Guest post by Kip Hansen — September 20, 2024 — 1,500 words
United Nations World Health Organization Once again, climate change is seen as the root of all evil:
This is claim:
“quantity cholera death By 2022, there had been a 71% increase in reported deaths worldwide last year, while the number of reported cases had increased by 13%. The WHO reports that the main causes of growth are conflict and climate change. [ NY Times ]
Let’s take a look at the statistics:
and Where Will these cholera outbreaks occur in 2023?
I added the country names of all the countries experienced More than 100 people die from cholera. [For comparison., New York City alone had over 100 pedestrian fatalities in 2023.]
[One oddity is Afghanistan—reported by WHO to have had well over 200,000 cholera cases, and only 101 deaths.]
The World Health Organization has released its annual report titled “Cholera 2023 – World Health Organization” [.pdf].
Important excerpts include:
“In 2023, 9 countries on three continents (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo), Ethiopia, Haiti, Malawi, Mozambique, and Somalia) reported large-scale epidemics, each There are more than 10,000 suspected and confirmed cases in the country.
“conflict, climate changelimited investment in development and population displacement due to emerging and re-emerging risks, have contributed to an increase in the number of cholera outbreaks. This trend reflects a lack of investment in long-term development, especially in Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Although the United Nations General Assembly recognized access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a basic human right in 2010, the cholera outbreak shows that the WASH Sustainable Development Goals are not yet on track to achieve the 2030 targets.
“The surge in cases in Southern Africa started in 2022 and continued into 2023, with the epidemic expanding in Malawi (32,530 cases), while Mozambique (39,101 cases), South Africa (1,478 cases), Zambia (4,531 cases) ) and Zimbabwe (14 148 cases) both reported the highest number of cases in ≥ 5 years. Notably, with some significant sub-national exceptions, the outbreak occurred in stable areas unaffected by conflict. long term investment climate change-Resilient WASH systems can significantly reduce the risk of another outbreak in these areas.
Entire 14 pages World Health Organization The report only mentions climate change as a general topic in the two citations above. World Health Organization method When it says “climate change” it means severe weather conditions – no change in local or regional climate – mainly excessive rainfall leading to flooding – which is common in East Africa.
Cholera is caused by “People who live in places with unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation and hygiene are at the highest risk of contracting cholera. “Cholera is an intestinal infection caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae.“”People usually get cholera by drinking water or food that contains the feces of someone with cholera. The disease can spread rapidly in areas where sewage and drinking water are not adequately treated. … Cholera is unlikely to spread from person to person or through casual contact with someone who has cholera”. [ CDC ]
In simple English, Cholera outbreaks can and do occur when human waste (feces) enters drinking water sources. Cholera does not (usually) spread from person to person the way illnesses like the flu or colds can.
And, indeed, when underdeveloped countries experience flooding, their sanitation infrastructure (human waste management) and drinking water infrastructure can be overwhelmed. Unfortunately, in many areas, proper sanitation and clean drinking water supplies are simply not available. The lack of such infrastructure means people resort to dug latrines and hand-dug wells or obtain water from streams and lakes.
The New York Times article claimed: “The spread of cholera in southern Africa is driven by catastrophic weather events such as floods and droughts.” The reference for this is another earlier New York Times article, which provides no evidence for this claim, only this: “Public health experts say the damage is linked to increasingly violent storms, vaccine shortages and weak water and sewer infrastructure.“
There are two real main causes of cholera outbreaks:
1. Clean drinking water is of poor quality or non-existent and wastewater treatment infrastructure is inadequate or non-existent
2. Cholera vaccine shortages (exacerbated by lack of public health care delivery infrastructure).
The third major contributor is Conflict leads to population displacementwhich pushes people into refugee camps and already crowded cities.
Unnoticeable “severe storms” did not affect the vast areas of our world map above showing cholera outbreaks. The 2023 North African monsoon (.pptx file) is “above average” but not catastrophic, just wetter. The 2024 African monsoon will not be particularly wet in most areas:
The cholera epidemic map itself is a small piece of evidence that refutes the claim that climate change is causing it. Haiti occupies 1/3 of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, and the other 2/3 of the island is the country of the Dominican Republic. There is a severe cholera outbreak in Haiti, but no cholera outbreak in the Dominican Republic. They share the island, its weather and climate. However, Haiti is much poorer, has essentially no effective central governance, and is often lawless, especially in the cities. The Dominican Republic is also poor, but not as poor as Haiti. They have functioning democracies and a more or less reliable, albeit flawed, civil service.
Sudan is a generally very dry country and one of the hardest hit, with a very high case fatality rate. Sudan frequently experiences flooding during the monsoon season, as can be seen in the African monsoon image above – the central part of the country receives heavy rainfall.
“Flooding is a challenge that Sudan faces every August and September. At this time of year, monsoon rains pour into the Ethiopian highlands and then flow into the Blue Nile and White Nile. The rivers meander north through Sudan and South Sudanfloods often inundate riverside communities”.
“In 2024, the annual floods are happening again. But this time, heavy rains also fell in the north of the country, causing damaging flash floods in areas less accustomed to receiving so much runoff.” [ source ]
The armed conflict has severely impacted the country's economy and ability to respond to humanitarian needs – meaning limited health services such as vaccinations and limited or no repairs to sewage and clean water infrastructure.
Finally, here’s why Sudan floods during the monsoon season:
The flow of the Victoria Nile (the upper reaches of the Nile, the southern end of the Nile) is mainly controlled by the dams in Uganda (shown in white on the left) and the GERD dam in Ethiopia. Nearly all of the annual monsoon rainfall west of the Horn of Africa flows into Sudan, a country split in two by civil war.
Poverty at the individual, household, national and regional levels makes these areas vulnerable to cholera outbreaks when severe weather strikes or conflict forces people to flee their homes.
Bottom line:
Cholera outbreaks are not caused by climate change. There is no evidence that the climate in the area where cholera broke out has changed.
Cholera is due to the presence of Vibrio cholerae, a type of bacteria found in drinking water supplies (and sometimes in food made with contaminated water or food washed with contaminated water). This is caused by human feces contaminating drinking water. Contamination of drinking water by human feces (i.e. bacteria) is caused by poor or non-existent infrastructure for safe drinking water and wastewater treatment (what the United Nations World Health Organization calls “infrastructure”). wash).
any damage to civil society Cholera outbreaks can occur in areas that lack adequate safe, clean drinking water and adequate sewage treatment infrastructure: including weather (floods, severe droughts), armed conflict (even the threat of armed conflict), and the breakdown of normal civil governance.
All of this is compounded by international shortages of cholera vaccines and difficulties in delivering and administering them in cholera-affected areas.
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Author comments:
As usual, the United Nations World Health Organization Use the language of the climate crisis, as dictated by the UN-mandated narrative that all bad things are caused by climate change. Any unwelcome weather is considered evidence of climate change – even if it is normal weather in the area in question.
weather, forecast or Rarely, not climate change. If Sudan or other normally arid areas of Africa transform into rainforests or other major shifts in Köppen climate types within a few decades, that's climate and environmental change. Even so, the change wouldn't cause cholera – which is not caused by climate patterns.
The United Nations and all its related agencies are climate crisis advocacyNational Public Radio in the United States, the BBC in the United Kingdom, the ABC in Australia, and several international climate advocacy news groups added fuel to the fire.
Weather is not climate, and diseases are neither caused nor spread by climate change.
Thank you for reading.
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