BJORN LOMBORG: Data contradicts climate-alarmist reporting
Many deaths from cold are avoided because of global warming and statistics on fires belie the hype
13 September 2021 - 15:33
byBjorn Lomborg
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
Trees sway in the wind from Hurricane Ida. Picture: LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG
The media give outsize attention to plane crashes. But lots of stories of plane crashes do not provide good insight into transport safety. You need statistics to realise that planes are much safer than cars.
Climate-alarmist reporting is now causing the same problem with ever-proliferating stories about extreme heatwaves, floods and fires. This gale of ghastly tragedies argues that out-of-control climate change is now causing ever deadlier calamities. Yet this narrative is contradicted by the data.
One of the best-documented impacts of global warming is more heat extremes, which made headlines across the world this northern hemisphere summer. Yet while rarely reported, the new UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report also tells us “the frequency and intensity of cold extremes have decreased”. That matters because globally many more people die from cold than from heat.
A new study published in medical journal The Lancet shows that temperature rises over the past two decades in the US and Canada mean 7,200 additional heat deaths each year — many more than the widely reported 624 deaths from this summer’s heat dome. But the study also shows that warming means each year we avoid 21,000 cold deaths. We are badly informed if we don’t hear both parts of this story.
The tragic flooding in Germany and Belgium are similarly blamed on climate change. But the data doesn’t support that river floods have increased. Globally, a study of more than 9,000 rivers shows that while some rivers see increasing flood trends, many more rivers see decreasing flood trends. This is also true in Europe, where the new UN climate panel report tallies all rivers and finds most flood less. What matters most for riverine flooding is that ever more people build on flood plains, leaving the water nowhere to go. This highlights the necessity of a well-functioning warning system.
Here, Germany failed spectacularly. Since the previous deadly floods in 2002 Germany has built an extensive warning system, but last September, during a “national warning” day, most warning measures didn’t work. Models warned of flooding up to nine days ahead, but most people were left unaware. The hydrologist who set up the European Flood Awareness System called it “a monumental failure of the system”. But of course, blaming the deadly floods on climate change is convenient for politicians who were responsible for the missing early warnings.
Similarly, US fires frequently get blamed on climate, but the US government’s own statistics belie the hype: the burnt area to date in 2021 is the seventh-lowest of the past 20 years. In 2020 just 11% of the annual area burnt compared with the early 1900s. Contrary to climate clichés, globally the burnt area has declined dramatically since 1900 and continues to fall through the satellite era.
The world is vast, and with cameras everywhere there is a torrent of new fires, heatwaves and floods vying for attention daily. Newspapers earn clicks, politicians brandish their virtue and climate campaigners fundraise from these calamities. But just like plane crashes, a steady stream of bad news doesn’t inform well.
We have statistics on global deaths from all climate-related weather disasters such as floods, droughts, storms and fire from the International Disaster Database. In the 1920s these disasters on average killed almost half a million people each year.
The current climate-alarmed narrative suggests that climate-fuelled disasters are deadlier, but that is untrue. Over the past century, climate-related deaths have dropped an astounding 96% to about 18,000 in an average year. Because the global population has quadrupled, global death risk from climate in the 2010s dropped by more than 99%.
This doesn’t negate that climate change is a real problem that we should fix smartly. But contrary to the current narrative, our adaptive capacity is vastly larger than changing climate risks.
Look at 2021, which seems to be branded the year of climate catastrophes. Add the 624 deaths from the North American heat dome, the 358 dead from floods in Germany and Belgium, the 559 dead from Indian climate-related catastrophes that you may not even have heard about, and 1,378 more fatalities from more than 200 other catastrophes globally. Adjusted to a full year, climate-related weather disasters are likely to cause about 6,000 deaths in 2021.
Each death is a tragedy, yet many more tragedies are being avoided. Globally, The Lancet study shows climate change now causes 116,000 additional heat deaths each year but avoids almost 283,000 cold deaths. So each year, warming saves 166,000 lives.
For a smart climate conversation, we need to insist on seeing all the data.
• Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus and visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. His latest book is ’False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor and Fails to Fix the Planet’.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
BJORN LOMBORG: Data contradicts climate-alarmist reporting
Many deaths from cold are avoided because of global warming and statistics on fires belie the hype
The media give outsize attention to plane crashes. But lots of stories of plane crashes do not provide good insight into transport safety. You need statistics to realise that planes are much safer than cars.
Climate-alarmist reporting is now causing the same problem with ever-proliferating stories about extreme heatwaves, floods and fires. This gale of ghastly tragedies argues that out-of-control climate change is now causing ever deadlier calamities. Yet this narrative is contradicted by the data.
One of the best-documented impacts of global warming is more heat extremes, which made headlines across the world this northern hemisphere summer. Yet while rarely reported, the new UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report also tells us “the frequency and intensity of cold extremes have decreased”. That matters because globally many more people die from cold than from heat.
A new study published in medical journal The Lancet shows that temperature rises over the past two decades in the US and Canada mean 7,200 additional heat deaths each year — many more than the widely reported 624 deaths from this summer’s heat dome. But the study also shows that warming means each year we avoid 21,000 cold deaths. We are badly informed if we don’t hear both parts of this story.
The tragic flooding in Germany and Belgium are similarly blamed on climate change. But the data doesn’t support that river floods have increased. Globally, a study of more than 9,000 rivers shows that while some rivers see increasing flood trends, many more rivers see decreasing flood trends. This is also true in Europe, where the new UN climate panel report tallies all rivers and finds most flood less. What matters most for riverine flooding is that ever more people build on flood plains, leaving the water nowhere to go. This highlights the necessity of a well-functioning warning system.
Here, Germany failed spectacularly. Since the previous deadly floods in 2002 Germany has built an extensive warning system, but last September, during a “national warning” day, most warning measures didn’t work. Models warned of flooding up to nine days ahead, but most people were left unaware. The hydrologist who set up the European Flood Awareness System called it “a monumental failure of the system”. But of course, blaming the deadly floods on climate change is convenient for politicians who were responsible for the missing early warnings.
Similarly, US fires frequently get blamed on climate, but the US government’s own statistics belie the hype: the burnt area to date in 2021 is the seventh-lowest of the past 20 years. In 2020 just 11% of the annual area burnt compared with the early 1900s. Contrary to climate clichés, globally the burnt area has declined dramatically since 1900 and continues to fall through the satellite era.
The world is vast, and with cameras everywhere there is a torrent of new fires, heatwaves and floods vying for attention daily. Newspapers earn clicks, politicians brandish their virtue and climate campaigners fundraise from these calamities. But just like plane crashes, a steady stream of bad news doesn’t inform well.
We have statistics on global deaths from all climate-related weather disasters such as floods, droughts, storms and fire from the International Disaster Database. In the 1920s these disasters on average killed almost half a million people each year.
The current climate-alarmed narrative suggests that climate-fuelled disasters are deadlier, but that is untrue. Over the past century, climate-related deaths have dropped an astounding 96% to about 18,000 in an average year. Because the global population has quadrupled, global death risk from climate in the 2010s dropped by more than 99%.
This doesn’t negate that climate change is a real problem that we should fix smartly. But contrary to the current narrative, our adaptive capacity is vastly larger than changing climate risks.
Look at 2021, which seems to be branded the year of climate catastrophes. Add the 624 deaths from the North American heat dome, the 358 dead from floods in Germany and Belgium, the 559 dead from Indian climate-related catastrophes that you may not even have heard about, and 1,378 more fatalities from more than 200 other catastrophes globally. Adjusted to a full year, climate-related weather disasters are likely to cause about 6,000 deaths in 2021.
Each death is a tragedy, yet many more tragedies are being avoided. Globally, The Lancet study shows climate change now causes 116,000 additional heat deaths each year but avoids almost 283,000 cold deaths. So each year, warming saves 166,000 lives.
For a smart climate conversation, we need to insist on seeing all the data.
• Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus and visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. His latest book is ’False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor and Fails to Fix the Planet’.
Decisionmakers don’t fully grasp the second-order effects of climate change
Climate change and economic inequality issues dominate polls in Norway
Harvard’s $42bn fund to support green economy as it ditches fossil fuels
Hurricane Ida fuels further review of US energy
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Most Read
Published by Arena Holdings and distributed with the Financial Mail on the last Thursday of every month except December and January.