 According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control, quote, life expectancy for the U.S. population declined to 78.6 years in 2017, unquote. This was largely due to obesity and drug addiction. The American life expectancy trend does not reflect global trends, however. Hello, this is Ryan McMacon, and you're listening to Radio Rothbard. Worldwide, the evidence continues to point toward rising life expectancy in most of the world, with the biggest gains in the poorest countries. According to data compiled by the World Bank, life expectancy continues to grow fastest in Africa. During the 10-year period from 2007 to 2016, the largest gains were realized in Zimbabwe, Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, Botswana, Malawi, and South Africa. The gains in years ranged from 13 years over the period in Zimbabwe to nearly 10 years in South Africa. Wealthy and mid-level countries saw gains during this period as well, including in Switzerland and Mexico, where life expectancy increased 1.1 years and 1.4 years, respectively. Indeed, the continued gain should surprise no one who keeps up with global trends in health. Globally, access to sanitation and clean water has improved substantially, while extreme poverty, malnourishment, and child mortality have all declined. This has especially been the case in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, where some of the worst poverty can be found. Oddly, however, you won't hear much about this in the context of the climate change debate. For years, as life expectancy numbers have continued to rise, pundits and researchers have repeatedly attempted to claim that climate change has led to, or will soon lead to, declines in overall life and health. For example, the New Republic announced in 2015 that climate change, quote, devastates food security, nutrition, and water safety, unquote. Yet the data shows that none of these things have been in any way devastated over the past decade. In fact, the indicators are all better now than they were 10 years ago. Meanwhile, the Lancet predicted, in a report released in November of last year, quote, continued progress in improving life expectancy, unquote. The biggest gains are to be found in poorer countries. The report also predicts continued life expectancy growth through the year 2040. Needless to say, the usual narrative we hear isn't to expect most of humanity to be living longer decades from now. The UN Secretary General, on the other hand, assures us that climate change is, quote, a systemic threat to mankind, unquote. And President Obama concludes nothing, quote, poses a greater threat to future generations, unquote, than climate change. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has predicted, quote, the world is going to end in 12 years, unquote, due to climate change. But while we're told global temperatures are already at catastrophic levels, we're also told the net gain in life expectancy continues to be positive well into the future. Where we do see life expectancy declining, as in the United States, we see it due primarily to drug addiction and to an inability to cut back on cheeseburgers. Upon noting this, advocates for climate change regulations might claim, well, both things are true. We'd be living even longer if not for climate change. Except here's the rub. The very things that make it possible to expand life expectancy, medical care, high quality housing, heating, air conditioning, and clean water are all byproducts of our industrialized economies powered primarily by fossil fuels. Tearing down the system in the name of preventing climate change would be devastating to life and health worldwide. In other words, taking steps to greatly increase the cost of essential resources and amenities, as carbon taxes and other climate change regulations do, would only pull the rug out from undercurrent efforts to continually fight against countless causes of mortality, such as waterborne disease, cancer, and diabetes. It is not climate change that poses the greatest threat to future generations. The real threat lies in losing the ground gained in the global south in terms of sanitation, medical care, and housing. Thus, crippling the global economy through climate change regulation, not climate change itself, is the most systemic threat we face. The burden hand of industrial globalization has clearly delivered a higher standard of living than has ever been known in the old, quote unquote, third world. However, the promised two birds in the bush of global climate control offers fewer plausible promises for a better life. Realizing the need to up the ante, researchers continue trying to connect a myriad of health problems directly to climate change in order to justify more regulatory intervention. The New Republic continues, quote, it, a 2012 report on climate change, linked 400,000 deaths worldwide to climate change each year, projecting deaths to increase to over 600,000 per year by 2030, unquote. But how do they arrive at these numbers? They're achieved by claiming a variety of diseases are indirectly caused by climate change. Given that most mortality is now caused by diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, liver failure, and other chronic conditions, it's chronic disease and not factors directly connected to climate like heat stroke that will be the most significant drivers in life expectancy. Thus, a solid connection must be made to diseases such as diabetes if climate change can be held up as a leading cause of mortality. But even if they could show the precise degree to which, say, cardiovascular disease can be blamed on climate change, which hasn't been done, big numbers such as those used in the New Republic article don't provide a picture of net mortality. That is, it's easy to blame large numbers of deaths on climate change while ignoring the many ways that mortality rates and life expectancy are simultaneously being improved by our industrialized fossil fuel-powered modern society. Admittedly, significant changes in food availability have some of the highest potential for significantly impacting life expectancy predictions. But if this occurs, it would then be necessary to connect food availability to climate change itself. After all, malnutrition issues in Africa are heavily impacted by economic and political problems caused by governments, such as civil wars and dysfunctional economies. Clearly, it would be nonsensical to point to the current situation in Venezuela and claim the current shortages there are significantly due to a climate change problem. It's not enough to point out there are malnutrition problems. It's also necessary to show the exact extent to which climate change has been a significant driver. Nor can much of a case be made for claims that climate change causes more deadly natural disasters. The media has attempted to create the picture that climate change-related natural disasters are worse than ever, but this case can only be made in terms of dollar amounts. This is because, at least in wealthy parts of the world, people are putting more expensive cars, homes, and other amenities in harm's way. A street full of flood-ruined automobiles is far more expensive today than in the past. In most of the world, though, the cost of climate change-related natural disasters is much lower, in terms of human life, especially, than in the past. The evidence points towards sizable declines in deaths due to natural disasters, and those deaths are far fewer today than a century ago. This should not be surprising since modern economies and higher standards of living make it easier for populations to take shelter and get out of harm's way. Vehicles and equipment needed for medical triage are more readily available, and there is more surplus wealth to deal with large temporary relocations of populations. The Lancet itself report also notes that natural disaster-related deaths are unlikely to be relevant to life expectancy predictions. Unquote predicted impacts in other studies on extreme weather-related deaths and heatwave deaths are not large enough to have much impact on global life expectancy. Unquote. So while journalists like to talk about how many people climate change will supposedly kill this year, the fact remains that the net gains in life expectancy continue to be positive. Those who want to rein in economic activity in the name of climate improvement would be destroying the very thing that's improved the quality of life for billions already. Second, the anti-climate change research would have to show that carbon taxes and similar policies will both reduce climate change and increase access to better medical care housing and clean water. This has certainly not been done. In fact, as Robert Murphy has noted here at Mises.org, we have every reason to believe the cost of implementation of anti-climate change regimes will be very high. Thank you for listening to Radio Rothbard. Have a wonderful day. For more content like this, visit Mises.org.