Will global warming, natural or otherwise, make life worse for humans? We have heard stories of fertile plains reduced to baking deserts, and of coastal and island communities submerged by rising sea levels.

Now Robert Matthews (Telegraph) reports on some scientists who are beginning to question those bleak prophecies, including some who think the changes may be beneficial. They suggest that a warmer earth brings benefits, and that humans can readily adapt to the changes.

Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at the University of London, points out that

"Cold is nearly always worse for everything - the economy, agriculture, disease, biodiversity". According to Prof Stott, times of historical prosperity have often been tied to unusually warm periods, such as the so-called Mediaeval Warm Period between 1100 and 1300. In contrast, the Little Ice Age between 1450 to 1890 was characterized by famines, pandemics and social upheaval.

Some cite the recent heat-waves as evidence of the lethal effects of global warming,

Yet a review published last year by scientists at the University of London pointed out a basic medical fact: in many countries, cold kills far more people each year than heat. For the kind of temperature rise predicted for the UK over the next 50 years, the team estimated that heat-related deaths would rise by about 2,000 a year - but that this figure would be dwarfed by a cut in cold-related deaths of 20,000.

The UK has been warned it faces a return of malaria, but analysis from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine concludes that changes in land use and socio-economic trends make the risk "highly unlikely".

Similarly, the dire warnings about world crop levels are now being countered by analysis which factors in human adaptability. Alternative crops can be planted.

Ironically, some of the benefits come from the growth-promoting effect of the very greenhouse gas now causing so much alarm: carbon dioxide. Global yields of wheat and rice are expected to rise by 18 per cent, while yields of clover - a key foodstuff for grazing animals - looks set to rise by 36 per cent. Global vegetation density seems to be benefiting already, with net gains in growth across the whole planet since the early 1980s. Even tropical forests and the Amazon are reported to be growing more luxuriant as CO2 levels rise.

Alarming predictions of 5 ft rises in sea levels have also been scaled back. The International Quaternary Association last year put the figure somewhere between 8in and zero, which could be adapted to. Millions downed or made homeless by flooding does not seem to be on the agenda, as the Inter governmental Panel on Climate Change now concedes. Human adaptability and inventiveness have hitherto often been left out of the equation.

Change and adaptation seem more likely than disaster if this is correct, but we must ensure that we generate sufficient economic growth and wealth to cope with the changes.