I thought a separate post on this would end a lengthy exchange in the comment section of an earlier post. The media and others are trying to convince me that I have much to fear over an increase in temperature. Lets see what the facts say.
As you can see, fewer people in the post 80's (assumed) warming period are dying of weather related events. Even if one assumes that the earth's temperature has risen .6 degrees, the mortality statistics clearly show a decreasing relevance of weather on mortality. The scare stories will not pan out because history shows us they didn't pan out in the last generation. As a species, we adapted to our environment through a higher standard of living. Our newfound ability to insulate ourselves from nature's wrath is truly remarkable! But wait, hasn't extreme weather deaths gone from .03 deaths per million to .82 deaths per million? True, but lets see how that compares to other death causes. In the following table you'll find it at the bottom.
When placed in context of actual problems, the scare stories fade into obscurity as the following mortality table indicates. Just a cursory look reveals some interesting imbalances in the attention they receive from the media. More people died in car accidents than extreme weather events by a factor of 40. Perhaps you are thinking "Oh but in the future when temperatures rise even more, then you'll see the effects!" As I showed, the world has become more immune to temperature swings not less.
3 comments:
Mankind may be a success story, but not all of its ideologies have turned out to entail sure progress... witness the clock turning back.
I read this same WSJ article. "Paves" the way for increased private road ownership in the years ahead I reckon.
Heh.
Oh, and Blogger is rolling out a filtering system that seems to be deterring link spammers on my blog at least. So if you are included in the rollout thus far, you can probably turn off comment moderation.
If link spamming was why you turned it on, that is ;)
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