You are right, but all those things can't be predicted by running the Lee-Carter model, which looks at the realized mortality in the past. So, one might say, "

You are right, but all those things can't be predicted by running the Lee-Carter model, which looks at the realized mortality in the past. So, one might say, "There's a possibility future mortality could potentially be higher", this is not the statement made by Scientific American. The statement is "Our evidence tells us the mortality will be higher; it will be about as high as if we turned back time by 26 years". That is absolutely not the case. It's misinterpreting the results of a model that is applied mechanically to data that should not be applied to.