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Earth

Record Levels of Heat-Related Deaths in 2023 Due To Climate Crisis, Report Finds (theguardian.com) 123

Posted by msmash from the worrisome-signs dept.
Heat-related deaths, food insecurity and the spread of infectious diseases caused by the climate crisis have reached record levels, according to a landmark report. The Guardian: The Lancet Countdown's ninth report on health and the climate breakdown reveals that people across the world face unprecedented threats to their health from the rapidly changing climate. "This year's stocktake of the imminent health threats of climate inaction reveals the most concerning findings yet," warned Dr Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown at University College London.

"Once again, last year broke climate change records with extreme heatwaves, deadly weather events, and devastating wildfires affecting people around the world. No individual or economy on the planet is immune [to] the health threats of climate change. The relentless expansion of fossil fuels and record-breaking greenhouse gas emissions compounds these dangerous health impacts, and is threatening to reverse the limited progress made so far and put a healthy future further out of reach."

The report finds that in 2023, extreme drought lasting at least one month affected 48% of the global land area, while people had to cope with an unprecedented 50 more days of health-threatening temperatures than would have been expected without the climate crisis. As a result, 151 million more people faced moderate or severe food insecurity, risking malnutrition and other harm to their health.

Record Levels of Heat-Related Deaths in 2023 Due To Climate Crisis, Report Finds More | Reply

Record Levels of Heat-Related Deaths in 2023 Due To Climate Crisis, Report Finds

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  • I have no doubts as to the veracity of the claim that heat-related deaths have reached an all time high. Statistics be like that. At the same time, it should be acknowledged that those numbers are dwarfed by the number of cold related deaths, amputations, and severe injuries we still have every year.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      At the same time, it should be acknowledged that those numbers are dwarfed by the number of cold related deaths, amputations, and severe injuries we still have every year.

      Why should that be acknowledged? Do you think AGW is going to reduce those deaths any time soon? Because it will do the opposite by creating more severe weather events.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      More people die each year in the USA in RTAs than from food poisoning, ergo, we should not worry about food safety in restaurants. Got it. Thanks for that.
  • How many couldn't afford the energy anymore for airconditioning and other measures?

  • The camps are divided. Nobody's listening.

    I think that to graduate high school you should need to select a position that you subscribe to. Then you should have to research and author a paper on five arguments why the contrary position may be true.

    In the end the climate will do what it will, irrespective of the opinions of one species inhabiting it.

  • Fossil fuels corporations (Score:3, Insightful)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Thursday October 31, 2024 @05:47AM (#64908377)
    & yet, fossil fuels corporations around the world still have plans to extract & release every last profitable gram out of the ground & nobody's realistically doing anything to stop them. Our governments are complicit & are helping them to do it. Our taxes are being spent to make fossil fuels more profitable for the corporations at our expense. We also have to foot the bill for all the costs in severe weather deaths & damage, food shortages & raised prices from crop failures, sickness from contaminated water & soil, spread of diseases due to climate warming, etc., etc.. We're literally paying them to do this to us. With enough political pressure, we can get them to stop.

  • If (and it's not really an if) global warming is happening, then we shouldn't be calling heat waves and hurricanes and such 'extreme' events. They're not, they're the start of the new normal.

    There's also the issue of death count not mattering much. First, the numbers are amazingly low. "Hundreds dead in head wave" doesn't mean much when you're talking millions of people. For a population of a million, we lose an average of 21 people a day under normal circumstances. Sure, you can point to 'this person

    • There is no new normal, because there is no longer any normal.

      There will only be more and more chaos, because that's how chaotic systems work when you add energy. They never spontaneously generate order.

      What we should be focusing on is how climate change will lead to mass starvation by causing crop failures.

  • "Record levels of heat deaths"...may even objectively be true, but it conveniently disguises the reality that deaths from cold kill VASTLY more people world wide.

    Now ask yourself why anyone would try to amplify the danger of heat deaths when the actual science is so obviously and radically the opposite?

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

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      Now ask yourself why anyone would try to amplify the danger of heat deaths when the actual science is so obviously and radically the opposite?

      Because as global warming gets worse so will these heat deaths (as they already have). Or is that too simple for you?

      • But the point is, that it is simultaneous reducing the number of cold deaths--which is a much worse problem.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          But the point is, that it is simultaneous reducing the number of cold deaths--which is a much worse problem.

          So your point is exactly what the above said and that I've already addressed?

          Hot weather is becoming more dangerous, it's a growing problem that people should be aware of. The fact that the shrinking number of cold deaths still outnumber heat deaths is irrelevant, no one is contradicting that point by pointing to the growing problem of extreme heat.

    • you're confusing deaths with delta-deaths

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gawbl ( 941021 )
      I looked at the first linked article, and it refers to research (that I didn't look at) that correlated temperature with death rates. Many temperature/death-rate graphs were shown, each with a local "death minima," at that "just right" temperature where death is minimized.

      The linked article makes no attempt to show that "cold days cause more death"; it just shows that "cold days correlate with more death." It might be (speculating here) that there are simply more cold days every year than "just right" or

  • There have been lots heatwaves in the past.

    Another thing that is different is we have larger urban populations and a larger part of the population urban than ever. Well there is a lot less options for escaping the heat when you live in a 400ft apartment on a treeless street.

    I remember my grandfather actually telling me about how amazing air-conditioning is when I was kid. His story was pretty much how when he was a boy, on really hot days he and his mother would go outside walk a little ways into the woods

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      Many high rises have balconies and the breeze is pretty reliable at 400ft. High rise buildings can have external shielding to reduce thermal gain, although often it's not fitted, but things as simple as reflective curtains can help. On a street with trees there will be much less breeze. Your grandfather's time was, on average, cooler. I do like trees, though, and sitting under one of the trees in my yard on a summer's day is good for the soul, and I count my blessings that I have that available. It might no

    • There have been lots heatwaves [boop].

      Delusional liar

  • Now that all of these reports are coming out about the government actually cloud seeding that the problem with the climate is the government trying to manipulate it?

  • Keep an eye out for wet bulb temperatures in your area. They are already becoming common in southern parts of the USA and can easily kill people.

    We are deeper into the FO phase than I thought we would be at this point. Drought, wildfires, unprecedented flooding, plants no longer able to take up carbon, the poles and oceans 20 degrees hotter than what used to be normal... and it's going to continue to accelerate as the profiteers are still fucking around as hard and fast as possible.

  • So...given that cold deaths usually an order of magnitude worse than heat deaths, shouldn't this headline read that less people died from climate than usual, due to warming?

  • I wonder how the report defines "food Insecurity"?

    Also, notice there isn't one word about "record-levels of heat-related deaths" in TFS, just a lot of talk about increased threats and 151 million people at risk.

    I suspect the report, somewhere in those many pages, talks about actual deaths rather than just increased threats, but I'm not going to read the whole thing to find out - I'd appreciate it if someone that had gone through the report could provide a summary (quoting the report) that supports the headl

  • 4-10 times as many people die from cold related stuff than excess heat

    The Guradian article on the Lancet study is politically driven silliness. here's some more from the Lancet

    "Between 1991 and 2020, we estimated 363 809 cold-related deaths (empirical 95% CI 362 493–365 310) and 43 729 heat-related deaths (39 880–45 921), subject to substantial geographical heterogeneity."

    It may or may not have crossed the author's minds that if more people are dying from heat, it is likely that fewer are dying

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