CBS News lamented on Friday that people around the world have suffered an average of 41 extra days of dangerous heat this year because of human-induced climate change.
of report Citing joint analysis by World Weather attribution and climate centerclaimed that 2024 is “likely” to be the hottest year ever measured.
“This discovery is devastating but not entirely surprising,” said Friederike Otto, head of World Weather Attribution. “Climate change is certainly having an impact, playing a key role in most of the events we study, making heat, drought, tropical cyclones, and heavy rains more likely and more intense around the world. and destroyed the lives and livelihoods of millions and often countless people.
“As long as the world continues to burn fossil fuels, things will get worse,” Otto warned.
But the new report doesn't tell the whole story, leaving out perhaps the most important points.
What was conspicuously absent from the report was statistics regarding the reduction in working days. extremely cold placewhich is much more dangerous to humans than extreme heat. It stands to reason that a slight warming of the planet would lessen the effects of extreme cold.
Each year, more people die from weather-related causes than in the cold, and more people die in the winter than in the summer. In recent years, as average temperatures have risen around the world, the number of weather-related deaths has decreased. Part of the reason is that the decrease in cold-related deaths more than offsets the increase in heat-related deaths.
Data released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows that over the past 20 years, the annual number of heat-related deaths in the United States has ranged from 0.9 to 3.6 per million people, while the number of cold-related deaths has ranged from 0.9 to 3.6 per million people. They ranged from 3.6 to 5.9 per million people. people.
The two graphs below are Furnished EPA depicts this using data from the CDC disparity Visually.
Annual heat- and cold-related deaths (EPA) in the United States.
The disparity between heat and cold deaths becomes even more evident when looking at a global scenario where cold deaths almost outnumber heat deaths. ten to one.
based in uk lancet Medical journals regularly lament the dire consequences of climate change. study In 2021, 5,083,173 deaths around the world were found to be related to “suboptimal annual temperatures,'' and the vast majority were “cold-related'' rather than “heat-related.'' It was explained that.
According to lancetPeople around the world are 9.4 times more likely to die from cold than heat. Every year, 155,000 people die from extreme heat, while 4.5 million die from cold. lancet Reported.
It added that over the past 20 years, heat-related mortality rates have increased slightly (+0.21%) due to global warming, while cold-related mortality rates have decreased. decreased It has more than doubled (-0.51%) over the same period.
That climate alarmists fixate on a warmer climate while ignoring the effects of a colder climate suggests an agenda that goes beyond scientific curiosity. An unbiased study would argue not just about the negative effects of global warming, but also about its potential and actual benefits.
