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As one noted in the article ""almost certainly an underestimate", because a number of climate-health relationships are not measurable due to lack of adequate da

As one noted in the article ""almost certainly an underestimate", because a number of climate-health relationships are not measurable due to lack of adequate data". Milder winters expand the range of disease-carrying insects, increase risks of wars or famine with less water, mass migrations leading to political instability, more extreme weather events like draughts and flooding leading to failed crops and other natural catastrophes... Meanwhile much of the WHO estimate is for people dying due to heat exposure. Easy to quantify, important to know - but nowhere near the full picture.

refurb 12y ago
Since there is a lot of uncertainty as to what the negative impact of global warming might be, doesn't it make sense to focus on the people who are dying right now?
- kaybe 12y ago
  No, not really. Only looking at the present without taking the future into account leads to a lot of problems. We have to tackle both.
- lincolnq 12y ago
  It depends on your risk/reward curve, and your probability estimates. Malaria is unlikely to get much WORSE than it is now. But if you think that global warming has a chance to cause catastrophic damage, two or three orders of magnitude more than malaria is causing today, then you should estimate the probability that you can impact global warming and do the EV calculation.
tdubhro1 12y ago
> ""almost certainly an underestimate", because a number of climate-health relationships are not measurable due to lack of adequate data". How can the very lack of evidence and data logically support a claim that any estimate is either too low or too high with any "certainty"?
- lincolnq 12y ago
  I suspect they did a "conservative estimate" that pops out "almost certainly at least this many people will die due to effects we understand pretty well. Other, largely independent effects could be lurking that we don't understand."

refurb 12y ago

Since there is a lot of uncertainty as to what the negative impact of global warming might be, doesn't it make sense to focus on the people who are dying right now?

kaybe 12y ago
No, not really. Only looking at the present without taking the future into account leads to a lot of problems. We have to tackle both.
lincolnq 12y ago
It depends on your risk/reward curve, and your probability estimates. Malaria is unlikely to get much WORSE than it is now. But if you think that global warming has a chance to cause catastrophic damage, two or three orders of magnitude more than malaria is causing today, then you should estimate the probability that you can impact global warming and do the EV calculation.

tdubhro1 12y ago

> ""almost certainly an underestimate", because a number of climate-health relationships are not measurable due to lack of adequate data". How can the very lack of evidence and data logically support a claim that any estimate is either too low or too high with any "certainty"?

lincolnq 12y ago
I suspect they did a "conservative estimate" that pops out "almost certainly at least this many people will die due to effects we understand pretty well. Other, largely independent effects could be lurking that we don't understand."