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Five seconds of googling will reveal: > https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/extreme-temperatures-kill-5-million-a-year-20-year-study-77875 https

by sltkr 3y ago

Five seconds of googling will reveal: > https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/extreme-temperatures-kill-5-million-a-year-20-year-study-77875 https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/extreme-t... > > The study found that extreme heat and cold killed 5.08 million people on an average every year from 2000-2019. Of this, 4.6 million deaths on an average occurred annually due to extreme cold while 0.48 million deaths occurred due to extreme heat. The study is here: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5... This shows that cold deaths outnumber heat deaths about 10:1, so global warming is a net positive when it comes to avoiding death. Additionally, heat deaths currently happen in countries that lack air conditioning because it was not historically needed. This is rapidly changing. Fortunately, cooling takes less energy than heating, which seems paradoxical at first, but it makes sense if you consider that cooling doesn't need to generate heat, but simply move it away (which also requires energy, but less than raising the temperature of a closed system by the equivalent temperature). Additionally, heat pumps can run on electricity from renewable energy sources, rather than heating which mostly uses fossil fuels (yes, heating can use electricity too, but that's currently an order of magnitude more expensive). All of these factors show that moderate global warming is good for mankind: it reduces overall energy use, it reduces fossil fuel use in particular (which is great because it's fossil fuels that are contributing to the greenhouse effect), and it reduces human death rates. You rarely hear about this, however, because the media is committed to pushing the false narrative that the world is on a path to global destruction.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
That's a big jump from one questionably positive benefit to a blanket "good for the planet".
- sltkr 3y ago
  I find it extremely callous to label a net reduction of people dying of extreme weather as only “questionably positive”.
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    Questionable statistic. Indirect deaths due to temperature are a lot higher than direct deaths, but much harder to measure.
    - pdonis 3y ago
      The referenced paper is taking indirect effects into account. It is not just counting deaths that have "cold-related" or "heat-related" listed in the cause of death. It is looking at overall excess mortality due to extreme temperatures, i.e., the increase in deaths over what would be expected at non-extreme temperatures.
      - bryanlarsen 3y ago
        How about deaths due to crop failure? How about deaths caused by mass migrations? How about deaths due to the increased spread of disease? et cetera.
        pdonis 3y ago
        To the extent those vary by temperature, which is what is relevant for this discussion, the paper's methodology takes them into account. That's the whole point of doing an overall excess mortality analysis: it means you don't have to know the specific cause of each individual death or how temperature affected it. You can just compare expected deaths at "normal" temperature to actual deaths at the actual temperature (I am oversimplifying here, the actual methodology is more complex than that, but that's the basic idea). This methodology was not made up for this specific case. Overall excess mortality analysis is used in all kinds of contexts. For example, it is used to estimate the overall impact of COVID, for much the same reasons--because it takes into account indirect effects of COVID that would otherwise be very hard to measure. The methodology is not perfect (no methodology is), but it is the best we have for this kind of analysis.
        bryanlarsen 3y ago

by sltkr 3y ago

bryanlarsen 3y ago

That's a big jump from one questionably positive benefit to a blanket "good for the planet".

sltkr 3y ago
I find it extremely callous to label a net reduction of people dying of extreme weather as only “questionably positive”.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Questionable statistic. Indirect deaths due to temperature are a lot higher than direct deaths, but much harder to measure.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    The referenced paper is taking indirect effects into account. It is not just counting deaths that have "cold-related" or "heat-related" listed in the cause of death. It is looking at overall excess mortality due to extreme temperatures, i.e., the increase in deaths over what would be expected at non-extreme temperatures.
    - bryanlarsen 3y ago
      How about deaths due to crop failure? How about deaths caused by mass migrations? How about deaths due to the increased spread of disease? et cetera.
      - pdonis 3y ago
        To the extent those vary by temperature, which is what is relevant for this discussion, the paper's methodology takes them into account. That's the whole point of doing an overall excess mortality analysis: it means you don't have to know the specific cause of each individual death or how temperature affected it. You can just compare expected deaths at "normal" temperature to actual deaths at the actual temperature (I am oversimplifying here, the actual methodology is more complex than that, but that's the basic idea). This methodology was not made up for this specific case. Overall excess mortality analysis is used in all kinds of contexts. For example, it is used to estimate the overall impact of COVID, for much the same reasons--because it takes into account indirect effects of COVID that would otherwise be very hard to measure. The methodology is not perfect (no methodology is), but it is the best we have for this kind of analysis.
        bryanlarsen 3y ago