Essay by Eric Worrall
Britain usually suffers a little under 10,000 – 60,000 excess winter deaths every year . But we should apparently be worrying about the 2,800 excess summer deaths.
Climate crisis poses ‘growing threat’ to health in UK, says expert
Exclusive: Prof Dame Jenny Harries warns of dangers to food security, flooding and insect-borne diseases
Hannah Devlin Science correspondent @hannahdev
Sun 23 Oct 2022 22.00 AEDTThe climate crisis poses a “significant and growing threat” to health in the UK, the country’s most senior public health expert has warned.
Speaking to the Guardian, Prof Dame Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said there was a common misconception that a warmer climate would bring net health benefits due to milder winters. But the climate emergency would bring far wider-reaching health impacts, she said, with food security, flooding and mosquito-borne diseases posing threats.
“The heatwave this summer really brought home to people the direct impact,” said Harries. “But it’s the breadth of the impact. It’s not just the heat.”
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“Colleagues from Pakistan … are suffering from the impacts of flooding. They are dealing with stagnant water, higher risks of sewage overflowing into publicly accessible water spaces,” she said. “We are seeing in some of the things that could be happening in the UK.”
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This summer, the UK experienced record temperatures of 40.3C and six separate heatwave periods associated with more than 2,800 excess deaths. “If several aeroplanes all exploded and we’d lost that many people it would be front-page news in health protection terms,” Harries said.
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“We have much to learn from countries that currently have warmer temperatures,” she said. “If we’re going to be a hot country soon we need to be thinking the same way.”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/23/climate-change-poses-growing-threat-to-health-in-uk-says-expert
The warm weather = mosquito borne disease claim is complete nonsense. Malaria was a major killer in Shakespeare’s England, in the middle of the Little Ice Age, but most people are not aware of this. The reason is our ancestors didn’t call it Malaria, they called it Ague.
Mosquito borne diseases are controlled by draining swamps and killing mosquitoes, not by controlling CO2 emissions. Pakistan’s post flooding mosquito problems could be cured overnight with a few thousand tons of paraffin and DDT.
As for the claim Britain is becoming a hot country, I put this claim in the same category as all those wild “end of snow” predictions.
At some point, I hope people realize that the real struggle for our civilization’s survival lies in insisting that our schools teach children to think and solve problems. Instead, the schools indoctrinate, and “Dame Jenny” is a shining example of the result: millions of adults who lack reasoning skills. This is the future of our world, and it’s not looking great.
and government has now gotten too big.
Folks like this have too much say and effectively, too much power.
Thus the remedy they inflict, based on kindergarten science like hers, will be far worse than what they were trying to fix.
Just like Ancel Keys from 60+ years ago.
His remedy-du-jour (eat sugar and not fat) being what caused the epidemic of obesity and heart disease, the very thing he was supposedly trying to fix.
He was a domineering little (little being the operative) bully, riddled with magical thinking & good intentions and was given an opportunity to inflict his personal worldview on everyone else.
Sorry, Dame Jenny, your/the health crisis started then and you are following in his wake.
Enter stage left, 30 years later, James Hansen.
So here we now are, lost, confused, blind & rudderless, arguing about phlogiston and counting faeries.
While increasingly belligerent and angry.
Whenever I raise the subject of Ancel Keys nobody has ever heard of him or his filtering of data to prove what he wanted to prove.
The best approach is better Mathematics education.
Humans are naturally inquisitive , curious, and questioning. Being able to do relatively simple back-of-an-envelope calculations in the mind allows an individual to quickly spot most BS.
What utter nonsense from more misleading academics. Yes, ambient temperatures are increasing, but is 0.7 degrees increase over 100 years sufficient to worry about? Of course, the incomes of these academics does depend on the extent of their alarmism!
Nah, it’s just she’s using logic according to Sir Bedevere:
There are more Pakistanis in Bradford than there were in 1850 when records began. Ergo, Britain is turning into a hot country.
And therefore…a witch!
The temperature here went up 7 degrees all in one day! You should have seen the masses of geese flying away all together!
Of course the temperature only reached 61f and the geese were migrating South.
Yes, when those geese start flying south for the summer, then you’ll know it’s hot!
She’s a Public Health Physician and is just going along with what she has been told by the climatistas.
The UK this year saw a new record of over 40C across a wide area of the country.
That is far above a ‘normal’ hot summer last century. We see days of 30C plus, which we never had before.
Quote “are suffering from the impacts of flooding. They are dealing with stagnant water, higher risks of sewage overflowing into publicly accessible water spaces”
Already happening and has been for many many years is two Sussex villages next to ours. Every time there is a major rainstorm (like yesterday) peoples loos, back gardens and some roads will have raw sewage floating around. That’s what you get when authorities refuse to improve the infrastructure, and continually pass the buck. But they are quick to allow new house building which just adds to the problem of course.
When western countries started paying people not to work and to vote for liberal parties, they stopped paying for the necessities of life at the level required due to the increase in population caused by importing more people who do not want to work, you know, those seeking to escape from those HOTTER areas nearer the equator where the requirement work is mostly only of limited necessity. Never too hot, never too cold, etc.
We’re not
So nothing to worry about
I’m still waiting for this warm weather to reach Scotland.
I was waiting for 30 years before I left for the balmy SE of England, 35 years ago.
65 years of assurances from the climate hysterics and it’s still no warmer in Scotland.
One would think that the strongest supporters of Global Warming™ would be the Scots, right behind Canadians. But n-o-o-o…
Remind me again, how many Scots die of heat stroke each year?
The Scottish government thinks that Scotland is too warm. Everybody else in Scotland disagrees. The only way that a Scot could possibly die of heat stroke is if it happens when he is on holiday abroad.
Scotland must be getting crowded with all the climate refugees.
They have four star hotels full of illegal immigrants sailing across the English Channel in RIBS. Many of them from Latvia with the stated intention of taking advantage of the increasing illegal drug trade in the UK.
But if Scotland got even warmer than it now is think of all the midges! 🙂
That reminds of me of 20 some years ago when the deacon at my mom’s church wrote an opinion piece for the local newspaper. In the letter the deacon warned that in about 20 years there would be palm trees and palmetto bugs in Maryland due to climate change. Well, here we are, 20 some years later and still no semi-tropical weather….
-My advise would be stand by for a sequence of indifferent summers and cold wet winters with a significant number of the elderly dying as a result. i am one of the elderly so I have a vested interest. Like all these climate pronouncements that are based on limited knowlege this raises chuckle as mother nature will surely make an absolute arse of those making the pronouncement. As it has done many times before.
According to the Met office Scotland’s average temperature over the summer months was about 13.5°C (56.3°F) …. LOL!
It’s coming Scotland, get stockpiling the sunscreen now!
To quote Billy Connolly (approximately – relying on memory), it takes a week of sun bathing for a Scot to turn from blue to white.
Here in South Australia we can indulge in seaside sports, but they are not without dangers.And that is not the largest of great whie sharks.
It spat out the piece it neatly cut.
Geoff S.
http://www.geoffstuff.com/witebite.jpg
“The heatwave this summer really brought home to people the direct impact,”
Yes, now you don’t have to go abroad for a holiday, you can stay in the UK.
2 days heatwave isn’t a reason to not go abroad. Average summer temperature in Liverpool was 16.5C. Average temperature in Greece 33C.
From the BBC
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The excess deaths were more likely a lack of hydration than global warming. Sad for the families involved, but hardly the “growing threat” to UK health
The only ‘growing’ threat is the threat to the mental health of younger generations – the ones who were not taught to think critically, but affirmatively.
Voila! A whole new class of patient for the Psychs…
The BBC story is little other than a series of lies and omissions. Excess deaths from all causes in England (not the whole UK) have been running at 15% high for over a year. Of course I have no suspicion as to why. But the stated heatwave deaths include around 1,000 a week of that increased number, so only a few can be attributed to the heat. Alzheimers and Parkinson’s have been running lower than the average because other causes are getting in first with the older population, but a list of the real numbers by cause would show the usual excess in heart and circulation related problems we have seen all year.
Check it for yourself at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/excess-mortality-in-england-and-english-regions and click the first link for an interactive analysis tool.
Didn’t excess deaths have something to do with CoVid ?
Or the vaccine?
Or the waits [for whatever reason] for medical diagnosis and/or treatment?
Or depression caused by the lockups and the whole appalling mismanagement?
Auto
It wasn’t a heat wave. It was a coupla days of hot weather. And we are now into eight years of no global warming. The BBC said? No it didn’t.
I heard our socialist Prime Minister just last week on the radio trying to pass some disastrous late spring frosts off as climate change caused by emissions of CO2 here in New Zealand.
They were caused by a polar blast from Antarctica and they were quite common in the 50s to the 70s before extensive kiwi fruit planting .
Gold kiwi fruit are the hardest hit but green kiwi fruit, grapes and other frost tender plants were also hit.
Climate change seems to cover everything from heat waves to frost and snow.
Every drought and flood is caused by emissions so they tell us.
When food shortages become common place around the world they will blame the shortages on climate change.
Politicians will never accept blame for stupid policies restricting oil and gas exploration and development which has lead to shortages of nitrogen fertilizer and massive price increases right around the world.
Global warming / climate change is what politicians & bureaucrats have ALWAYS dreamed of having – an excuse for every situation they haven’t got an answer for, but can use to justify more taxation.
Oh, and international
holidaysconferences. Don’t disregard theholidaysconferences.In Britain as Paul Homewood point out in Not a lot of people.Com there were indeed an excess of deaths during the hot period. This was followed in the ensuing 2 months by a dearth of excess deaths. Conclusion:
Heat death removed those who were on the way out anyway . Winter deaths will follow the same pattern as we always knew
Here’s one for Dame Jenny…
https://greenmedinfo.com/article/effects-lime-juice-malaria-parasite-clearance
How well do Limes grow in a Warming World? Is someone ‘having a laff‘ or ‘trying to give you a hint‘
Even before they’re chock full of Vitamin C.
Tell us Dame J, what’s your recommendation for daily C intake?
It’s a multiple guess, but none tooooo very hard:
Cheddar and Lime pickle.
I have never ever counted a single calorie or obsessed over any of the stuff the worried well fixate on.
Avoid the BBC etc
‘If soon I’ll be a mentally subnormal cretin, then I should prepare for that by resigning my job’.
And the claim of 2800 excess deaths is fake. Though death rates peaked during the hot days, they fell below average for the days afterwards.
Over the month as a whole, deaths were at average levels. In other words people simply died a few days earlier than they would have done otherwise.
And seasonal deaths are always the lowest of the year in summer
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-climate-scaremongers-another-example-of-bbc-gross-misrepresentation/
This winter will be telling with people unable to afford their heating bills, despite the price cap and an excess winter death rate like we have not seen in generations. It’ll all be blamed on covid of course.
And isn’t this just what Smart Meters were designed for? So they can switch off the electricity and gas of the miscreants, who can’t pay twice what they were struggling to pay last year, remotely.
You could almost believe this was all planned……..
Joe:
Yes. And reading Dame Harries’ waffle makes one wonder what sort of competence there is in the U.K. Health Security Agency. Does she run it on the basis of Leftwing/Marxist propaganda?
Could she tell us which Tipping Point she prefers? (She is not allowed all of them as most are well past their sell by date.)
We’ve only had 10 years left to Save The Planet™ for the past 50 years or so. The planet is still here. When will people catch on?
H.R: When will people catch on?
In 10 years?
She is a member of the SAGE Committee, which contained many in the rogues gallery of lockdowns, including Prof Ferguson who forecast half a million deaths, and Communist Susan Michie who wanted to lock us all up.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response-membership/list-of-participants-of-sage-and-related-sub-groups
Public heal expert – Bah Humbug!
The climate crisis poses a “significant and growing threat” to health in the UK, the country’s most senior public health expert has warned.
No change there, then The Nanny state has rebranded it’s health fascism wing as UK Health Security Agency, formerly known as Public Health England. A new name, same old game.
We had two hot days and a thunderstorm. Normally we get three, so we woz robbed.
Starting this morning BBC R4 is serialising Thunberg’s new book this week – just to remind us we’re all dead men walking..
Wouldn’t be another IPCC bun fest coming up by any chance?
Take your pick
UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15)
UN Climate Change Conference (COP 27)
plus all the other meetings and conferences that happen before and after.
This summer, the UK experienced record temperatures of 40.3C
That should read: This summer, one place in the UK experienced a record temperature of 40.3C for about 5 minutes.
No, it should read “…….., one place beside an airfield runway experienced etc. …..”
Picky, picky, picky. Keep that up and you’ll be thrown out of the Alarmist Club.
😉
In Australia, the BoM would classify this as a record if that temp lasted for just one minute.
Because their weather stations are programmed to log temps at just 1 second intervals. Then they average these numbers over 1 minute, iirc.
This practice is not in compliance with the WMO standard of logging temps records, which require a median over 10 minutes iirc.
Is the 2,800 excess deaths in excess of the excess deaths we are having every month? Dr John Campbell discusses the occurrence of excess deaths in this video. For 2022 data for England, go to 4.27.
I can’t wait for 2076 to find out why.
Me too. 😃
Harries is in position to know that the excess deaths this summer, just as the 50,000 excess deaths last winter, were due to Covid and medical malpractice on the part of government and public health. This is misdirection and a coverup.
In 2020, a paper was published by Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton and several of his colleagues in the Dept of Health. I wrote to Dr Sutton, asking that the paper be retracted, giving reasons why I considered it to be unsafe. The reasons are in the link below.
One of the assertions in the paper was about “climate change” leading to more diseases spread by mosquitos, example Ross River virus. The actual way that this happens is more complicated than a simple intuitive guess might suggest. The paper was more in the intuitive guess style, not terribly scientific. The request for retraction was, in the rude trendy modern style, essentially unanswered. It was not retracted and it continues on to spread poor science.
The Health Department used the paper to advise Victorian politicians to take extreme measures to combat the Don Quixote windmills at which it tilted. Consequently, by restricting fossil fuels, we now have expensive, unreliable electricity generation and a disincentive to foreign investment in industry. It is not clear how the economy is expected to survive, but no matter, Victorian voters still have their beloved football to fill the mind.
Geoff S
http://www.geoffstuff.com/sutton.docx
Some excellent work by John Dee (actually properly qualified to anlyse excess cold/heat deaths) can be found in a 3-parter at:
Excess Death & Heat Waves (Part 1) – John Dee’s Almanac (substack.com)
Excess Death & Cold Waves (Part 1) – John Dee’s Almanac (substack.com)
Excess Death & Cold Waves (Part 2) – John Dee’s Almanac (substack.com)
Well worth following.
Amongst the many schemes in the UK for rewilding there are plans to recreate bogs, marshes and flood plains. The return of mosquito borne diseases is highly likely in the UK in the next decade, but the cause will be The Climate Emergency, I hope that those pushing for increased wetland areas are unaware of the potential for increased cases of insect and water borne diseases.
Hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works.
Heat has little to do with mosquitoes. Mozzies are the state bird of Maine . In Canada and the north woods in general mosquitoes are so bad they kill moose . Standing swampy fresh water is mosquito heaven
Also a speciality in Siberia every summer.
What ever happened to “mad dogs and Englishmen”?
Mostly, they just got stoned.
“The heatwave this summer really brought home to people the direct impact,” said Harries”
Rising CO2 forcing should in theory inhibit brief Saharan plumes to west Europe, they are more common during low solar periods with the associated negative North Atlantic Oscillation conditions and wavier jet stream which the plumes depend on.
“This summer, the UK experienced record temperatures of 40.3C and six separate heatwave periods associated with more than 2,800 excess deaths.”
The only regions of England which went above 37°C on the 19th July had heavy air pollution levels, in the east. There was nothing unusual about the other warm bursts, just rather dry.
“It is projected that numbers of heat-related deaths will triple by 2050, with the hottest summers on record that we have observed in recent years becoming simply “normal” summers. “That’s quite a near-term risk and so a priority for us,” she said. “There are things we can do about it, so we should act.””
That is founded on tosh from the UK Met Office that heatwaves like in 2003 and 2018 will happen every other year by 2050. Which is not possible as they were discretely solar forced, and there is only one more of that type before 2050, in 2045.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQemMt_PNwwBKNOS7GSP7gbWDmcDBJ80UJzkqDIQ75_Sctjn89VoM5MIYHQWHkpn88cMQXkKjXznM-u/pub
The word “soon” is a funny word. It can mean soon as in later this afternoon or soon to be next ice age.
Alarmists are always using words that can be anything.
Alarmists are always changing the meaning of words – Newspeak in action.
““Colleagues from Pakistan … are suffering from the impacts of flooding. They are dealing with stagnant water, higher risks of sewage overflowing into publicly accessible water spaces,”
OK. Professor. You are a “public health expert”. Please tell us when Pakistan DID NOT suffer from the impacts of flooding.
Years ago the UK Met Office tried to scare the populace with claims that we were going to end up with a Mediterranean climate. They quickly realised what a dumb idea that was.
We are still waiting for our “barbecue summers” they also promised.
Ah, yes, the UKHSA that was able to publish figures on vaccinated vs unvaccinated deaths until it became too inconvenient that most of the deaths were amongst the most vaccinated. It just became impossible to collect that data, but then the ONS inconveniently published the data that was impossible to collect!
https://greatmountainpublishing.com/2022/07/14/people-who-have-received-the-covid-19-vaccine-account-for-94-of-all-covid-19-deaths-in-the-uk/
So, can the good professor explain why the excess heat around runways causes the vaccinated to expire in preference to the unvaccinated?
“…This summer, the UK experienced record temperatures of 40.3C and six separate heatwave periods”
Really. I was a student in 1976 and experienced that heatwave and there has not been any thing like it since. At the beginning of that summer I stayed at a friends on the south coast and the thermometer registered 110F (43.3C). It became common to drive around with the car heater on to avoid over heating the engine. As an indication of the heat, I swam in the sea just about every day that summer and the sea was warm enough for me to just walk in without any acclimatizing.I swam in the sea during one of the heat waves this summer and the sea was slightly warmer but not that spectacular.
As far as excess deaths – the UK has an ageing population, so there are many more frail and elderly people, and many of those will be in dwellings insulated against cold. In other words more old people living in places that won’t lose heat easily. In addition, Insulate Britain are under the impression we need to insulate houses against the cold because the planet is hotter than ever!
I remember the swarms of ladybirds that summer. But I’ve yet to see ladybirds given as a dangerous outcome of global warming 🙂
Yes, and wasps.
Someone caught a Manta-Ray off Bournemouth Pier, while there was a family Dolphins swimming round the bay.
Good grief – yes I remember that. The blighters had a nasty bite too.
Perhaps if you’d put your thermometer in the shade, it would have registered the actual air temperature, which would have been below the maximum of 35.6 recorded that year.
Not to worry, a deep recession will save the day for them.
She was talking to the Guardian. Enough said.
The entire United Kingdom is above 50 degrees North latitude, surrounded by seas that rarely exceed 16 C (61 F) in the middle of summer, and the sun is less than 17 degrees above the horizon at high noon at the winter solstice. How could such a place become a “hot country”?
Thanks to Boris’ blunders and Vlad’s taking advantage, Britons should worry less about becoming a hot country and start praying for a mild winter, so they don’t shiver too much during the coming gas shortage.
Some of them were complaining about the cold while waiting in line for the Queen’s funeral in September. What about when the cold comes indoors for four months straight?
Just another example where the golden rule of weather/climate extremes applies.
The more extreme the weather event is, the more the contribution from natural variation is and the less that came from climate( change).
superimposing 1 deg. C of warming on the system the last 100 years, doesn’t contribute much more than 1 deg. C of to any individual air masses.
Stating otherwise is junk science,
Memo to Prof Harries: There are billions of people successfully living in areas far warmer than Britain will ever be.
If it’s in the Guardian then it’ll be over the top sensationalist nonsense.
Look at this bad thing here while simultaneously ignoring the even worse thing over there that you already know about but don’t care enough to do anything about.
She is a liar and a cheat.
For Britain to become a ‘Hot’ country it would have to be towed south to somewhere off the south of Morocco. Perhaps they could ask the Royal Navy about the practicality.
Oliver Cromwell died of/with Malaria, September 1658
I’ll keep on saying this: the eco-alarmists will never miss the opportunity of blowing out of proportion any fact or occurrence no matter how remotely related to weather or climate. Almost all of these are distortions, exaggerations, half-truths and omissions that need to be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.
They were promising a Mediterranean climate for Britain years ago. The British unaccountably failed to be terrified.
There was a Mediterranean in Britain when the Romans took over . Wine grapes were widely grown.
I suppose it was caused by their coal fired power stations.
Brits are going to have start putting ice in their drinks. That’ll kill them.
Excess winter deaths in the UK are most often from flu and similar seasonal disease… NOT in the majority of cases directly or even indirectly from cold.
The excess heat deaths are directly from heat, something which we did not have before and something which will increase.
So we should be taking the extra threat seriously.
UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) ‘Climate – related mortality and hospital admissions, England and Wales: 2001 to 2020’
“We find relatively little increase in deaths caused by warmer weather and a reduction in deaths caused by cold winters, leading to a net decrease in deaths”
“the warming trajectory predicted by climate scientists is already affecting health in England and Wales: however, in the UK’s cool-to-temperate climate, mortality is limited and appropriate policy and behaviour changes could mitigate much of the health risks from increasing temperatures”
I’m waiting to see how the good Dame proposes to re-position the UK downstream from the Himalayas.