The big fad on blogs these days is the debate about climate change and the weather….something I have been writing about for about ten years and until today no one could be bothered or for that matter could give a crap….and now all of a sudden it is BIG news.

Here is my attempt from 10 years ago to start a dialog….a failure by the way….

Climate Change Debate

But that was then and this is now……

We all know just how hot it has become….we all know that it is dangerous to be out and about during mid-day sun….we all know…

But what do we know?

Do we ever stop to ask what the ‘cost’ of climate change is or will be?

So I attempt to keep your head from exploding at trying to figure out the possibilities….just my small way of making your life a little easier.

How many people are dying due to climate change? How does climate cause death, and what are the omissions, deceptions, and confusions about this interaction of climate and death? In the U.S., climate-related deaths are narrowly classified as heat-related, so googling this question came up with 106 deaths for 2022. On the other hand, vector-borne diseases that proliferate due to heat, like malaria, dengue, zika, account for 700,000 deaths/year. Monbiot wrote that the burning of Indonesia’s tropical forests for biofuels (alternative to coal) from sugar cane/palm oil plantations, caused air pollution leading possibly to 15,000 child deaths. And the U.S. oil war for fossil fuels and the UN Iraqi oil-for-food program led to millions of deaths, including ½ million child. In 2021 the Guardian reported that extreme temperatures kill 5 million people/year and that deaths were on the rise. There is the question about accuracy: the World Mortality Database found that the number of people dying in the 2015 Egyptian heat wave was 20,000, not the reported 61, and that in 2022, heat waves in Europe killed more than 61,600 people. “Two decades ago, 71,000 excess deaths were recorded in Europe after intense summer heat” but this was not enough to jar any changes, and this is just about European deaths.

On July 13, 2023, James Hansen wrote that the Earth is heading into a new frontier of global climate in which “the moisture extremes are more important than the temperature extremes.” It is unclear how this affects ground-level humidity and human life; Hansen writes that “higher absolute humidity and deeper penetration of moist convection cause a larger portion of the rainfall to occur in intense thunderstorms.” Rarely mentioned in the news are the inevitable, unpreventable deaths due to wet-bulb conditions that occur when relative humidity is above 95% and temperatures are at least 31.1°C (88°F), a wet-bulb temperature of 35°C . When the wet-bulb temperature reaches 35 C, it crosses a threshold at which humans can no longer lose internal body heat and cool themselves. But research shows that even wet-bulb temperatures lower than 35 C can be fatal. That was the case in 2010, when Russia experienced a deadly heat wave, where wet-bulb temperatures didn’t pass 28C. In Iran, “a combination of heat and humidity this week pushed the heat index at the Persian Gulf International Airport to 152 degrees Fahrenheit, with a dew point above 90°. That’s close to the limit of what the human body can survive, but there is no information about fatalities.

he Global Humanitarian Forum, under Kofi Annan, only lasted between 2007-2010 when the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs announced that it was over-indebted and needed to cease its activity. It issued a report to the 2009 Copenhagen climate meeting, stating that this was only the beginning of addressing the human impact of climate change. Its report estimated that since 1991, developing countries experienced 99% of the casualties, and that with the current global policies projected to result in about 2.7C warming above pre-industrial levels, there was an urgent need to address Loss and Damage. “If we do not reverse current trends by close to 2020, however, we may have failed. Global warming will pass the widely acknowledged danger level of two degrees, since there is an approximately 20 year delay between emission reductions and the halting of their warming effect.” This is one of many facts omitted from the carbon budget. As of 2009, the Report indicated that 315,000 lives/year were lost due to climate change, principally due to malnutrition, diarrhoea, malaria, and weather-related disasters brought about by climate change. It reported that women account for two-thirds of the world’s poor. The Report quoted many poor, uneducated people on the ground who were well aware of climate change and its consequences.

What is the ‘Cost’ of Climate Change?

The price we are paying now is from the inaction of governments and the lazy attitudes of the people for over 40 years.

People do not want to do anything but they will bitch about inaction…and this is what we get for that laziness.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”