Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
A short post. I read that the World Health Organization (WHO) has made projections of the likely causes of death in the year 2060. I thought I’d go take a look to see how many of them would be from the widely-hyped but to-date invisible “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!!!”. The data is here.
These are the WHO estimates:
Wow … that is a heck of an “EMERGENCY” all right. Deaths from all “forces of nature”, not just climate-related but all forces, are less than murder, far less than suicide, and trivial compared to motor vehicle crashes. Be still, my beating heart …
Good to see that at least to date, the World Health Organization hasn’t drunk the climate Koolaid …
Why are deaths from climate so low? Well, because humans have gotten much better at protecting ourselves from the weather. Here’s a graph, originally from Bjorn Lomborg. Being a skeptical sort of fellow, I got to wondering if it might contain some kind of error. So I went to the EMDAT Global Disaster Database that Bjorn had used … and I got exactly the same result he’d gotten. Here’s my version of that graph. Information on EMDAT is here.
Why have climate-related deaths dropped so low? Back in the bad old days, lots of people died from climate-related disasters. But better communications, improved warning systems, fossil-fuel heat for houses, faster transportation, improved crop varieties, irrigation, air conditioning, and the like have brought the annual climate-related deaths down to only a few per million people.
Here’s the bottom line. For forty years and more people have been shouting from the rooftops about the imminent “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!!!”
In that regard, consider the following:
e·mer·gen·cy
əˈmərjənsē
noun
1. a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action.
Call me crazy, but anything that has given absolutely no signs of showing up after forty years of endless warnings is not an “unexpected situation requiring immediate action”.
My very best to everyone on a rainy evening,
w.
I have a feeling these predictions will turn out to be way too low. Deaths due to climate alone will escalate as we enter the next solar minimum just at the same time we are eliminating all fossil fuel energy sources.
Cold kills 20x over warming…
There will be no wars in 2060, please believe them.
Sarc?!
Lee, I fear your lovely theory runs aground on a reef of ugly facts …
w.
Willis, the Y-axis of your graph represents Standard Deviation. It doesn’t indicate that temperature has been going up.
I wonder if people will freeze to death in Texas over the next few days due to a lack of electricity. Homes in that part of the country are not built to withstand deep cold. Would their deaths due to cold be considered a climate death?
Someone has to tell them 😀
no, they would be counted as covid-19 deaths
Yes, covid-19 is death du jour.
and COVID-19 is caused by global warming which is caused by CO2 which is caused by fossil fuels, so, yes, they are all climate deaths
Yes they probably will but there will be no mention of cold and the msm will gleefully tell the unsuspecting public it was climate change, and then poor abused Greta will get even angrier.
Just curious… how much stinkier can Greta’s ‘stink eye’ get?
I’m thinking Medusa would avoid Greta’s gaze if Greta’s stink eye went to eleven.
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BTW, Mrs. H.R. can give the ‘stink eye’ with the best of them. Don’t cut her off in traffic. You will wither and die from some serious ‘stink eye’. 😜
They would be in the “Covid – Climate Fatality” category… since most deaths are now “Covid – Hyphenated” deaths. Some are just Covid, but those are becoming rare.
Homes built where the weather is hot are built to keep coolness inside and heat outside. That is, they are built to prevent heat transfer, exactly like homes built up North.
What is not protected in warm areas are water pipes and sewage lines.
Which means homes built where it is warm are facing burst water pipes and frozen sewage lines.
I believe what you are assuming are homes constructed where the weather is warm actually refers to homes built before the 1960s. Especially homes built before the 1950s.
That is, homes built without shielding, without insulation, with exterior walls only inches thick with large air gaps, single pane glass windows with large air gaps, etc.
Which describes homes that are built throughout the Northeast, Eastern states, Midwest right up through Minnesota, Southwest, California, Nevada and Utah. Not just in Texas and the Southeast.
The primary means by which heat is kept out in southern homes, is shade.
The amount of insulation put into houses in the south is usually a lot less than put into houses in the north.
The reason for this is simple.
If it’s 100F outside, and 80F inside, that’s a 20F difference.
If it’s 20F outside, and 60F inside, that’s a 40F difference.
Homes that I owned in Georgia and Florida used 2×4’s for the outside walls with R-15 insulation in the walls and R-30 in the attic.
The home that I owned in Iowa used 2×6’s for the outside walls and had R-30 in the walls and R-50 in the ceilings.
Older homes in the south have single pane windows. Newer ones have double paned.
In the north, older homes have double paned windows and newer ones have triple paned.
This is what happens when WHO does not get the funding that it repeatedly requests. Pay to play is your answer.
Do the Oral Conditions include the foot-in-mouth conditions so beloved by many so-called climate scientists? And not many Drownings considering the, so far invisible, damaging accelerating rise in sea levels.
Interesting chart from the WHO. By 2060, no-one will die from old age.
David
With the exception of road injury, self harm, violence and drowning all the causes of death above are old age. Even falls is caused by old age.
The frequency of death from falls rises sharply after age 70. However, it is not old age that is responsible for the falls or the deaths resulting from the falls. Older people have stiff joints from arthritis, weak muscles and poor balance from lack of exercise, and brittle bones from osteoporosis. Jack LaLanne died of pneumonia at age 96, not from a fall, because he exercised regularly.
Young people sometimes fall, and if they hit their head, they sometimes die. It is the fall that is immediately responsible for their death, not their age.
Its not the fall that kills them, it is the sudden stop at the end.
My father told me that the secret to a long life was to keep breathing.
When it comes down to it, all deaths can be attributed to the fact that respiration ceased. Soon after, the heart stops, and then things go downhill from there.
Covid-19? pfhtttt…! They died because they quite breathing, not because of some bug.
Actually, birth is he leading cause of death.
IDK…it feels like hackneyed one-liners are killing me.
Here in Australia, The median age for death from accidental falls is 87.4.
Old age causes your body to deteriorate and (for example) develop cancer, alzheimer’s, heart disease/failure, diabetes, stroke, become more susceptible to infectious disease, more prone to falls, etc. etc.
So what used to be classified as ‘old age’ is now categorized by the actual immediate cause of death.
What’s the saying?
“My grandfather died peacefully in his sleep, not screaming like all the passengers.”
OMG! LOL! I did not see that coming, Scissor.
+a million! Haven’t heard that one. Will be passing it on.
That’s because the UN will have taken over world governance by then and the WHO will have introduced the Logan’s Run law.
Another great post, Willis. And, yes, I’m pleased to see you confirm that Bjorn Lomborg is a trusted source when it comes to statistics, despite the criticisms often directed his way because of his “lukewarmer” position.
He is still one of the “good guys”, an honest purveyor of information and his book “The Skeptical Environmentalist” from 20 years ago is still essential reading.
Thanks, Willis, for the post.
Willis, do you know the basis for the estimates? For example, will WHO say that they assumed significant GHG reductions in making such a low estimate of climate-related deaths? Or were the categories unexplained?
I followed your link and looked at the WHO website. I saw definitions, but nothing for climate-related causes of death. Not asking you to research for me, just wondering if you know.
Well, this certainly means it cannot “cause the end of civilization.”
No No, “The End” is always predicted with “As We Know It” tacked on. Of course, that happens everyday when you go to sleep because no one can know the future tomorrow.
Beg to differ.
Everyone from Stephen Hawking to Greta and AOC are on record as saying the Earth will be literally uninhabitable.
Some of them have even attached various specific dates and periods of time we have left before the world quick-fries us all to a crackly crunch.
Are you sure you didn’t mis-spell specious as specific?
Specious is defined as superficially plausible but wrong.
I for one see any such outlooks as 100% completely implausible.
They are just made up, imaginary threats, with no basis in reality, let alone fact or plausibility.
No one can point to a single location where there is anything unusual, let alone unprecedented, going on.
The amounts of variation claimed by some in the temperature patterns is miniscule when compared to even the amount of variation that occurs inside a climate controlled indoor space.
The only credible time series’ of temperature showing any increase at all in the recent past, start at dates that are known to be cold periods, whether it be the ones that started around 1980 or the ones that began in the 1880’s.
We live on a planet that is in the midst of an ice age, and which has large portions of the surface perpetually stuck at temps which would quickly kill an unprotected person.
Far larger areas, including large parts of the most densely inhabited regions, are seasonally frigidly cold enough to kill a person or any other living thing that is not specifically protected by some mechanism or specialized adaptation.
A careful look at the claimed warming shows that it mainly consists of slightly warmer temps at night, in Winter, and at high latitudes.
IOW…it is less cold, not more hot.
Everything about this institutionalized jackassery is a bad joke, and completely erroneous.
Made up nonsense.
Most of the planet is far too cold by any rational analysis, and CO2 is still barely above the lowest it has ever been in the billions of years long history of the planet.
Add in the facts that the people who claim to be concerned about it are among the most profligate emitters of the very thing they claim is going to kill us all, and that any of the things which might actually reduce emissions (such as nuclear and hydro power, fracking for natural gas, and a focus on greater energy efficiency) are specifically rejected by these warmistas, and what we have is a perfect storm of inanity and lies.
I understand that you were being sarcastic or tongue in cheek, but I do not mind another opportunity to say quite clearly that these people, with their doomsday fantasizing, are not being specious, they are in fact beyond ludicrous.
Maybe I’m being silly responding seriously to a tongue-in-cheek post, but my understanding is that the predominant mortality threats from climate change don’t necessarily come from exposure to extreme weather (maybe heat waves), but from things like food insecurity or spread of infectious diseases. It would also be good to compare causes of death projected in 2060 compared against causes of death today. I’m also fairly sure increased mortality isn’t the only danger reported to be posed by climate change.
That used to be the case in the 1990’s. Malaria in New York sort of stuff. Covered in the long Climate Chapter of Arts of Truth. Food insecurity and disease spread were featured in IPCC WG2 reports from FAR and SAR. Since it was all so easily debunked, by TAR and AR4 the main ‘threats’ were rising sea levels and extreme weather and extinctions. For example on food insecurity, all one has to do is either change cultivars or farm a bit more north. For insect borne diseases, use insecticide. SLR and weather extremes (drought, flood, storm) are harder to debunk and happen further into the future, so serve the climate scare better.
Weekly
Very good question.
After a quick glance you cannot compare apples to apples.
Most similar charts of the present, include lower respiratory death and respiratory deaths. This chart only includes respiratory? Did they combine or do they expect there to be no lower respiratory deaths.
There are a few other inconsistencies.
My guess is they have guessed that undeveloped countries will develop so there will be less poor man diseases but more rich man diseases, plus they have then added potential deaths due to hot weather diseases.
But, as Willis has highlighted deaths from extreme weather is still a non issue.
Sorry I was wrong, looking a bit deeper the chart is based on guesswork on top of guesswork.
Big guess #1 population in 2060 is 10. 2 billion.
Big guess #2 The % change in the population for each income group.
Notwithstanding that the table is really only a guess out to 2060, the fact remains deaths due to force of nature is low.
Tomorrow is a guess, but 2060 is exactly known: 10,151,469,683
https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2060/
Those are combined totals of upper, lower, and all respiratory deaths. I gave the link. Download the Excel spreadsheet specified above to get the answers to your questions.
w.
“Maybe I’m being silly responding seriously to a tongue-in-cheek post, but my understanding is that the predominant mortality threats from climate change don’t necessarily come from exposure to extreme weather (maybe heat waves), but from things like food insecurity or spread of infectious diseases.”
The problem is, none of the things you mentioned are shown to be any more of a problem with slight warming than they ever have been.
Has there been any evidence of food insecurity due to true scarcity of food–that is reduced crop yields–as we have seen a slight increase in temperatures over the past 140 years? Most of the statistics I have seen equate low temperatures with reduced crop yields. And infectious diseases? What diseases have spread due to higher temperatures? Mostly I hear about people getting sick in cold temperatures which stress their immune systems. Winter is the flu season, not summer. Even COVID has been worse in cold weather, not warm.
The increase in CO2 over the past 140 years has raised crop yields. The increase in temperatures has lengthened growing seasons.
I think long before we all die of food insecurity, we will find a decent food psychiatrist and get over it.
Some of you out there have OUTSTANDING senses of humor!! 🙂
How can you project inexistent threats?
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”
Yogi Berra
Just as there can be a significant change in deaths caused by extreme weather over a short period, any of these cause of deaths can significantly change in the next 40 years. Let’s hope so.
Under Communists, planners asked my M.D. auntie what epidemic diseases she planned to fight in five years. She understood that in two years no one would care about the Glorious Five Year Plan, so she created a list lightheartedly. Now the W.H.O. is inflating the time frame. Just like the IPCC.
Anything that lowers the death rate in one category will raise it in one or more of the others.
What is it we should be hoping for?
For me, it is not a change in the percentages of causes of death, it is a somewhat longer life and more of the years I have to be healthy ones.
In the end, what is the difference what finally puts us out of our misery?
Having said that…some things are notably bad ways to go.
For me those would be the ones that cause a slow lingering demise.
Best way to die I have heard of is to go to sleep one night and not wake up.
A century ago the average American male life expectancy was about 50 years. Currently we enjoy an average longevity over 50% greater — a historically unheard of boon over just a few generations that seldom penetrates our present-only oriented consciousness and the resultant whining since, you know, nothing is going to be good enough for us.
The climate change we are experiencing today is extremely small. It is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control. There is no climate emergency.
It would be a mistake not to include deaths as a result of Socialism. Since Socialist governments killed 120,000,000 people in the 20th Century, that will average 1.2 million deaths for that category yearly. Remember this: under the Communist regime, East German suicide statistics were a State secret.
Willis and others.
The annual deaths for forces of nature goes up and down.
Maybe they have attached to climate model or enso.
Any thoughts?
Good post Willis and again you’ve found the same “emergency” that Indur Goklany found years ago.
And don’t forget that in 1920 the human population was about 1.8 bn and today is about 7.8 bn and SH about 0.8 bn and NH about 7 bn.
Yet donkey Joe told us he intended to take action on his crisis, emergency or whatever and fully intends to waste endless trillions $ until his so called problem is fixed. Alas Lomborg etc tell us that their wastage of endless trillions $ will have no measurable change on temp or climate by 2100 at all.
The Russians and Chinese must be laughing their heads off, unlike the people freezing from Joe’s global warming in Texas at this very moment.
I can’t see the category for “Day Of The Week” deaths –
as in –
“he died of a Sundee”
WHO seems woefully out of date. Heart disease, cancer and other seemingly intractable diseases of the past have unaccountably dropped sharply during the past few decades.
https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2016/16_0211.htm
WHO did get the climate/nature health risk right, though. The Climate Wroughters will, however, be fixing the woefully pallid climate death stats using the Whack-a-Moley climate research protocol that erased the 1930s-40s record T highs, the Little Ice Age, MWP, the “Pause” and, most recently, the Holocene ‘Optimum’. These and other phenomena undercutting the ruling theory they won’t stand for.
After a rather intense outburst, not unprecedented mind you, of Climate Change in the immediate vicinity of my house, it dawned that there was a leak in my roof.
Yes, it rained.
In the course of my investigation and repair (a broken tile and some ancient dried out bitumen roofing-felt immediately under it), I came upon something that was so poignant and sad, I really did shed a tear.
It goes: Out here in The Country, Renewable Energy now king and is = Corn
What some call Forage Maize.
Is grown then harvested through truly impressive machine (100+ tonnes of complete standing corn plant goes through a 4mm steel mesh, per hour) and thereafter goes to a Digester
But, Rattus Norvegicus (lets call him Roland) is fond of corn and after the crop is harvested, decamps all cold & hungry from the fields and into my garden, under the garage, the workshop/shed and ultimately into the loft of my cottage.
Its warm there I suppose, all that Climate Saving Insulation innit.
This displeases me. In the garden and outside maybe OK, but not in the roof. chewing up lectric wires and stuff.
After much experimentation, I found that Roland is fond of ‘Pasta Bait’
Gooey stuff, made of semolina mixed with fat/oil & Difenacoum – delivered in inch square things exactly like Tea-Bags
Onwards:
What made me sad was the discovery in my roof of an expired Roland. All his lonesome 🙁
He’d been there some time and was quite totally dessicated/mummified but otherwise in perfect condition, as far as dead things go.
He’d made a little nest. You know, chewed up fluff and plastic, bits of grass and string – all the sorts of stuff he had held dear to his little heart. While alive.
And in the middle of it all, most precious, 3 of my little Tea bags.
Pulled open and emptied. Eaten presumably.
I. Felt. Awful.Really I did.
Patently, fondness for pasta was the cause of his demise.
And I thought, there goes all of Humanity. It sums us up perfectly.
We make our nests, fill them with stuff we like, including our own version of Roland’s Tea-bags.
Except, our Teabags are filled, exactly as Roland’s were, filled with processed wheat, corn, rice, potato etc etc.
Cooked Starch basically.
And that, that alone, is The Root Cause of the first 9 things listed (as far as car wrecks) on the leading graphic here.
Nutrient free food revolving around sugar.
Just like Roland in my roof, us humans are so sweet, so poignant and so very sad in all the things we do.
Right to the very end.
It is the growing of those Teabags, the tillage, plowing, fertilising, burning of waste and resultant Soil Erosion that is changing and will eventually, destroy, The Climate
“will eventually, destroy, The Climate”
What?
Absolutely no climate?
Anywhere?
Has someone told the King?
you made me laugh this time
Ive had mice climb into the bag to gorge on those baits and die in it
while thats sort of good
the pellet baits mean more kills for the money spent i reckon
and large parts of Aus are having mouse plagues now
praying our area escapes as my homes so crap I simply wont be able to keep them out
What is a “climate-related disaster”?
Hurricane? Nope, weather-related. Tornado? Nope, weather related. Floods? Droughts? Nope, weather-related. Heat waves? Cold waves? Nope, weather.
Massive ice sheets invading continental areas – climate-related.
Call me crazy, but anything that has given absolutely no signs of showing up after forty years of endless warnings is not an “unexpected situation requiring immediate action.
Perhaps you just have it backwards. The emergency is because so few people are dying. “Fixing” the energy infrastructure could make a big improvement from that viewpoint.
Note that the WHO “causes of death” do not mention or include iatrogenic and nosocomic diseases. There’s a lot of ambiguity about early pathology, intermediate drivers, and actual, immediate “cause of death,” but that provides cover for the medical establishment, which can always find something else to take the blame.
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
— Yogi Berra
“I never said half the things I said.”
–Yogi Berra
“That hotel has the best towels. I could barely close my suitcase.”
The climate emergency they are most fearing is the climate in which people with functioning brains are not accepting their endless lies anymore.
I believe that, historically speaking, most climate/storm related deaths have been due to flooding.
That may remain true to this day.
wonder for how many models the Q1 2021 global temps will fall outside their 95% CI
if it makes the authors feel better, those models were still the basis of trillion-dollar global policy decisions, and no one can ever take that away from them
Well we can start by saying that all the deaths in this pandemic were climate emergency related as without this scare we would have prepared to prevent contagious disease spread instead of building wind farms. Next we can add deaths from widespread fuel poverty from wind providing one fifth of the plate power at four times the current electricity price or sixteen times the price of gas.