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Earth

Where More People Will Die -- and Live -- Because of Climate Change (washingtonpost.com) 131

An anonymous reader shares this thought-provoking article by a graphics reporter at The Washington Post who was part of its Pulitzer Prize-winning Explanatory Reporting team: The scientific paper published in the June 2021 issue of the journal Nature Climate Change was alarming. Between 1991 and 2018, the peer-reviewed study reported, more than one-third of deaths from heat exposure were linked to global warming. Hundreds of news outlets covered the findings. The message was clear: climate change is here, and it's already killing people. But that wasn't all that was happening. A month later, the same research group, which is based out of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine but includes scientists from dozens of countries, released another peer-reviewed study that told a fuller, more complex story about the link between climate change, temperature and human mortality. The two papers' authors were mostly the same, and they used similar data and statistical methods.

Published in Lancet Planetary Health, the second paper reported that between 2000 and 2019, annual deaths from heat exposure increased. But deaths from cold exposure, which were far more common, fell by an even larger amount. All told, during those two decades the world warmed by about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit, and some 650,000 fewer people died from temperature exposure....

But whose lives? Projections indicate milder temperatures may indeed spare people in the globe's wealthy north, where it's already colder and people can buy protection against the weather. Yet heat will punish people in warmer, less wealthy parts of the world, where each extra degree of temperature can kill and air conditioning will often remain a fantasy....

What about the long term? A groundbreaking peer-reviewed study, published in November in Harvard's Quarterly Journal of Economics, gives us a glimpse. In the study, a team of researchers projected how mortality from temperature would change in the future. The worldwide temperature-linked mortality rate is projected to stay about the same, but you can see enormous geographic variation: colder, wealthier countries do well, while hotter, poorer countries suffer.

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Where More People Will Die -- and Live -- Because of Climate Change

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  • So- racism? (Score:1, Troll)

    by Papaspud ( 2562773 )
    All paths lead to racism, even climate change, who knew.
    • Re:So- racism? (Score:5, Informative)

      by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Sunday February 19, 2023 @08:53AM (#63305563) Homepage

      Not sure if it's "racism" per se, but it is true that when the temperature hits 120F, rich people in rich countries turn on the air conditioning, while poor people in poor countries die.

      But that's true regardless of race.

      • The article fails to mention that the percentage of people dying from heat has also been going down. The more developed countries become the less vulnerable they are to the weather. If you actually cared about human lives you would let them use cheap fossil fuels until they become rich enough to care about the environment.
        • We shall call off the eco-invasion of India immediately, sir
        • by XXongo ( 3986865 )
          The countries with high temperatures are also ones with plentiful solar energy. If you actually cared about human lives, you would want solar power generation to be expanded to lower the cost of power in these regions.
        • Re: So- racism? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday February 19, 2023 @12:38PM (#63306003)

          If you actually cared about human lives you would let them use cheap fossil fuels until they become rich enough to care about the environment.

          Why would you need to use fossil fuels to become rich? It's not the 1800s. Developing nations aren't out there inventing the steam engine or automobiles either. Use today's solutions to solve today's problems and learn from those who came before you.

          • Why would you need to use fossil fuels to become rich? It's not the 1800s. Developing nations aren't out there inventing the steam engine or automobiles either. Use today's solutions to solve today's problems and learn from those who came before you.

            I am not trying to support the previous poster's assertions here; however, it will appear that way:

            Developing nations either need to invent the stuff themselves, or they need to "purchase" said technology from someone that has already invented it. What is the asking price of modern technology?

            Let's be real here. If the technology is American, the price is going to be everything you own or more. Indentured servitude is frequently acceptable as a price as well.

            What do you think a developing country is going t

        • by Tom ( 822 )

          The article fails to mention that the percentage of people dying from heat has also been going down. The more developed countries become the less vulnerable they are to the weather. If you actually cared about human lives you would let them use cheap fossil fuels until they become rich enough to care about the environment.

          Wrong on many accounts.

          First, cold is easy to compensate for even with low levels of technology. You just burn something. Heat is easily generated, but more difficult to get rid of. In fact, especially with cheap fuels of all kinds (fossil, wood, whatever) it's easy to heat something, but cooling requires something else.

          Second, most of the cultures living in hot climates have aeons-old techniques for cooling, at least to a livable temperature. But these techniques don't mix well with high-density urbanism.

          T

    • by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      That's not unfounded. In general, during difficult times when times are hard, you get some kind of discrimination. Racism is one obvious example, but also all anti-*, and nationalism too (which is a form of discrimination). Look at covid, it spawned anti-asian racism, and waves of nationalism even though it should have helped get people together (in spirit at least, not physically). And Nazism was a direct consequence of Germany's ruin following WW1.

      If resource are limited because of climate change (or anyt

    • Not quite. Because it's colder in the North, that's where people in prehistory became more familiar with the long-term uses of fire, which produced empires and wealth. Those advantages eventually led to industrialization and mechanization in modernity, which in turn is driving global warming. So, while there's clearly a conspiracy to ignore the problem and maintain the status quo, the actual problem itself has not stemmed from deliberate acts against the global South.
  • by HnT ( 306652 ) on Sunday February 19, 2023 @08:54AM (#63305565)

    I have no idea how everything will continue but it is becoming more and more clear we are way too many humans on this planet already. And it cannot be a solution for all those poorer to storm the beaches and borders of the richer nations, it simply will not work to increase the concentrations even more.

    • by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Sunday February 19, 2023 @09:03AM (#63305581) Homepage

      I have no idea how everything will continue but it is becoming more and more clear we are way too many humans on this planet already.

      That problem is in the process being solved already; global fertility rates are dropping. The global average fertility rate is around 2.3 children per woman today, and there are no signs that it won't continue to drop. The key element in this drop was simply access to birth control, but decreases in global poverty also helped (poor people have more children than rich people.)

      https://ourworldindata.org/fer... [ourworldindata.org]

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Yep. But this is going wayyy too slow. The real decreases will come from people dying off due to lack of water and food.

        • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

          Yep. But this is going wayyy too slow.

          Not at all clear. I think it may be going about the right speed; too fast population decline can be very disruptive.

          The real decreases will come from people dying off due to lack of water and food.

          This is, of course, what we are trying to avoid.

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Yep. But this is going wayyy too slow.

            Not at all clear. I think it may be going about the right speed; too fast population decline can be very disruptive.

            You need to have a look at the climate change projections.

            The real decreases will come from people dying off due to lack of water and food.

            This is, of course, what we are trying to avoid.

            Oh? I see no evidence of that. Sure, a lot of pretending to do things, but CO2 emissions are still raising.

            • Yep. But this is going wayyy too slow.

              Not at all clear. I think it may be going about the right speed; too fast population decline can be very disruptive.

              You need to have a look at the climate change projections.

              I do. The problem with climate change is not actually the change per se; it is rate of change. High rates of change are disruptive.

              Slow change can be adapted to.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          Current planet, with current technology can support at least 12 billion people (conservative estimate, in reality it's probably somewhere between 15 and 18 at this point). And this efficiency has been going up about 3-5% yearly for several decades. At least in part because food ultimately comes from photosynthesis, which is optimized for around 1500ppm CO2 air content. That's what it was when green cells in plants evolved.

          Ours is around 430ppm right now. As it goes up, plant yields will continue to improve

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Nope. And seriously, this does not even need any debate at this point. You are deep in denial.

          • Current planet, with current technology can support at least 12 billion people

            You seem to be answering the question "what is the maximum number of people that the planet can feed" and not the question "can we prevent ecosystem collapse and mass disruptions of society due to global warming."

            I disagree with your assertion that the optimum number of people on the planet is "the maximum number that the planet can hold without mass starvation."

    • Not even close and really the population is widely predicted to peak and then start falling within the next 40-50 years I believe? Everyone who has predicted this pretty much has gotten it wrong, especially the "Population Bomb" guy whose book is not just wrong but widely discredited for it's flawed methodology.

      No, we can fight climate change without radical degrowth or loss in population and I have not been presented with anything to the contrary, more just the veiled opinion of "i'd rather just have less

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        No, we can fight climate change without radical degrowth or loss in population

        From currently available evidence, we cannot fight climate change at all. The massive dying off will come as a consequence.

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Sunday February 19, 2023 @02:03PM (#63306193)

          From IPCC reports (rather than the shit that politicians spew), climate change is a normal event that is supposed to be happening in the wake of ice age we just exited. The problem is that CO2 we're putting into the atmosphere in the wake of technological revolution accelerated it too much, resulting in rapidity of change that means that normal dying off is slightly accelerated, seemingly outpacing emergence of new species better adapted for changing environment. Data is inconclusive, because we don't have good data on amount of new, better adapted species and subvariants, and this judgement cannot be made without understanding both parts of the fomula.

          I.e. your doomsaying is both anti-factual and anti-scientific. But it's very popular in popular culture circles. As an example of lack of "dying off", in general as planet warmed and became more saturated with CO2 in atmopshere, total amount of organic life increased. I.e. the opposite of "dying off" happened. We are currently observing this with our satellites. As observed from space, planet is greenest it's ever been. As greenery is the basis for almost all calories that organic life on this planet consumes to power its existence, it's also reasonable to assume that there has never been more organic life on this planet since we started observing it from space.

          • The great "dying off" which is talked about is about diversity, especially species which can't adapt to climate change, NOT about total biomass. In fact if you had an explosion of algae killing all species in the ocean but having twice the biomass, it would not be "good" it would be terrible and a great dying off.
            • by Terwin ( 412356 )

              The great "dying off" which is talked about is about diversity, especially species which can't adapt to climate change, NOT about total biomass. In fact if you had an explosion of algae killing all species in the ocean but having twice the biomass, it would not be "good" it would be terrible and a great dying off.

              The vast majority of the 'greening' is happening in arid areas, where the higher concentrations of co2 allow plants to acquire co2 with less loss of water.
              Increased co2 is also increasing crop yields with no additional labor or use of fertilizers.
              It has also revealed an unexpected counter-balance, as plants with access to more co2 put more growth into roots. As plants decay, generally the parts above the ground go back to the air, and the parts below the ground stay to enrich the soil. As such, the more c

  • Interesting analysis.

    Take away point is that in fact, not all effects of global warming are bad in all regions; it will have both good and bad effects in different places.

    From that, I'd expect a lot of migration (or attempted migration) of refugees from near-equatorial to temperate regions. This will be disruptive.

    But personally, I'd be more worried about effects on the global food supply, not on simple heat-related deaths and cold-related deaths.

    • It also assumes populations are not mobile.
    • Take away point is that in fact, not all effects of global warming are bad in all regions; it will have both good and bad effects in different places.

      The most important effect of GW will be the same in all regions, increased chaos and deviation from historical norms. Both are problems for lots of obvious reasons. It doesn't necessarily help yields for your zonation to become more favorable if weather events are more unexpected and severe.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Or if flooding in spring removes all your topsoil and you do not have enough water in summer to grow anything ...

        • If spring floods are a common occurance, it's unlikely that there will be any topsoil unless the inhabitants build levies, or other flood-control structures and spend some time composting all of their organic wastes to rebuild the lands. It can, and has been done, but they're going to need some alternative source of money to buy food with until the land becomes productive again.
        • Re:Interesting point (Score:4, Informative)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Sunday February 19, 2023 @02:10PM (#63306211)

          Death cult fantasy vs reality check: Many of the most fertile lands on which we raise crops are flood planes. Flood is what recharges the top soil with nutrients.

          Do they never teach any human history any more and only focus on identity politics and how much you need to hate you fellow man for you not to even know what flood plain is and what it's role to human agriculture was historically?

          • by jd ( 1658 )

            Flood plains would be better taught in geography, being as it is a product of geography and not a product of history.

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            And actual reality: This is not about flood plains. This is about floods in places that did not have them before because water that used to be stored as snow now melts too early. Former flood plains will typically become too dry to grow anything there.

            Well, I guess assholes like you will just switch to "How could we have known?" when things become too obvious to ignore.

      • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        This is why Green ideology is a death cult. It's anti-factual by definition.

        Because this is the second or third year that we have actually began having enough data to make analyses of what AGW does regionally, and we now understand that it's completely different.

        For example recent data made it clear that relative humidity of air has a massive impact on what global warming does. Regions with high relative humidity appear to be gaining a massive boost in quality of life, as water vapor is capable of dampening

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It is a minor aspect and pretty meaningless. The real questions are food and water. And crops cannot simply made to grow when the temperature is right...

    • Take away point is that in fact, not all effects of global warming are bad in all regions; it will have both good and bad effects in different places.

      It's kind of an unusual viewpoint.

    • But it will have a negative consequence overall not necessarily unmanageable but it will be stressful. And beyond what many can manage. Not the end of world. But for most the end of the lifestyle they expect

      I know it is unfair to check out, but my plan is to move to the top of a mountain, in the tropics, and live on mantis yucca and what ever vegetables I can get. 60 degrees year round. Let the others burn because they wonâ(TM)t make tailback changes.

    • A warmer northern climate should mean more agricultural output overall.

      • by gemtech ( 645045 )

        A warmer northern climate should mean more agricultural output overall.

        Increased CO2 helps with that as well.

  • Secondary effects (Score:5, Insightful)

    by petes_PoV ( 912422 ) on Sunday February 19, 2023 @09:07AM (#63305587)
    The study seems to only consider prima-face deaths. Due directly to people being too hot (10%) or too cold (90% of heat-related deaths).

    But what of the other environmental effects of climate change: drought, floods, famine, disease?

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The study covers a minor effect only. That makes it interesting, but not very important. The real killers will be, as you nicely list, drought, floods, famine, disease. Add "war" because billions of people suddenly wanting to be were other billions already are is not going to be peaceful.

    • by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Sunday February 19, 2023 @12:10PM (#63305919) Journal

      The study seems to only consider prima-face deaths. Due directly to people being too hot (10%) or too cold (90% of heat-related deaths).

      But what of the other environmental effects of climate change: drought, floods, famine, disease?

      Also, refugee crises and even war, caused by people fleeing drought, floods, famine & disease.

    • In that case, the difference between heat/cold deaths would probably widen another order of magnitude. Because if we did, we’d have to attribute a good chunk of COVID deaths (and other annual flu/cold deaths) to cold temperatures, since cases and deaths of communicable disease such as those always skyrocket when temps dip below freezing. That’s why they call it “cold and flu” season, because it forces so many indoors.
  • Let's assume for a second that the objective is to maximize human lives. (Yes I know, a lot of people here want fewer humans... come on, lead the way, start with yourself, if you truly believe what you say.).

    What I read in the linked papers is that 10x more people die from excess cold than from excess heat. Does that mean that we should welcome global warming as reducing deaths from extreme temperatures? Or (crazy idea) does it mean that the problem is more complex than counting casualties in that manner?

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The study covers a minor effect only. That is scientifically valid, but otherwise not very relevant. What is a lot worse is that crops will stop to grow in many areas and not start to grow elsewhere, because crops are actually a lot more demanding in the environment they need than people, at least as far as climate and soil is concerned. For example, all that nice permafrost that is thawing? You cannot actually grow anything useful on it. Now, if this was a change over 10'000 years, things would adjust. But

      • I don't disagree with you, but there's something I think you're overlooking. What we call corn (and the British call maize) grows almost everywhere in the New World, but the cultivars that do so well in Central America can't survive in Canada, partially because the growing season is too short. It's not that unreasonable to think that there might be appropriate versions of those staple crops in existence, or if not, there are people able to adapt them to the permafrost region by selective breeding, or othe
    • Yes I know, a lot of people here want fewer humans... come on, lead the way, start with yourself, if you truly believe what you say

      Beside obvious trolls or irrelevant nazis, I never heard this. Controlling birth rate yes, killing people no. Like many things relating to climate change, it should have been done decades ago but now we are not that far from the peak anyway.

      • Controlling whose birth rate? Which country, which population? How do we agree on this and who's going to enforce it?

        Assuming this is a desirable goal, it seems a difficult and unrealistic one to attain. The best way to attain it is probably not to try to decree it, but make people wealthier. And as you say it's happening anyway, as people have been lifted out of poverty in the last couple decades. Hell, the Chinese population decreased last year, and the one child policy is long gone. So population peaking

        • The fact that human or any animal population needs to be limited in order to avoid resources exhaustion of its environnement is just a physical fact, I don't care if this fact is distorted and used by xenophobic people. In a magical world, humanity has decided a fixed amount of resources per capita and a sustainable limited population according to this choice (and thus a finite economic growth). Instead we choosed: infinite economic growth(which needs infinite demographic growth) and unfair resources distr
          • A physical system is definitely limited, although when it comes to the Earth, it's difficult to say exactly how much is too much. People used to think 2 billions humans would starve the planet. Who knows that the true limit is. If we had 100% nuclear/electric energy and much less environmental pollution, it's difficult to say that the Earth could not house say 2x as many humans as now. Again, who knows.

            As for economic growth, it's a popular misconception that it has to be bound as well. Economic growth is a

  • Just wondering given this recent slashdot [slashdot.org] article. Really, it's already known so many studies are not reproducible and it only gets found out _if_ someone gets interested for some reason eg. political. So pointing out that a study or article is "peer-reviewed" is kind of meaningless.

    • If you wonder, have a look at the first few paragraphs of this Guardian article [theguardian.com]. The machinations of any body are mostly political and you see it manifest especially in fields that achieve public prominence and/or where funding is important. Right now, playing on the fear of the "climate change emergency/crisis" gets you money and street cred. So more than ever take every story with a grain of salt ... "peer-reviewed" or not.

    • It's worthwhile in that it is a second step. It would be great if the study got replicated and confirmed or disproved but peer reviewed is a step up from nont-reviewed or worse, pre-print.

      It's a sliding scale, this is just telling us where on the scale it is while is just past center imo. Good but not great.

    • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Sunday February 19, 2023 @11:58AM (#63305885) Journal
      Peer review is a low-pass filter. The really bad stuff gets filtered out. It's also an improvement mechanism, through the peer review process, people learn about ways they can make their papers better (after complaining about "stupid reviewers").

      You should not see peer review as a kind of verification that papers are correct or accurate. That's not what peer review does.
      • But I view that at the *least minimum litmus test* to tell me if I have to bother reading something : if somebody pretend the current science is "wrong" no matter what part of science they look at, I can ask them the peer reviewed paper they have on it. If they don't have any, I can pretty much dismiss what they "quacks" without losing anything. If they have something peer reviewed THEN we can start the discussion on data, hypothesis , falsification etc...
  • Why isn't this about video cards?
  • Whew! (Score:2, Troll)

    by byronivs ( 1626319 )
    Good thing I'm not that guy! He's really gonna get what he deserves, yeah. Only bad stuff happens to them. But not me. Nope. I'm in the right place. I know the right people. I have the correct amount of money and things. I have curated the best viewpoints and they are as infallible as my logic in all matters. I ctrol the right tings and people and befriend those who are worthy. All this happened because I am solely responsible for my actions from before the moment quantum particles randomly popped into exis
  • What remains is when and how.

  • So, this article is entirely based on that fact that more people die from cold than heat and therefore concludes you'd be better off in a place where the climate is cooler or cold already.

    This is ridiculously simplistic.

    There's a planet sized elephant in the room here - agriculture.

    Climate change has already made significant impacts on food production globally - and it is only set to get worse.
    Whilst humans are adaptable, we cannot just "up sticks" and move entire agricultural regions - there's only so much

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