An old scare rehashed - threat of disease - UPDATE

An organisation based in New York called the "Wildlife Conservation Society" has published a scaremongering report that lists a "deadly dozen" diseases which could threaten human health and global economies as a result of "climate change" (reports the UK Daily Telegraph).

The list of diseases we could all succumb to if we don't tackle climate change includes avian flu, cholera, ebola, lyme disease, plague (!), rift valley fever, sleeping sickness, tuberculosis and yellow fever.

This is reminiscent of the spurious claim made in An Inconvenient Truth that "global warming" will spread a number of serious diseases. Even if temperatures are rising (which they haven't been for many years now), many of these claims can be refuted - for example, ebola can only be contracted by eating or coming into contact with infected monkeys... how does that relate to global warming? In any event, the effect of global warming on the distribution of these diseases is miniscule compared to a great many other factors such as water purity, socioeconomic conditions and hygiene.

But again, for the alarmists' cause, the more apocalyptic prophesies that can be linked to "climate change" (no matter how tenuously) the better.

Read it here.

UPDATE - The Australian now has a piece on this here.