Guest “WTF?” by David Middleton
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DAILY SCIENCE
How climate change could change the way we die
A new study predicts more deaths from injuries in a warmer world.
By Sarah DeWeerdt
January 14, 2020Global warming of 1.5 °C could result in an additional 1,603 deaths from injuries each year in the United States, an international team of researchers reported yesterday in the journal Nature Medicine. They calculated the death toll from 2 °C of warming at 2,135 excess injury-related deaths yearly.
[…]
The Anthropocene
1,603? Are they sure it’s not 1,602 or 1,604?
[…]
The researchers mined 38 years’ worth of US government data on weather conditions and deaths from injuries in the United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii). They calculated the average temperature in each month of the year for each state from 1980 to 2017. They identified months when the temperature was warmer than average in a given state, and compared the death rate from injuries during these months to the background rate of injury deaths.
This enabled them to calculate how mortality from injuries might change if average temperatures in all states increase year-round by 1.5 or 2 °C, the benchmarks set out in the Paris Agreement.
The number of excess deaths for 2 °C of warming, 2,135, represents 1% of all deaths from injuries in 2017. California, Texas, and Florida are likely to have the largest number of these increased deaths.
[…]
“These new results show how much climate change can affect young people,” study leader Majid Ezzati of Imperial College London said in a statement. “We need to respond to this threat with better preparedness in terms of emergency services, social support and health warnings.”
For example, officials could design public health messages specifically targeted at young men warning of the risks from traffic accidents and drowning, and implement additional blood alcohol level checkpoints on roads during hot weather.
Source: Parks R.M. et al. “Anomalously warm temperatures are associated with increased injury deaths.” Nature Medicine 2020.
The Anthropocene
For once they’re probably right – sunny weather in Australia results in lots of idiots drinking vast quantities of beer and jumping on dangerous toys like jet skis. Obviously the only option to prevent this 1% surge in accidents in nice weather is to shut down the possibility of young people having fun.
Wasn’t that the basis of the old Paul Hogan show’s “Dag” character?
Ha 🙂
The Dallas PBS channel used to run that and a ton of British comedies along with Doctor Who & Blake’s 7 back in the 80’s & 90’s.
Doctor Who just ran an episode about a barren planet that needed Terra forming it was inhabited by CO2 breathing Monsters and the Monsters were us.
Yep, who could’ve seen that coming? In the future we kill Earth and evolve into horrible ugly monsters that thrive on carbon dioxide and expel oxygen.
All the dandys who are being raise in this Anthropocene Age of Propaganda got a glimpse of our future and that will certainly cause them to take up walking and eating plant food. Fossil fuel is turning us into monsters. Monsters I tell ya! And they’re horrible!!
Bill- good trick that- humanity turns into mobile trees and breathes out oxygen. Minor issue but such a monster could probably only take a step or two per hour. But don’t let that get in the way of a good show.
You mean “Donk”?
Donk was an extra large Dag…🍻
You know what a “dag” is?
The country version of a wog!
Nope. Not in Aus and NZ at least. A “dag” is the bits of sh!t that binds to the hair on animals like sheep and dogs etc. Is also, in Aus and NZ, a good bloke! You’re a dag! Lets not talk about routers the way I say it.
Like a mustang.
A piece of s**t hanging from a sheep’s a**e. If is does not fall, then it must hang, Old as old. Geoff S
Yup,
In my country, Dag is found on sheep, usually around the rear end:)
Cheers
Roger
Generally, when speaking in the context of GAGW, “Climate Models” are called a term associated with male bovines in the US.
“Down Under” are they called DS?
Hogan also did a character called “Super Dag”…lol…
Didn’t he throw Fosters cans at the bad guys?
That’s all Fosters is much good for.
Mainly seen when you visit friends in the UK and they want you to feel at home.
A bit cruel to tell them that no one in Oz drinks it.
I think Paul Hogan’s “Leo Wanker” would have also inspired a few Darwin awards!
What about A/C? Or is that gone in their idea of a future?
How about prognosticating increased deaths from a 1.5ºC decrease in temperature?
As cold kills roughly 10 to 20 times more people than hot, they would be surprising. It must have been hell to live in the Medieval Warm Period, with people dropping like flies—wait, they were apparently unaware that they should be dying and instead were having a great time.
It’s tough to make prediction, especially about the future. Even so…In the future you won’t be able to find one scientist, Hollywood star or politician who will admit he/she/etc. ever believed in the Anthropocene or CO2 causing warming or climate change or anything.
Bang on you’reabsolutely right! They’ll do the typically usual thing & go for not outright denial, just the old “I was miss-understood/quoted/interpreted/maligned, take your pick, their pride will never permit them to do the decent thing & just say, “I was wrong!”
Alan,
In the last year or so things have changed enough that they’ll just claim that a video clip is a “Deep Fake”, they never really said what it shows them saying.
These “predictions” are nothing more than underemployed cubicle-dwellers being instructed to massage some kind of “data” to produce yet another scary headline, nothing more. BTW, no real person with enough brain cells to create a synapse believes this happy horse-shite.
Just so the mortality rate doesn’t exceed 100% in the long run.
“No one gets out of here alive.”
-Jim Morrison, before he got out of here.
… but not alive
Anthropobscene.
> Studies published in the Lancet and the American Journal of Cardiology, among other outlets, show that the incidence of heart failure goes up in the week after a blizzard. The Lancet study, based on death certificates in eastern Massachusetts after six blizzards from 1974-78, demonstrated that ischemic heart disease deaths rose by 22 percent during the blizzard week and stayed elevated for the subsequent eight days, suggesting that the effect was related to storm-related activities, like shoveling, rather than the storm itself.
Looks like a win to me.
“How climate change could change the way we die. A new study predicts more deaths from injuries in a warmer world.
By Sarah DeWeerdt
January 14, 2020
Thank you for this. I will add it to my collection of goofy climate impact studies.
added this to my collection of wacky impact studies. Thank you.
Here is the link.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/06/21/climate-change-impacts1/
I think that the unstated belief of alarmists is that all change is bad. That is ironic considering that progressives are always trying to change political things in order to achieve social perfection.
All of these Alarmists belong to a secret organization known as The Flat Climate Society….
That explains their “tipping point” fear – they might fall off!
“Here, hold my beer.”
Not buying it. The fact that they made the comparisons based on anomalously warm months spikes my BS meter.
I clicked the link and from what I could make out, they didn’t establish that the increase in accidents occurred on days where the temperature was 1.5 or 2 °C above the base.
I can buy into exploring the hypothesis that on hotter days, people might be doing stupid things that cause injuries that are otherwise not appealing to attempt on colder days. But then I could see exploring the hypothesis that people just sit around in the air conditioning on the really hot days and when there is a break in the heat, everyone gets out of the house and goes wild.
In my reading at the link, I didn’t see any indication that the injuries for the month actually occurred on the hotter days of the anomalous month. Perhaps they looked at that and it didn’t work out until monthly data was examined.
.
.
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Okay, I went back a re-read the study at the link and it was all monthly data. They did find and adequately show that the injury rates increased in the anomalously warm months compared to the base months. But I’m not seeing that they established that the injuries occurred on the hottest days of those months. Many of those extra injuries may have occurred on perfectly average temperature days.
To be fair, they may have cited daily studies in the links, but I’m in the WTF?!? camp on this one and didn’t bother chasing down their referenced studies.
It gets hot. People play stupid games and win stupid prizes, like trips to the hospital. That’s news?
But “climate” is not an anomalous event! They should have compared accident rates of areas where the average climate temperature differed by 1.5-2 degrees. What they measured was a transient weather effect.
I’d like to see a companion study on the colder-than-average months.
I wonder if they did any research on anomalously warm winter temperatures, or anomalously cold winter temperatures?
“1,603? Are they sure it’s not 1,602 or 1,604?”
No David. I think they meant was actually 1,603.49 deaths.
They simply rounded like the IRS allows on tax returns.
Haven’t you seen that 0.49/0.51 dead-live guy?
He’s out there. He’s probably voting Democrat this year too, like he did in 2018, 2016,….
We’ve been told wrong all the time. It was not Schrodinger’s cat, it was his guy.
Have control studies been done of a similar sized population shifting house to a warmer climate. How does their health fore and aft?
The hidden premise in this study is that a difference is all attributable to climate change.
If the temperature of Detroit increases 2C then the climate of Detroit will be like that of Indianapolis Indiana or Columbus Ohio. And Detroiters will be dying as fast as people in those two cities. They’ll be dropping like flies. / sarc
If a train leaves Detroit heading to Indianapolis at 100 miles an hour and it is 2 degrees C warmer in Columbus, will there be any sound in the forest? Worth studying at least as much as this one was.
My God! What if Global warming of 1.5 °C resulted in an additional 1,604 deaths from injuries each year in the United States! What if people did not even notice them amongst the .2,9000,000 (approx.) registered deaths in the United States next year
I thought the environmentalists wanted more people to die?
How many deaths will be averted by a 1.5C temperature increase in , say, Canada, or in Russia not only by the temperature increase but the lower consumption of vodka which the Russians drink for ‘inner warmth’ (well the alarmists come up with all manner of similar ridiculously unlikely scenarios).
Linear stupidity! Climate change studies are full of it, in so many ways. First of all, a climate warming of two degrees over 50-100 years is not the same as a day that is 2 degrees above a 30-year climate mean. One cannot draw a straight line from and apple to an orange and proclaim a climate crises.
Plus, activities change over time. For example, they number of young men who died in car crashes during the Little Ice Age was zero, and is much higher now during the modern warm period. Conclusion: warmer weather kills more young male drivers!
These climate scientists reason like Woody Allen in Love and Death:
30 years of this nonsense, and they still can’t make their case with actual data? Still relying on guesses layered on guesses? I’m pretty disappointed that humanity hasn’t collectively seen through this BS yet. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Yay, another case of correlation = causation. I’m sure there weren’t any other factors at play besides temperature, though, so why bother looking? (Sarc)
CDC says more people die in winter than summer.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6826a5.htm
Perhaps the CDC needs lessons on data massaging so they can get with the climate program.
More people die in accidents when it is warm enough to go outside and play. Far more people die from illness, stress and exposure when it is not. If the planet warms enough for anyone to notice, it is statically reasonable to believe more people will go outside and play more often, resulting in am increase in accidental deaths. This, however, would be reversed many times over by fewer people doing from the cold.
Warmer is better. That is obvious.
Correlation does not mean causation. This an observational study which could be used for hypothesis generation but there are many confounders. And reading their study shows they had a hard time positing a rational pathway from temperature to outcomes.
I find it hard to believe a small change in temperature causes behavioral changes. From the study:
“Average size of anomaly over the study period (1980–2017), a measure of how variable temperatures are around their state–month long-term average, ranged from 0.4 °C for Florida in September to 3.4 °C for North Dakota in February (see Extended Data Fig. 2). Taken across all states and months, the average size of anomaly had a median value of 1.2 °C. Temperature anomalies were largest in January and December and smallest in August and September. ”
So we are to believe warming of 0.4C in Florida’s September and 3.4C in N. Dakota’s dead of winter causes all this mayhem? The first anomaly would not be noticeable and the second might be a god-send. Note the smallest were in the summer (peak injuries!) and the largest when warming might be most appreciated.
File this study under “torture the data till it confesses” or the Replication Crisis. See
http://www.nas.org/blogs/dicta/the_irreproducibility_crisis_of_modern_science
This review article brings in climate science as well the social sciences & medicine.
Like a mustang.
A piece of s**t hanging from a sheep’s a**e. If is does not fall, then it must hang, Old as old. Geoff S
How much money went into this report I wonder? Seems to me to be a good example of why everyone wants to keep the CAGW gravy train rolling- how else would anyone ever get paid for such a ridiculous waste of time? People have always done stupid things in extreme hot or cold temperatures- for example when we get lots of snow here in the Peak District, lots of townies come out to walk around in it and some get stuck or fall off things, because apparently they forget that it might actually be dangerous. Can I get a lot of money from somewhere for turning this into a ‘report’? When did common sense become a specialist subject?
Methinks … this is closely related to THIS:
https://darwinawards.com/
Yep, also correlated to the number of utube videos posted in the sports/adventure category per month. There are 2 things I missed growing up, as they hadn’t been invented. Big Wheels and skateboards w fancy bearings. I don’t think I’d had made it this far if they had.
So then on average, people in the hot southern states must be dying at a much younger age than people in the northern states or Canada.
Right?
So much of Climate Change/Crisis/Catastrophy/whatever it’s called today is based on Predictions. However, maybe we should start using the term “Prophesy” instead of Prediction. Prophesy: “to declare or foretell by or as if by divine inspiration”. It seems that so much of the “scientific” outpouring must be “divinely inspired” rather than based on realistic scientific method. Just a thought.
+1
From the Quarterly Journal of Correlations Between Two Random Data Sets.
The same journal that regularly prints studies where one data set is compared to about 25 other data sets at the 95% confidence level, and finds one statistically significant correlation. And the author thinks he’s found something.
Forgetting that at the 95% threshold, you expect 1 in 20 uncorrelated pairs to show an anomalous correlation.
These clowns deserve to be thrown in Antarctic where they will have an eternal life.
1603 out of 330 MILLION people????? These people are 100% insane. We can save more than that by making drinking and driving impossible and texting and driving (we have the technology). If they cared about humans (and they DO NOT), they’d go for things like that. It’s all a way to control 330 million people’s miserable lives and rule as gods. Give it up. Some of us can actually do math and understand tyranny when we see it.
Like I said before, the predictions of an increasing death rate are part of the orthodoxy. The reality is a decreasing death rate as well as an even more decreasing birth rate.
The madness of the crowds, it apparently has no boundaries Why is it that common sense has become a white male vice?
Basically, when the weather is nice, more people are outside having fun.
Can’t have that.
I don’t believe the “scientists” properly account for how the younger generations are increasingly glued to screens. I dare say video games are the favored form of exercise right now.
So don’t take this too seriously as sedentarianism is the prefer lifestyle of the modern world.
The true number is 1608…they forgot to include the five people who will slip each year on discarded ice cream cones.
“. . . might change. . .”
And if Carthage had beaten Rome we’d have world peace now.
chemman: “And if Carthage had beaten Rome we’d have world peace now.”
I vaguely recall that one. What was it; Rome 42, Carthage 13? Didn’t the Carthage coach get fired after that one?
The power of soft-science statistics astounds.
So, if this theory is correct, the farther south you go in the United States, the higher the rates of accidental death. Come on.
There are very few inhabited areas on Earth that are not cooler than someplace else that is also inhabited. If global warming really does happen, Vermont may then acquire the same climate as Arizona exhibits today. But people live in Arizona now, and few of them seem to view this as any great tragedy, so why should the citizens of Vermont worry unduly about a warming climate?
Did those who did the study ever try to take into account the fact that a month with “above average” temperatures, particularly in the spring or summer, was more likely to have more sunny days than an “average” month? People are more likely to do outdoor work, which may involve using potentially hazardous tools or climbing on ladders, on sunny days than on rainy days, so a month with more sunny days will have more people doing outdoor work and more opportunity for accidental injury.
For those states that get snow in the winter, people are likely to reduce outdoor activity (other than snow shoveling or winter sports) during a snowy winter, but might decide to use unusually mild winter days to do outdoor work that they would ordinarily put off until spring, which would again increase the opportunity for accidental injury.
Even if we take the results at face value, 1,602 extra injuries out of 330 million people represent 0.00049%, or 0.49 injuries per 100,000 people, which is much less than the murder rate in large American cities. It is also much less than the number of people who die from unusually COLD weather.
Still, if I have to climb a ladder, I prefer doing it on a warm, dry day than a cold, wet day. Less chance of slipping or losing my grip due to numb fingers!
There are far fewer drownings in the northern hemisphere during months with an “R” in the name. Clearly, we should change the names of the other months to have an “R” in them too!
“1,603? Are they sure it’s not 1,602 or 1,604?”
Actually it’s -1,603, they got the sign wrong. The colder months are the deadliest part of the year, with a warmer world, there will be less wintertime deaths, hence why the number is actually a negative not a positive number.
“…officials could design public health messages specifically targeted at young men warning of the risks from traffic accidents and drowning, and implement additional blood alcohol level checkpoints on roads during hot weather.”
New warnings on hot days might read; “It’s going to be hot today so drive extra careful” “Drowning Advisory, stay away from the pool because it’s a little warmer today than yesterday”, “DUI Checkpoint Ahead: because it’s hot today”, “All males under 30 are required to stay indoors because it’s hot outside”, and etc……
This study is just plain silly.
1.0 °C of global warming has resulted in the world’s population increasing by about 6 billion since 1850.
Yet we are supposed to believe that a further 0.5 °C of warming will be catastrophic?
Perhaps they should have run the statistics to show the death rates in Singapore versus Alaska?
The study is actually quite interesting from a couple of viewpoints. The majority of the “additional deaths” stem from drownings and “transport” (driving). Drownings naturally increase in warm weather and “warmer” weather as the young seek the water — people don’t swim much in winter or on cold summer days. Young people also hit the hiways — and drink — in warmer weather.
The “1.5°” above normal has no real bearing on their results.
The whole thing is a statistical house-of-cards and supposition.
Obviously needs an education campaign to take the doomsters’ minds off the plant food-
“While sepsis kills more people in Australia than lung, bowel or breast cancers, Professor Finfer said only 40 per cent of the population have heard of it”
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/twice-as-many-australians-die-from-sepsis-than-previously-thought/ar-BBZ1rCo
On second thoughts they’ll just blame it on global warmening and add it to the list-
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/globalwarming2.html
The number of deaths is what they want to go up, so take away the energy for more cold (homes), hence Shrinkage of population. So they write a paper saying warmth is a problem. Its not really a problem for mankind, maybe so for some animals, but probably not polar bears. That’s my 2 bits…
In the UK being temperate it is cold that kills and the UK government tracks it.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2018to2019provisionaland2017to2018final
“There were an estimated 23,200 excess winter deaths which occurred in England and Wales in the 2018 to 2019 winter, the lowest since the winter of 2013 to 2014.”
It has been reducing and is now starting to increase again. (5 year average – see website above) 1950-51 it was over 100,000.
Guess what, warm is good for life.
Figure 2 (National age-standardized death rates from 1980 to 2017, by type of injury, sex and month) in their report clearly shows a decline in injury related death rates since 1980. This decline is most significant for transport related death among men where the age adjusted summer rate has fallen from ~4/100k to ~1/100k over the period of 1980 to 2017. So if the temperature in the US has increased over this time period shouldn’t the main conclusion be that increased temperatures cause fewer accidental deaths?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-019-0721-y
Music for schizoid climate doomsday scientists to dance with Greta and her Xtinct Rebells:
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&sxsrf=ACYBGNT_u_QzyqgEjcAsZe0BiThLCbYUtg:1579256778916&q=tool+fear+inoculum&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjoy8P6tYrnAhUOpIsKHW3VCE8Q1QIwGnoECBUQPA&biw=360&bih=574&dpr=3
Oh….my….Gawd!
Is there *anything* one can get published in a Nature journal??? Do they use a Magic 8-Ball for peer review?
It’s hard to pick which is more moronic:
Correlation as Causation Assumption
Linear Behavior Assumption
Non-Threshold Assumption
I’ve seen much better work at the junior-high science fair.
I thought the hit-job on climate change skeptics was bad. Guess they hit bottom and started to dig.