On April 7, the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) released a draft for public review of its upcoming Climate & Health Assessment. No citations or quotations from the draft are permitted. Public comments are solicited with a requirement that they arrive prior to 7 June. The Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) is preparing comments to be presented to USGCRP. If the USGCRP 
operates like the EPA, any comment that does not concur with their already made conclusions will be ignored.
SEPP have made some preliminary observations in their TWTW postings. The following is from the 16 May issue:
“Even though the US government spent over $35 billion on climate science research from fiscal year 1993 to FY 2013, federal agencies have failed to create a global climate model, verified and validated, for predicting future temperatures. Without a valid climate model, temperature forecasts are highly speculative. Thus, the core of the entire USGCRP Climate and Health Assessment is speculative. Labeling such statements with terms such as Very Likely or High Confidence is pure fiction. There is no objective method to assess likelihood or confidence. Further, there is no indication that government agencies are attempting to create a valid climate model that has predictive power (skill).”
The entire “theory of catastrophic, man-made global warming” is dependant on the climate model outputs. I have seen recently where the science deniers (formerly referred to as warmers) say that although the models are not doing well now, they were good in the decade of the 90tys. Perhaps, but the on-going predictions for the 15 years of the first and second decades of the current century prove the models really have no predictive skills. And they want us to believe that the can predict the next 80 to 90 years.
TWTW continues with the following:
“The most distinctive feature of the chapter on vector borne diseases (chapter 4) is what is missing: how has the US addressed infectious diseases in the past? The chapter details the spread of diseases such as Lyme disease (borne by ticks) and West Nile virus & Malaria (borne by mosquitoes). Lyme disease, the major tick borne disease was subject to surveillance in 1991, and West Nile virus, the major mosquito borne disease, was first reported in 1999. Both are recent diseases in the US. Malaria was endemic in low-lying land in colonial days. In fact, a 1882 map, not mentioned in USGCRP report, shows that, except for the Appalachian Mountains and northern New England, malaria was common east of the Rocky Mountains.
Further, the USGCRP report states that there were 36,307 reported cases of Lyme disease, 2,469 reported cases of West Nile virus, and 1,594 reported cases of Malaria in 2013. For individuals taken ill, the diseases are significant, but compared to the past, the numbers of those infected by vector borne diseases are insignificant in a population exceeding 317 million.
For example, the 1999 Statistical Abstract of the United States, shows that the Malaria rate in 1920 was 173 per 100,000 for a population of 106 million, or about 183,400 cases. This works out to be about 0.17% of the population in 1920 and 0.0005% of the population in 2013. Similarly, the great killer diseases of the past in the United States have been reduced to almost insignificance. These diseases include yellow fever, typhoid, and dysentery. Attempts by the USGCSP to relate infectious diseases, vector borne or not, to climate change fall flat. One of the great triumphs of Western Civilization has been the ability to address these diseases through research, public health measures, and wealth.
What is particularly disturbing about the USGCSP report is that the lead authors of the chapter on vector borne diseases are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). One would expect that members of the CDC would know of the great improvements to American health and the control and prevention of disease during the 20th century, when the climate warmed.”
Having no training in “vector borne diseases” but only operating on what seems to be common sense, tells me that SEPP’s comments are on the mark. I always wonder why the people in the northern part of the US, for example, will not be able to handle a degree or two of higher temperature, if that actually comes to pass. Having lived in South East Texas for years, the temperature difference between there and say New York, is much greater than two degrees. How do all those Northerners that retire and move to the South survive? In fact most move to the warmer climates for health reasons.
cbdakota
Climate Change Sanity 