Guest “yawn” by David Middleton
Study blames climate change for 37 percent of heat deaths worldwide
“These are deaths related to heat that actually can be prevented. It is something we directly cause,” an epidemiologist said.May 31, 2021
By The Associated PressMore than one-third of the world’s heat deaths each year are due directly to global warming, according to the latest study to calculate the human cost of climate change.
But scientists say that’s only a sliver of climate’s overall toll — even more people die from other extreme weather amplified by global warming such as storms, flooding and drought — and the heat death numbers will grow exponentially with rising temperatures.
Dozens of researchers who looked at heat deaths in 732 cities around the globe from 1991 to 2018 calculated that 37 percent were caused by higher temperatures from human-caused warming, according to a study Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
[…]
About 35 percent of heat deaths in the United States can be blamed on climate change, the study found. That’s a total of more than 1,100 deaths a year in about 200 U.S. cities, topped by 141 in New York. Honolulu had the highest portion of heat deaths attributable to climate change, 82 percent.
[…]
NBC News
The study by “dozens of researchers” is pay-walled.
“Heat death numbers will grow exponentially with rising temperatures”
Why aren’t they already growing exponentially?
“More than one-third of the world’s heat deaths each year are due directly to global warming”
So… We must be having less cold-related deaths… Right?
“Honolulu had the highest portion of heat deaths attributable to climate change, 82 percent.”
According to the CDC, from 1999-2016, there were so few heat-related deaths in Honolulu County, that a reliable death rate can’t be calculated. That’s the entire island of Oʻahu. Due to data use restrictions, I won’t post the actual number or even the link to the dataset. However, if you Google (or Duck Duck Go) “CDC WONDER,” you can spend hours wading through more causes of death than I ever knew existed.
Even funnier…
“And now for something completely different…”
This “problem” was solved over 20 years ago…
Abstract
Heat is the primary weather-related cause of death in the United States. Increasing heat and humidity, at least partially related to anthropogenic climate change, suggest that a long-term increase in heat-related mortality could occur. We calculated the annual excess mortality on days when apparent temperatures–an index that combines air temperature and humidity–exceeded a threshold value for 28 major metropolitan areas in the United States from 1964 through 1998. Heat-related mortality rates declined significantly over time in 19 of the 28 cities. For the 28-city average, there were 41.0 +/- 4.8 (mean +/- SE) excess heat-related deaths per year (per standard million) in the 1960s and 1970s, 17.3 +/- 2.7 in the 1980s, and 10.5 +/- 2.0 in the 1990s. In the 1960s and 1970s, almost all study cities exhibited mortality significantly above normal on days with high apparent temperatures. During the 1980s, many cities, particularly those in the typically hot and humid southern United States, experienced no excess mortality. In the 1990s, this effect spread northward across interior cities. This systematic desensitization of the metropolitan populace to high heat and humidity over time can be attributed to a suite of technologic, infrastructural, and biophysical adaptations, including increased availability of air conditioning.
Davis, Knappenberger, Michaels, and Novicoff, 2003
“The answer is blowing in the…” window
Reference
Davis, R. E. , Knappenberger, P. C. , Michaels, P. J. , & Novicoff, W. M. (2003). Changing heat‐related mortality in the United States. Environmental Health Perspectives, 111(14), 1712–1718. 10.1289/ehp.6336 [PMC free article] [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
At what point exactly do actual scientists stand up and say BS. Reports like this denigrate the term “scientist” to the point of ridicule.
Experts said the earth was the center of the universe and anyone who disagreed was ridiculed and potentially killed.
Do the current crop of “highly educated” science students wish to be ridiculed for the sake of going along with the phony consensus?
The very definition of science calls out the mistaken statements and blatant lies made here and elsewhere.
Maybe that’s why there are no names here? Just “experts” and “scientists”?
For the very same reason we cannot believe the panicked, stress inducing, breathless news reports and social media posts on Covid death statistics.
If he/she/it stopped moving from march of 2020 up to and including the current date it was recorded as Death by Covid. Plus whenever it could possibly be documented they died after the failure of a respirator it meant an additional $3900.00.
“No. Honest. Officer Muldoon will confirm that the passengers were all being transported to the hospital on the outside chance that placing them on a respirator might save their life when the driver lost control and it careened over the guard rail and into the ravine. COVID killed them just before the bus introduced them to the rock bed below.”
What is a man to do with all this Global Warming/ Climate Change/Climate Crisis or whatever the current description is?
I was thinking Honolulu would be a nice option to choose, when looking for somewhere to ride out the never ending imminent heat increase we are all so constantly advised is happening.
Now it looks like my first choice of retreat i.e. an island in Mid Pacific that will save me from the sweltering 80 deg F. expected sometime soon here in the UK, turns out to be the most dangerous place yet discovered!!!
What is a man to do?
I thought about this for a short while, as I and my assistant building demolisher sat drinking a cold beer after the hottest day this year in England it reached 25 deg. C here yesterday, (77 deg F). The woodland retreat where the old building is to be re-erected was magnificent in its late spring fresh green mantle. That beer in that setting, after shifting tons of solid hand made bricks, made me realise, life is good, we just have to appreciate how fortunate we are.
Honolulu will just have to cope as best it can….. 🙂
After the flood event in Canterbury the NZ media are at it again see stuff activist Niel Tinker if that is his real name posing as a farmer
They lie, having been bribed with taxpayers’ money by Prime Minister Cindy!
Thats amazing
The old and frail can certainly be badly affected by heat, especially if they live in city apartments with no air conditioning and poor cross ventilation. So its very plausible that a period of very hot temperatures will raise the death rate, that a long heat wave will kill.
But so far the rise in global temperatures in itself is not great enough to have had any impact. If the temperature in a heat wave is 100F as opposed to 98F its not going to make any difference. And no-one is arguing that average global temperatures have so far led to more than around a 1F increase.
You have to show that Global Warming has led to higher heat wave peaks which have lasted longer. Since there is considerable variation in heat wave peaks and durations from year to year in most locations, I don’t know how you separate out the supposed anthropogenic effects from natural variation.
Or maybe you could show that humidity levels have risen because of anthropogenic causes? Has anyone shown that?
I have lived by the way without air conditioning in Mid Western cities. It was certainly very hot and quite uncomfortable at times. But a degree or two either way would not have made much difference, and it certainly was not life threatening.
I have also picked cotton under the sun, and got heatstroke. That was dangerous. It was due in my case to not acclimatizing, and probably also to not being properly dressed for it (with a shady white hat, eg). And also from being assigned to work in the hottest part of the day.
The dangerous thing is that the masses believe this claptrap, further driving the climate hysteria
I’m sure it’s 36%, not 37%.
WRONG! These people died of duff statistics.
“Honolulu had the highest portion of heat deaths attributable to climate change, 82 percent.”
Hawaians, healthy people! Four out of each five die from heath, not from diseases, accidents or old age…
Hawaii is a FAR left state, and those doing the picking for how someone died probably has an agenda. Sort of like the # of China virus deaths in the US, when hospitals were paid MORE for each death.
Did they list the SECOND highest percentage city. Was there ANY other city that provided “climate change” caused deaths? And how exactly was that determined?
What a bunch of baboonery, More people die (or will die) because of cold – you can’t grow food when plants freeze. Idiots.
Most researchers conduct a search of the pertinent literature before conducting research and writing their paper so as to not miss an obvious factor in their interpretation of their data. I guess if you have a predetermined conclusion, this type of scholarly work is no longer required.
“Honolulu had…” tourist are dunces if they don’t observe the habits of the locals. I say this because I gave myself heat prostration when visiting Spain one summer.
They should write a report about the death rate by heat if we had no fossil fuel to power our air conditioners instead of such BS.
X infinity!
More so, how many would die from COLD (which has always been far greater) without central heating brought to you courtesy of
Somewhere… I think I have a paper on how many lives air conditioning has saved.
I found it…
Study: Home air conditioning cut premature deaths on hot days 80 percent since 1960
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/study-home-air-conditioning-cut-premature-deaths-on-hot-days-80-percent-since-1960/2012/12/22/5b57f3ac-4abf-11e2-b709-667035ff9029_story.html
Adapting to Climate Change: The Remarkable Decline in the U.S. Temperature-Mortality Relationship Over the 20th Century
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2192245
So from 2012 when Obama was elected and started the increase in “energy” costs, the annual death toll from HEAT increased from 600 nationwide to 1100 in cities alone?
Way to go CAGW fanatics, you are already causing MORE deaths by heat, in only 8 years. Self fulfilling prophecy!!
How many people have been dying from drowning in the huge increase in bullsh*t frm these idiots writing this tripe?
And here I am, whining about still running my furnace at the beginning of June, because it’s freakin’ cold outside my domicile. This is not normal for where I am for this time of year.
The cat is sitting on the bed right above the register, and if that is insufficient, she can either go sit in the bedroom window and soak up morning sunshine (she’s a black cat, so she’s a heat sink all her own), or she can burrow under the warm blankets I still have on the bed.
If these twits ever learn that weather is short-term and climate is so long-term that they won’t be able to see real change (unless a volcano sets itself up in their yards), someone please let me know.
They’re really becoming rather whiny and boring, y’know. Does anyone besides me wonder what they’ll be like if snow storms start early, as in late September (before many grain crops are harvested), instead of following its usual seasonal patterns? Yeah, it’s coming. If it weren’t on its way, I wouldn’t have the furnace running in June.
“Calculated” – how?
This sounds like 97% of all deaths last year were due to Covid-19. How do they recognize a heat death and how do they know whether it was good or bad heat that caused the death.?
Having grown up in an scorching hot semi-desert climate zone with most summer days above 32°C/90°F and many above 38°C/100°F, I cannot remember anyone ever dying of the heat. But that was back in the fifties and perhaps we were tougher and not snowflakes?
There, fixed.
To be fair, I looked at daytime high temperatures. The record for Honolulu was 100 degrees – in 1931. Even during a record heat wave in June of 2019, daytime high temperatures didn’t exceed 92 deg.
https://weather.com/safety/heat/news/2019-06-17-hawaii-record-highs-honolulu-june-may-2019
Interesting that they picked 1991 since Hurricane Iniki, which struck Hawaii in 1992, was Hawaii’s costliest and deadliest hurricane at 6 deaths. I’m sure that was due to climate change.
Oh come on David, you know the answer to this rhetorical question… “Why aren’t they already growing exponentially?”
It’s because they haven’t had time to “adjust” the data to match their predictions. Give them a year to release the new data!
Saw it in the local Columbus, OH Dispatch paper.. with AP byline. It is complete rubbish…. published in complete biased Nature Climate Change … which only publishes pro climate change “papers.” Heat is one of dozens of variables involved in illness and deaths … they look only at temperatures, what else was going on. What is the null hypothesis. Garbage, crap.. .oh and by the way we are in the middle of the worse ever pandemic.
Of course it’s nonsense. That’s more or less a given with this type of
researchfiction.That’s irrelevant; it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it gets published, it gets a mention (maybe even a headline) in the mainstream media – “Scientists Say…… ……”. Its purpose is to do its part in maintaining an unceasing torrent of bad news about climate. Keeping the population worried about the boogeyman of the Coming Catastrophic Calamitously Collapsing Climate Crisis is vital, otherwise they might start Questioning the underlying purpose of the whole scam, which is to replace capitalism and western liberal democracy with a sort of globalised, authoritarianism
It has another role, equally important, at least to the authors, which is to make sure they get funding for their next excursion into the world of
climate modellingscience fiction.Of course it is. How else could they get away with such blatant BS as:
Hawaii in the summer, even when the trade winds are not blowing is much less oppressive than Chicago or cities on the east coast.
Honolulu average temperatures are here.
Average hi/lo in January: 80/66; humidity 72%
Average hi/lo in August & September: 89/75; humidity 62-65%
A whole 9 degrees (F) spread in the high temp over the year; ditto for the low temp spread. Growing up in Chicago where I experienced over 100°(F) and >80% humidity in the summers and -10°(F) in the winters, Honolulu would have seemed like heaven.
So relative to pretty much any large east coast city, “heat-related” deaths in Honolulu have to be pretty negligible to begin with. Attributing 82% of them to “climate change” would take some fairly extreme logical contortions.
From the abstract they appear to focus on cardio-vascular deaths where “heat” was listed as a contributing factor. I wonder how many CV deaths have “cold” as a contributing factor, hmmm?
The study “found”, haha.
Roughly 34 N, 116 W – southern California desert. According to an Accurite weather system – our high today (it’s 1810 hrs) was 106°F. There’s a National Weather Service station about five miles to my north – but won’t get to see their max. till tomorrow morning. I expect the ‘raw’ data to be 107 based on months of comparing readings.
Air conditioner? No, a ‘swamp’ (evaporative) cooler. Relative humidity according to Earth. Null: 8%. Showing 85°F inside. Comfortable.
In dry areas a swamp cooler is a lot cheaper than an air conditioner, and adds humidity to the air in the dwelling.