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Goklany project 51,000 world-wide excess deaths because of additional poverty from bio-fuel programs alone. While climate change ranks on the WHO’s risk factor’s, being underweight ranks at the top. Biofuel production, which is heavily subsidized in many developing countries, diverts food away to fuel and attempts to address the lowest risk factor at the expense of the most important. To truly help developing countries with the risks associated with climate change as well as the many more important ones, we should shift away from biofuel policies and focus on broader economic development.

As the earth has warmed the extent of malaria and hunger rates have dropped and life expectancy and health-adjusted life expectancy (disability adjusted life years) has increased. Goklany says that “global warming or its underlying human causes, if any, have not increased death or disease. In fact, they are probably responsible for the worldwide decreases in mortality rates and increases in life expectancy over the last century.”