Guest Essay by Kip Hansen — 20 September 2024 —1500 words
The United Nation’s World Health Organization is at it again, pushing Climate Change as the root of all evil:
Here’s the claim:
“The number of cholera deaths reported globally last year increased by 71 percent from deaths in 2022, while the number of reported cases rose 13 percent. Much of the increase was driven by conflict and climate change, the W.H.O. report said.” [ NY Times ]
Let’s see the stats:
And where did these cholera outbreaks occur 2023?
I have added in the country names for all nations experiencing more than 100 cholera deaths. [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 issued their annual report titled: “Cholera, 2023 — World Health Organization” [.pdf].
Important excerpts include:
“In 2023, very large outbreaks, >10 000 suspected and confirmed cases per country, were reported by 9 countries on 3 continents (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Haiti, Malawi, Mozambique, Somalia and Zimbabwe).”
“Conflict, climate change, limited investment in development and population displacement due to emerging and re-emerging risks all contributed to the rise in the number of cholera outbreaks. This trend reflects a lack of long-term development investment, particularly in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Cholera outbreaks indicate that the sustainable development goals for WASH are not on track to meet the 2030 objectives, despite the United Nations General Assembly’s recognition in 2010 that access to safe drinking-water and sanitation is a fundamental human right.”
“The surge of cases in southern Africa that began in 2022 continued into 2023, with Malawi’s outbreak expanding (32 530), while Mozambique (39 101), South Africa (1478), Zambia (4531), and Zimbabwe (14 148) all reported the highest number of cases in ≥5 years. It is notable that, with some significant sub-national exceptions, the outbreaks occurred in stable areas not affected by conflict. Long-term investment in climate change-resilient WASH systems could significantly reduce the risk of recurring outbreaks in these areas.”
The entire 14-page WHO report only makes mention of climate change as a general talking point the two times quoted above. What WHO means when it says “climate change” is bad weather conditions – there has been no change in local or regional climates – mostly too much rain causing flooding – which is a common in Eastern Africa.
Cholera is caused by “People living in places with unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation, and inadequate hygiene are at highest risk of cholera.” “Cholera is an infection of the intestines caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae.“ “People usually get cholera from drinking water or eating food that contains traces of poop from someone with cholera. The disease can spread quickly in areas where sewage and drinking water aren’t adequately treated. … Cholera is not likely to spread from person to person or from casual contact with someone with cholera.” [ CDC ]
In plain English, when human waste (feces) gets into the drinking water supply, cholera can and does break out. Cholera is not (normally) spread person-to-person like diseases like the flu or colds.
And, it is true that when underdeveloped countries experience floods, it can overwhelm both their sanitation infrastructure (human waste management) and their drinking water infrastructure. Unfortunately, in many areas, there simply is NO proper sanitation and NO clean drinking water supply. Lacking such infrastructure means the people are using dug latrines and hand-dug water wells or collecting water from streams and lakes.
The NY Times article makes the claim: “Cholera’s spread in southern Africa has been propelled by catastrophic weather events, including both floods and droughts.” The reference for this is another earlier NY Times article which supplies no evidence for the claim, only this: “The devastation is linked to increasingly ferocious storms, a shortage of vaccines, and poor water and sewer infrastructure, public health experts said.”
And in that we have two of the true major contributors to cholera outbreaks:
1. Poor or non-existent clean drinking water and inadequate or non-existent sewage infrastructure
2. A shortage of cholera vaccines (exacerbated by lacking pubic healthcare delivery infrastructure).
The third major contributor is population displacement due to conflict, which pushes people into refugee camps and already crowded cities.
The not-in-evidence “ferocious storms” have not affected the broad area of our world map above showing cholera outbreaks. The 2023 North African Monsoon (.pptx file) was ‘above average’ but not catastrophically so, just bit wetter. The 2024 African monsoon has not been particularly wet in most areas:
The map of cholera outbreaks itself is some small evidence against the “caused by climate change” claim. Haiti occupies 1/3 of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, the other 2/3 of the island is the country of the Dominican Republic. Haiti has a major cholera outbreak, while the Dominican Republic has none. They share the island, its weather and its climate. Haiti however is far poorer, has basically no operating central governance and tends towards lawlessness, especially in the cities. The Dominican Republic is likewise poor but not as poor as Haiti. They have an operating democracy and more-or-less dependable, if flawed, civil service.
Sudan, a generally very dry nation, is one of the worst hit countries, with a very high Case Fatality Rate. Sudan sees floods in the monsoon season, regular as clockwork, and this can be seen in the African Monsoon image above – with a broad swath of higher precipitation across the middle of the country.
“Flooding is an annual challenge in Sudan in August and September. Around that time each year, monsoon rains pour into the Ethiopian Highlands and flow down to the Blue Nile and White Nile. As the rivers wind their way north through Sudan and South Sudan, floodwaters often swamp riverside communities.”
“The annual flooding happened again in 2024. But this time, heavy rains also fell in the north of the country, fueling destructive flash floods in areas less accustomed to receiving so much runoff.” [ source ]
Armed conflict has severely impacted the country’s economy and ability to respond to humanitarian needs – this means limited health services such as vaccinations and limited or no repairs to sewage and clean water infrastructure.
In the end, here is why Sudan floods in the monsoon season:
The flow of the Victoria Nile – the Upper Nile, southern end of the Nile Rivers – is mainly controlled by dams in Uganda (shown in white on the left-hand map) and the GERD Dam in Ethiopia. Almost literally all of the rain that falls in the annual monsoon west of the Horn of Africa flows into the Sudan, a country torn in two by civil war.
Poverty — at all scales from personal, familial, national, and regional – makes these areas prone to cholera outbreaks when adverse weather strikes or conflict forces people to flee their homes.
Bottom Line:
Cholera Outbreaks are not caused by Climate Change. There is no evidence of climates changing in the areas of cholera outbreaks.
Cholera is cause by the presence of Vibrio cholerae, a bacterium, in drinking water supplies (sometimes in food made with tainted water or foods washed in tainted water). This is caused by the contamination of drinking water with human feces. The contamination of drinking water with human feces (thus the bacterium) is a result of poor or nonexistent safe drinking water and sewage handling infrastructure (infrastructure coined by the U.N. WHO as WASH).
Any disruption of civil society in areas that lack adequate safe clean drinking water and proper sewage handling infrastructure can lead to cholera outbreaks: including weather (floods, severe droughts) — armed conflict (or even the threat of armed conflict), breakdown of normal civil governance.
All of that has been compounded by an international shortage of cholera vaccines and difficulties delivering and administering those vaccines in areas affected by cholera.
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Author’s Comment:
As usual, the United Nations’ World Health Organization uses climate crisis language as demanded by the enforced UN narrative that all bad things are caused by Climate Change. Any weather that is unwanted is claimed to be evidence of Climate Change – even normal weather for the region involved.
Weather, expected or rare, is not Climate Change. If the Sudan or other normally arid regions of Africa were to become, over a couple of decades, rain forests or some other major shift in Köppen climate type, that would be climate and environmental change. Even then, that change would not cause cholera – cholera is not caused by climate type.
The U.N. and all of its related agencies are major purveyors of Climate Crisis Propaganda, feeding fuel to the fire spread by the U.S.’s National Public Radio, the UK’s BBC, and Australia’s ABC and several international climate propaganda news cabals.
Weather is not climate, diseases are neither caused or spread by climate change.
Thanks for reading.
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