Across 30 countries heatwaves kill 20,000 people in European cities every year (and cold kills 200,000 but nevermind.)
The new paper by Pierre Masselot et al, is another round of medical investigation showing cold is somewhere between six and twenty times as deadly as heat is. Other studies looked at various countries, or specific regions. This study looked at cities across the whole of Europe. It was pretty big, covering 854 cities of 50,000 or more, and about 40% of the European population.
They picked cities because they are “particularly affected by environmental stressors and potential impacts of climate change”. So they’re admitting they looked at the worst possible living conditions for heat deaths. Obviously cities will be hotter than farms and ski resorts — so if heat deaths were a problem, this study would show it, except it didn’t.
Nobody mention coal, oil or gas…
Mysteriously Northern people in frigid climates were strangely “adaptable” to the cold compared to people in Eastern Europe. What could it be that helps people in Scandinavia deal with the cold so much better than people in Bulgaria?
Northern countries showed the lowest risks for heat but also relatively low vulnerability to cold given the much higher exposure to low temperatures, suggesting an adaptive capacity to rigid cold climates, especially when compared with countries in the eastern region.
The authors have many suggestions, none starting with f or rhyming with “cruel”:
The disparities observed in vulnerability to heat and cold could be associated with a number of factors, including the local climate, urban heat island effects, access to health care, or land cover (eg, the accessibility of water or trees). Previous studies have found associations between vulnerability to heat and green areas, PM2·5, population density, or economic inequalities.
Big-Government killed science
So this is modern “peer reviewed” science, packed with data, published in a supposedly “great” journal but speaking nonsense, and seemingly avoiding the obvious conclusions at every step.
In 2015 the giant Gasparrini paper showing that among 74 million people, cold kills 20 times as many people as heat does. But the government monopoly stranglehold is so strong these researchers cite that paper with no mention of the astronomical numbers — saying just that it “shows heat and cold are well established health risk factors.” Oh yes indeedy. They follow that with the ritual nonsensical incantation: ” The associated health burden is expected to increase with climate change.” How does that work in anyone’s head? Cold causes 95% of temperature related deaths but if we warm the world, more people will die?
As usual the study was funded by organizations that spend trillions on policies to “cool” the world, yet the authors declare they have “no competing interests”.
The study was funded by Medical Research Council of the UK (MR/V034162/1 and MR/R013349/1), the Natural Environment Research Council UK (NE/R009384/1), the EU’s Horizon 2020 (820655), and the EU’s Joint Research Center (JRC/SVQ/2020/MVP/1654). AU and JK were supported by the Czech Science Foundation (22–24920S).
The numbers:
Across the 30 countries, we estimated an annual average excess of 203 620 (empirical 95% CI 180 882 to 224 613) deaths due to cold and 20 173 (17 261 to 22 934) due to heat, which amount to attributable fractions of 7·01% (6·23 to 7·73) and 0·69% (0·59 to 0·79), respectively.
REFERENCES
Masselot et al (2023) Excess mortality attributed to heat and cold: a health impact assessment study in 854 cities in Europe, The Lancet, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(23)00023-2
Antonio Gasparrini et al. (2015) Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study. The Lancet, May 2015 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62114-0. Full PDF.
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
I used wood heat every day from November into June. So far this summer I have only turned the AC on for about 6 hours. At just over 2,000 feet elevation, I can mostly get the house cool with natural air flow. I’d settle for a bit warmer winters.
Nicely written, Jo.
turn of phrase – noun
An expression which is worded in a distinctive way, especially one which is particularly memorable or artful.
320
I live in Melbournistan in the woke dictatorship of Victoria, Australia.
I no longer use air conditioning (cooling) in my house, or another house I use as my office, in summer for more than maybe ten days a year, if that. It no longer gets hot enough.
I use heat constantly in winter, even though by the standards of Europe and North America, Melbournistan and Australia in general, is not that cold where most of the population lives.
360
I’m putting on the gas heating from 10am to 1pm 20deg and 6pm to 9pm 20 deg. Seems to work okay, not as comfortable as previously, but the heat lingers a bit …..and wife and I dont leave the doona till 9am …. Used to have it on all day in winter. In summer in Melbourne, like DM, we barely have need for air conditioning.
140
If houses and dwellings were built properly with double brick and other building materials (sandstone blocks are great) with insulation in mind, there would only be the need for minimal heating in Winter and cooling in Summer.
Amazing how those people in Babylonian times managed the heat by having buildings with natural air flow and managed the cooler times as well. Not much heating and NO air conditioning.
Modern houses and dwellings have gone backwards with building techniques.
40
My house is clad in Hebel (autoclaved concrete) ,has 80 mm insul wool and a total of 125 mm in the ceiling. The last few summers we have needed AC rarely. In the morning it can be at least 10 degrees warmer than outside so an hour with the RC will keep us warm until the sun cuts in. It is possible to build to keep comfortable efficiently. We have been in Tassie for two weeks and warming here is needed but many use the vast supplies of wood available.
30
Natural air flow seems to be ignored judging by the firmly closed windows round here during warmish weather. Many buildings today are sealed, or have small windows designed to open only fractionally. Ironically, those with very good insulation against the cold will trap the heat once it gets inside
The Georgians invented sash windows with the idea that by opening the top and bottom halves equally a good air flow will be introduced. Closing curtains against the sun is also very effective, at this time of year in the UK it can be very strong.
Generally when it is 25 c in the shade it will be 20 c hotter in the sun so people are being very foolish when they lie in the beach when the sun beats down, as people are still doing during the current Mediterranean heat wave.
30
Cold kills, heat rarely so (if shade and a water supply is available).
And unless trapped outdoors, people tend to die from cold due to energy poverty, i.e. unable to afford expensive wind and solar power for heat.
Even if the world really was warming to any significant degree (or at all), there has never been a time in all of human history when warming has been a bad thing.
History, a subject that was once taught when they had real schools rather than the indoctrination centres we have now, shows that civilisation thrived during naturally warm periods such as the Minoan, Egyptian, Roman and Medieval warm periods.
And when people go on vacation, apart from skiing or adventure holidays, do they tend to go to warm or cold places? Humans love and seek warmth, as do most organisms.
Those advocating for and participating in the anthropogenic global warming fraud and subsequent expensive energy, are directly, personally, responsible for these deaths.
Don’t forgive. Don’t forget. Prosecute.
390
“How does that work in anyone’s head? Cold causes 95% of temperature related deaths but if we warm the world, more people will die?”
It’s easy to make that work if you just temporarily ignore the brain in your head. The authors say people in cold regions seem to have lower mortality due to cold than people in warmer regions. So for example if climate change warms Sweden and it becomes a new warm region, then the Swedes will suddenly forget how to handle the cold, and more will die in winter of cold (i.e. increased “health burden” due to climate change).
240
Great article Thank you Joeanna.
MJB
the Lancet is as reliable as the state propaganda company the bbc so treat it with the contempt it deserves.
20
Love a study that looks at primarily at cool, cold and temperate climates and concludes that cold is worse than heat. So sciency
242
I would observe that human habitation of equatorial terra firma is fairly robust, while polar regions not so much.
So determination of ‘worse’ or not, may be indicted by historical migratory patterns.
Of course, California is losing population in spite of the weather.
310
Honk. Also to note: the US northerners are flocking to the warmer southern states. The European northerners are flocking to the southern countries, and the Aussie coldsters in OUR southern states are heading en masse north to Qld. This includes many (most?) of the leading BS artists who are claiming heat is frightening.
So, reality is that everybody already knows the weather worriers are dopes. It’s a tongue-in-cheek scam aimed at the feeble-minded (see the average leftist politician!).
150
Many of the Northern US states are high tax, progressive liberal, bastions of socialism, and that is another reason those citizens flee South to the more conservative, lower tax, less radical, States. The original North Eastern states were founded by Puritans, and the mindset of Puritans isn’t far from the overbearing attitude of progressive liberals/marxists. Something about “my way or the highway” comes to mind.
100
My house is clad in Hebel (autoclaved concrete) ,has 80 mm insul wool and a total of 125 mm in the ceiling. The last few summers we have needed AC rarely. In the morning it can be at least 10 degrees warmer than outside so an hour with the RC will keep us warm until the sun cuts in. It is possible to build to keep comfortable efficiently. We have been in Tassie for two weeks and warming here is needed but many use the vast supplies of wood available.
30
It’s temperature departures from what people are used to that matters. In India cold kills far more than heat, although the cold would still be hot by most people’s standards!
Kills is probably an exaggeration anyway, brings forward a few days is probably more like it.
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-cold-deaths-india.html
170
The study is obviously flawed. They only acknowledge two sexes…. Everyone knows there are at least 97 (by my count*).
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gender_identities?wprov=sfla1
200
So PF please explain the results of the previous much bigger 2015 Lancet study that Jo also linked to as a reference.
AGAIN here’s a link to some of the countries from that study all over the world.
And COLD and particularly MODERATE cold is the big killer.
https://www.thelancet.com/cms/attachment/79cee7d6-8e9d-4659-a6cf-f334e1403498/gr2.jpg
220
same problem, look at the number of cold days vs the number of hot days. look at the populations affected. both studies are biased toward colder climates.
I was imprecise – my comment was meant to cover both studies, which is why I used the word ‘primarily’
115
Your primarily a tool, my comment is meant to cover both your comments, which is why I used the word ‘primarily’
60
Just remember Peter, one day you and your comrades will be held responsible for the destruction you and your comrades are causing with your support and promotion of the anthropogenic global warming fraud.
300
…as your solar panels hibernate under snowdrifts!
150
and one of your fascist brothers will celebrate. cut out the crappy ad Homs you shit
[Showing your true colors Peter. Truth hurts doesn’t it? — Jo]
111
‘ … cold is worse than heat’
A quick glance at paleo climate history shows that people migrate when it gets cooler, for good reason. As environments change, species migrate to warmer climes or perish.
160
FYI, Peter:
The Lancet: International study reveals that cold weather kills far more people than hot weather
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather, according to an international study analysing over 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries [1].
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/627630
Study: You’re More Likely to Die When It’s Cold Than Hot
https://weather.com/health/news/cold-deadliest-weather-pattern-study-finds
“We have consistent results in all the countries [studied] that the cold kills on average at 20 times higher [levels].”
Cold-weather accounts for almost all temperature-related deaths
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-cold-weather-accounts-temperature-related-deaths.html
“Among these patients, there were 1,935 cold-related deaths and 70 heat-related deaths. “
80
FYI Fitzy,
For Australia we have more deaths from cold than from heat, several times more. Explain that? Jo even posted a story on heat versus cold deaths that clearly showed for just about every country, cold deaths exceed heat deaths. Look it up.
70
Love a comment that doesn’t reference any studies or data that demonstrate heat related deaths outnumber cold related deaths. Try providing some references for your position, eh?
30
Mr. Fitzroy: So your approach would be to fund a study of the effects of cold on humans in Gallipagos, Gilbert or other equatorial islands? You shoulda let this one go rather than look so crazy-eyed.
30
AGAIN here’s the graphs from a number of countries from the huge 2015 study and note cold and particularly MODERATE cold is the big killer.
And even warmer countries like Australia have higher rates of cold deaths than Sweden. The Swedes have warmer homes than Aussies etc during the winter and a mate and his wife noticed this when they visited their daughter a few years ago.
Here’s a link to some of the countries’ deaths and the column graphs tell the full story.
https://www.thelancet.com/cms/attachment/79cee7d6-8e9d-4659-a6cf-f334e1403498/gr2.jpg
210
Very good graph, Neville.
121
Last time I linked to this study Jo commented about these high moderate cold deaths and why it could be so.
But I can’t recall the reason. Jo or anyone have an answer?
But the Nordic Swedes handle the cold better than most countries. Even much warmer winter countries’ temps like Australia.
80
Yes.
Exposure to moderate cold is far more common than exposure to extreme cold, but the risks are still there…
50
AGAIN Aussies handle moderate and extreme heat better than most countries.
And Italy ( shown) and Greece ( not shown at link) both have higher heat deaths because of the lack of air conditioner cooling during hot summers.
120
No aircon?
Go outside and turn the hose on yourself.
You’ll cool down fast.
I do that a lot in summer. 😁
30
Finland, anyone?
Some muttering about ‘excess deaths in Winter.
The north of the country is Arctic Circle territory. Never mind the “Land of the Midnight Sun” caper. In Winter, it is the Land of Perpetual Gloom.
Not entirely surprising that some turn to an assortment od distilled “adult beverages”. Of course, this is a BAD idea in the cold. An stats on deaths brought on after “over-indulging”? Death by Sauna? Here, hold my Vodkas and watch this….. Get cooked (and pickled) in the Sauna, then, with wildly-dilated blood vessels, run outside to roll in the snow or crash through the ice on the lake? Stress? I wonder.
With these “concerned” folk, it is ALWAYS; “solutions” in search of “problems”. It’s the Sociopathic Totalitaribn way!
120
The UK media is currently doing stand up climate comedy over summer weather in southern Europe.
“The Cerberus heatwave – named by the Italian Meteorological Society after the three-headed monster that features in Dante’s Inferno – is expected to bring more extreme conditions in the next few days.”
“But as Cerberus dies out, Italian weather forecasters are warning that the next heatwave – dubbed Charon after the ferryman who delivered souls into the underworld in Greek mythology – will push temperatures back up towards 43C (109F) in Rome and a possible 47C (116F) on the island of Sardinia.”
They reckon the European temperature record might be beaten, well if you ignore all the ones they erased.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66183069
250
As soon as a weather or COVID event was given a fancy name in the last 3 years, you knew it was nonsense. Naming like that is just designed to instil fear. We’re talking pysop type programs. In Australia we name cyclones and then usually flood or bushfire events after the locality. But I expect our BOM would love to give eg. heatwaves a name and I would bet it would be some aboriginal name meaning devil or the equivalent. The legacy media love this type of stuff.
90
Don’t believe anything you read or hear from the BBC, they follow the UN Church of Climatology to the letter.
80
The temperature is immaterial. They can claim record highs or lows but nowhere can they they show that either is caused by CO2. It is assumed that everyone knows that CO2 is synonymous with weather extremes. Those pushing the subterfuge should be in jail as they must realize they are telling lies. When this is over there should be mass sackings if not prosecutions.
70
Combine excess deaths due to poorly tested/untested covid “vaccines” with excess deaths due to energy poverty due to expensive solar and wind parasitic loads on the electrical grid, and the total excess deaths due to covid vax, solar and wind will add up to quite a lot of souls. But I guess the Elites and Regressives will be happy with that. It suits their “downsizing” agenda.
160
Well, unless you were found frozen in a snow-drift or dead in a desert at 50deg, I wouldn’t believe heat or cold killed you! This is just crap from top to bottom.. how do they decide heat or cold killed you? How do they know you would be alive if it was a degree C either way in that 5minute period? Are they checking vital markers like chilblains or if you’re sweating?
It seems 90% of ‘scientists’ need to get out and get a real job! THEY are the excess population adding nothing to the human experience!
150
Sweating stops when you are dangerously overheated; skin is hot and dry. It happened to me once on a hot summer’s day in Cyprus, when I was forced to go on the ‘works outing’ to the beach…something I normally avoid like the plague. Luckily, the friends who’d asked us to babysit for them recognised the situation and took action to get me over it. Never again!
I would still rather be too warm than too cold; English houses were hopeless either way…
60
I’d suggest you were badly dehydrated as is typically the case, coupled with being unaccustomed to hot low humidity conditions.
You didn’t stop sweating, because you can’t, but it was insensible perspiration or Anhidrosis…
41
I wasn’t, I kept drinking water and had made myself a small bivvy to shelter from the sun but it wasn’t enough. I had lived in hot climates quite a lot and never had that problem before or since.
10
No one in human history has ever died due to the natural warming such as the Minoan, Egyptian, Roman or Medieval warm periods.
In fact food was plentiful due to agricultural production (plants love warmth, I have to say it because I think some people don’t know that, present company excepted) and there were minimal wars, famine and disease (and especially war due to those). Populations thus increased.
Due to natural cooling, as may well be happening now, people do die from cold and famine, such as in the Little Ice Age.
And the Chicomms are acutely aware of the adverse effects of global cooling on their civilisation, hence their colonisation of Africa and other countries to enable them to have a food supply when the world goes into its next cooling phase. It’s also why they are the world’s largest CO2 emitter by far, they know global warming isn’t happening plus they know the theory of anthropogenic CO2 induced warming is also junk science.
See graph at https://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01b8d0f76684970c-pi showing how historic Chinese famine, war and disease correlates with global cooling.
150
Heatstroke is a serious condition and can be deadly just as hypothermia is. I have suffered the latter and after you stop shivering, which helps to warm the body, you start feeling warm and euphoric. A doctor told me that when you reach that point you have less than 15 minutes to live. I took hours in a Luke warm bath to thaw out. Without shade and water the brain is cooked if you are in hot sun. It is deadly too. Extreme heat is easier to deal with as any cooling will save you. The problem is the more exposed you are the more you become confused and unlikely to react properly. I have hard young calves killed by heatstroke when their mothers have left them in direct sun on very hot days. Calves left in the shade were not effected.
50
I had shade and water on that occasion in Cyprus but the beach was very hot. Our friends applied cold water sponging and I recovered. We were used to taking salt tablets too. I’ve always hated hot beaches!
Chilblains were the worst thing for most people in England in former days. Never had hypothermia fortunately.Those ‘Moonboots’, ugly as they were, were a marvellous invention to keep children’s feet warm. Most in the 1950s were lucky to have plain thin-soled ‘wellies’ and thin socks in my childhood; some in a nearby council estate went barefoot.
Proper clothing, food and shelter are essential to a civilised healthy life and my anger at those who would deprive the world’s population of these basics is past describing.
20
Here’s more proof from OWI Data about Human flourishing since 1800 and particularly since 1950. Here’s their quote to finish off their article.
AGAIN why do we now condemn fossil fuels when we can see “the almost UNBELIEVE progress” ( OWI Data words) since the UK flicked on the switch to start the IND REV?
https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy-globally
Here are the last quotes of the OWI Data article.
“Globally the life expectancy increased from less than 30 years to over 72 years; after two centuries of progress we can expect to live much more than twice as long as our ancestors. And this progress was not achieved in a few places. In every world region people today can expect to live more than twice as long”.
“The global inequalities in health that we see today also show that we can do much better. The almost unbelievable progress the entire world has achieved over the last two centuries should be encouragement enough for us to realize what is possible”.
101
Sorry the OWI Data quote is “almost UNBELIEVABLE progress” NOT unbelieve.
Too much to do this morning.
40
The problem Neville, is so many people only live “ in the now” they actually have no idea that today IS different from yesterday and will be different to tomorrow. So many people think that the average life span has always been 70 to 80 years. Don’t think about it,it’s always been thus. The forest in my area has been logged two and three times in the last 100 years , but because the trees are huge it must be old gowth. Wrong but this is what they see. The first settlers saw open woodlands suitable for grazing, that’s why they settled there. The new arrivals think the “virgin “ forest has always been dark dank and thickly treed, therefore it must be preserved at all costs. No idea that it’s totally different. Then, the climate, it’s always been this way,ice ages are only Disney movies, deserts are only in Egypt.
40
My son lobbed into Sweden in early January on a University exchange program- about 10 years ago. Never bought a coat and walked around in shorts a lot of the time. Said he was “warmer” in Sweden than in all his childhood winters in regional Victoria.
100
Masselot et al need to rename their paper in order of priority. So, “Excess mortality attributed more to cold than heat, a health impact assessment study in 854 cities in Europe” would be much more accurate. But, I suppose that doesn’t fit the narrative, does it?
70
“So this is modern “peer reviewed” science, packed with data, published in a supposedly “great” journal but speaking nonsense, and seemingly avoiding the obvious conclusions at every step.”
Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles; he can only discover them.
– Thomas Paine
91
Who hasn’t got a petrochemical based jacket, footwear or laptop backpack at home. Even the Stop Oil protestors, littering the roads in the UK with their plastic banners, have them. But the irony escapes them.
90
As 51% of the Sun’s incoming radiation is in the infrared band, the current move to Net Zero will mean that less radiation will be absorbed by the atmosphere due to there being less radiative gases. Hence more of the Sun’s radiation will reach the Earth’s surface thereby increasing its temperature and there will be less deaths from cold.
We will all be happily playing on the beaches except perhaps the UN, the WEF and the WHO which we could well do without.
40
Ahhh…but just like solar panels, that thinking only works while the sun is out. 😁
50
It’s a bit like the joke about the Irish Rocket that was going to the Sun. It was made of plastic. When this was pointed out to the Irish Rocket people and that the plastic might melt on the way to the Sun, the Irish Rocket people said. ‘No worries, as we are taking off and going there at night”……………….
50
🙂
10
It’s never chilly when you eat Chilli! 😁
40
I have lived in the tropics most of my life. I am no super being but have not been stressed by heat since my teens when I can remember a headache, I have learned since.
We have houses and large projects built here, the same as you do in the temperate regions, but the guys doing this have learnt too: More water, less beer.
Surviving heat is all in the attitude or culture. A bit of sweat is good – don’t fret. Build appropriate houses, timber framed and airy. Dress appropriately, you will get to like it. [I haven’t owned a suit since I was married 60 years ago].
I have no idea why people worry about heat but go to Spain on holidays.
50
I remember holidaying in Portugal many many years ago and wondering why the locals all dressed in black in such heat.
Fisiks.😁
50
The real advantage of air conditioning is in making office work productive in hot and sticky climates. For that reason Lee Kwan Yew prioritised it in postwar Singapore, an island just one degree of latitude off the equator. The place boomed.
30
About 25 years ago I read a report in the UK concerning the excess winter deaths which were estimated at about 25,000 per annum for the UK.
Two causes that I remember were mentioned.
1/ elderly people living alone did not notice that the room temperature was decreasing and either did not turn on the heating or put money in the electricty or gas meter. Resulting in an avoidable death.
2/ office workers were warm all day, and at knockoff time would go to the underground station (usually a short walk) then travel on a heated carriage and then walk in the cold from their destination station to their homes.
The problem was that blood viscosity would be thin whilst in the office, then outside in the cold it would become more viscous, then back to a warm train then back to cold walk on the way home which often resulted in blood clots causing strokes or heart attacks when at home. Which may not be attributed to the cold.
Google the effects of temperature on blood viscosity and the distribution of blood to the skin and internal organs.
As someone had mentioned that first aid does not apply heat but use space blankets to let your body warm up gradually by itself and retain its heat.
What made the problem worse was that people seldom wear hats these days whereas in earlier times it was very common, which used to cover the big radiator on the top of the head with a lot of blood passing through. Especially for bald or balding people.
So wearing a scarf and gloves and a hat could be better than being placed on blood thinners for the rest of your life, or worse.
50