As environmental statistician Bjørn Lomborg reported on September 16, 2021, “Global warming now prevents more than 166,000 temperature-related fatalities annually.” His statement is supported by three studies that analyzed millions of deaths in numerous countries over recent decades and found that cooler temperatures kill several times more people than warmer temperatures.
The facts regarding natural disasters also are positive. A 2021 EPA report admits that as the earth has warmed since the late 19th century, the number of hurricanes per year has not increased. An August 5, 2021 article by Bjørn Lomborg similarly details that the area burned by fires annually has decreased and most rivers flood less.
The most important fact regarding natural disasters, however, is that while the planet’s average temperature has risen by 1.12 degrees and its population has quadrupled from less than two billion to almost eight billion since 1920, the number of people killed each year by natural disasters has declined by about 90 percent.
Global warming also does not mean that air pollution is more harmful. Over the last three decades of warming, the global air pollution death rate similarly has declined by about 45 percent.
The bottom line is that facts show that global warming is more environmentally beneficial than it is harmful. As a group of eminent scientists — including Richard Lindzen of MIT and William Happer of Princeton —wrote in 2017: “Observations [over the last] 25 years … show that warming from increased atmospheric CO2 will be benign.”
