Human Health and Welfare Effects from Increased Greenhouse Gases and Warming
-- John Dunn and David Legates

Claims that global warming will have net negative effects on human health are not supported by scientific evidence. Moderate warming and increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon-dioxide levels could provide net benefits for human welfare, agriculture, and the biosphere by reducing cold-related deaths, increasing the amount of arable land, extending the length of growing seasons, and invigorating plant life. The harmful effects of restricting access to fossil fuel energy and subsequently causing energy costs to increase would likely outweigh any potential benefits from slightly delaying any rise in temperatures. Climate change is likely to have less impact on health and welfare than polices that would deprive the poor living in emerging economies of the benefits of abundant and inexpensive energy. //

As this chart shows, by a wide margin, the Gasparrini et al. study illustrates that cold extremes kill far more people that heatwaves—and by a wide margin. They concluded:

Our findings show that temperature is responsible for advancing a substantial fraction of deaths…7.71% of the mortality…. Most of the mortality burden was caused by days colder than the optimum temperature (7.29%) compared with days warmer than the optimum temperature (0.42%). So cold produced 17 times the number of heat deaths.7 //

Underlying the concept of Net Zero is the LNT [Linear No Threshold - nuclear radiation] philosophy laid down more than three decades earlier: no net emissions of greenhouse gases are acceptable. There is no threshold that allows some net production of greenhouse gases such that at any level, the net emission of greenhouse gases at any non-zero level is detrimental to the environment and must, therefore, be stopped. The belief is that since urgent action must be taken to avoid any additional warming of the planet, greenhouse gases must be removed from the atmosphere.71 When “emissions released by human action are taking a catastrophic toll on our planet and propelling us further into an irreversible climate crisis,” no threshold is acceptable.72 //

Linear No-Threshold theory began in 1927 when H. J. Muller examined phenotypical damages in fruit flies resulting from x-ray exposure, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1946.78

Ibid.
It was introduced in radiological risk studies in 1959 and subsequently into general cancer risk. Consequently, the U.S. National Academy of Science recommended use of the LNT model to the induction of radiation-related mutations in somatic cells and, subsequently, to the study of cancer initiation.79

Edward J. Calabrese, “Cancer Risk Assessment, Its Wretched History and What It Means for Public Health,” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, Vol. 21 (2024). 
In low-energy radiation, The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation based its radiological protection system on the assumption that the radiation-induced risk was directly proportional (i.e., linear) to the dosage, with no dose threshold below which no risk exists.80

Dominique Laurier et al., “The Scientific Basis for the Use of the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Model at Low Doses and Dose Rates in Radiological Protection,” Journal of Radiological Protection, Vol. 43 (2023), 024003.

About a decade after receiving the Nobel Prize, Muller admitted that he did not discover small mutations in fruit flies with the x-ray exposure for which he was heralded; rather, the high-energy radiation nearly obliterated large portions of their chromosomes. However, his Nobel Lecture argued that no safe radiation dose existed and that the LNT model must replace a threshold-dose-response model.81

Ibid., and Edward J. Calabrese, “Flaws in the LN Single-Hit Model for Cancer Risk: An Historical Assessment,” Environmental Research, Vol. 158 (2017), pp. 773–788; Edward J. Calabrese, “From Muller to Mechanism: How LNT Became the Default Model for Cancer Risk Assessment,” Environmental Pollution, Vol. 241 (2018), pp. 289–302; and Edward J. Calabrese, “Ethical Failures: The Problematic History of Cancer Risk Assessment,” Environmental Research, Vol. 193 (2020), 110582.

A Better Rule. An obviously better rule than LNT (and to net zero and other greenhouse gas–reduction strategies) is that of Paracelsus, a Swiss physician and alchemist of the 16th century: “All things are poison and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison” (Sola dosis facit venenum).82 //

Eighty percent of modern energy is produced by burning petroleum, natural gas, or coal to turn the turbines inside electricity generators. (See Chart 2.) Running 24 hours a day and seven days a week, a traditional coal, natural gas, or nuclear plant requires about 12.5 acres per megawatt of electricity. By contrast, solar (43.5 acres per megawatt) and wind (70.6 acres per megawatt) arrays occupy vastly more land area and have a much larger negative impact on the local habitat and its environment.93