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rapidly growing incomes. The limitations of projections like those of the
WHO and IPCC reports highlight the importance of evaluating impacts
in the context of the future economy—the economy that actually pro-
duces the climate-change scenarios—rather than making projections
based solely on current economic conditions.
In addition, this discussion illustrates the more general point about
the role of managed systems when considering the impacts of climate
change. Health care is one of the most intensively managed of all hu-
man systems. In the case of malaria and other diseases that might be
aggravated by climate change, we would expect governments to take
steps to reduce vulnerabilities through research, preventive measures,
and treatment programs. This analysis is consistent with trends in ma-
laria incidence over the last decade. According to WHO, the deaths per
person at risk fell by 33 percent over the decade from 2000 to 2010. 14
The summary on health effects is similar to that for agriculture in
the last chapter. In looking forward, we must remember that human
societies increasingly devote resources to insulate their lives and prop-
erty from environmental conditions as their incomes rise. This is true
in all areas of human activity—in adaptive housing, storm warning sys-
tems, more and better trained doctors and nurses, and improved public
health infrastructure. There is never a guarantee that this trend will
continue, or that it will always be successful, or that surprises will not
occasionally overwhelm the defenses. So while it would be imprudent
to rule out adverse impacts of climate change on human health, the de-
gree of vulnerability for the market economies seems very different from
that of the unmanaged systems that are discussed starting in Chapter 9.
 
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