Great Britain by Sunshine Promotions Ltd PO Box 31 Westham BN24 6NZ www.sunshinepromotions.co.uk © 2007. Copyright of individual chapters retained by authors. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. For questions regarding reprint permission and any other queries, please contact International Policy Press, [email protected] British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The Coalition comprises 41 independent civil society organisations who share a commitment to improving public understanding about a range of public policy issues. All are non-profit organizations that are independent of political parties and government. www.csccc.info Contents Summary 1 Summary of Policy Recommendations 17 Human Ecology and Human Behavior: Climate change and health in perspective Paul Reiter 21 Death and Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather Events: Global and U.S. Trends, 1900–2006 Indur M. Goklany 47 Weathering Global Warming in Agriculture and Forestry: It can be done with free markets Douglas Southgate and Brent Sohngen 61 The Political Economy of Global Warming, Rent Seeking, and Freedom Wolfgang Kasper 77 Biographies 97 Members of the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change 99 Summary The science of climate change remains hotly contested, with substantial disagreements over what impact humanity might have on the earth’s future climate (e.g. McKitrick, forthcoming; Green and Armstrong, 2007; Lindzen, 2005; Houghton, 2005). Nevertheless, there is considerable pressure on politicians to take action. Unfortunately, the organisation set up to advise governments on what action to take, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has shown itself to be heavily biased (Henderson, 2007; Holland, 2007; Peiser, 2007; Tol, 2007; Kasper, This Volume). This report is an attempt to provide an independent assessment of the implications of climate change for humanity and the policy options that might be adopted. The report has been prepared by a coalition of 41 civil society organisations from around the world. Background papers were prepared by some of the most noted experts in their respective fields. We then summarised the main findings of those experts and came up w