Beam me to Planet Gore !
Roy Spencer, the Official Climatologist of the EIB Network
Posted on 02/13/2008 11:30:51 AM PST by grundle
The risk of a fatal heatwave in the UK within ten years is high, but overall global warming may mean fewer deaths due to temperature, a report says.
A seriously hot summer between now and 2017 could claim more than 6,000 lives, the Department of Health report warns.
But it also stresses that milder winters mean deaths during this time of year - which far outstrip heat-related mortality - will continue to decline.
The report is to help health services prepare for climate change effects.
A panel of scientific experts commissioned by the Department of Health and Health Protection Agency (HPA) has looked at the way the UK has responded to rising temperatures since the 1970s, and how the risks are likely to change.
While summers in the UK became warmer in the period 1971 - 2003, there was no change in heat-related deaths, but annual cold-related mortality fell by 3% as winters became milder - so overall fewer people died as a result of extreme temperatures.
Rather than physiological changes explaining our ability to adapt to rising temperatures, the report puts this down primarily to lifestyle alterations - our readiness to wear more informal clothes, for instance, and the shift away from manual labour.
Breathing in
Nevertheless, there is at present a 25% chance that by 2017 south-east England will see a severe heatwave which could cause 3,000 immediate deaths and the same number of heat-related deaths throughout the summer.
While the authors acknowledge that predicting heatwaves and their effects is difficult, the risk was nonetheless "high".
However, even 6,000 deaths pales in comparison with the number of cold-related deaths, which in the UK currently average about 20,000 per year.
It is also a mixed picture when it comes to the health impact of air pollution.
As a result of regulations, levels of several key pollutants are likely to decline over the next 50 years, but the concentration of ozone may well increase.
Maybe counties with declining populations can sell death offsets.
Plus, if everyone’s lawns keep growing all winter long we’ll keep millions of “migrant” gardeners working all season. There are all sorts of benefits to this Globull Warming!
Personally I loathe hot weather with a passion but I’d much rather live through global warming than global cooling. I may not like heat but I also don’t like starving to death.
I see a P.J. O’Rourke column here, “But I like it warm, the upside of global warming”
His point was that IF we took the huge cost associated with 'fixing' GW to spend on some other 'problems' in the world, what would be the most effective way to spend it? Dealing with GW came out a very low priority.
Link is at www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/62
I remembered this book as well as the on-line lecture by Lomborg. I started to write my response and went to the site to watch his ~17 min lecture again. By the time I finished and sent the message, several replies had come through - yours included... ah well...
No one has to tell people like myself who have lived in the upper Midwest all their lives about the dangers of cold. Severe cold weather cannot be underestimated. A car breaking down in zero or below weather means the passengers better be warmly clad and ready to wait for help. A breakdown on an infrequently traveled road (even in non-snowy conditions) might mean a wait long enough to put the travelers lives in jeopardy very quickly. Breaking down in hot weather is not even close.
The last big warming trend spurred the Renaissance.
Will do.
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