Leading outlets are portraying the recent streak of warmer-than-expected months as ominous and deadly, and offering anti-fossil-fuel policies as a solution.
In reality, cold is a far bigger problem than heat — and anti-fossil-fuel policies will make us more endangered by both.
Anyone commentating responsibly on warm temperatures must acknowledge four facts:
Cold-related deaths outnumber heat-related deaths. Study after study has found that deaths from cold outnumber deaths from heat by five to 15 times. On every continent cold is more dangerous than heat. Even in many countries we think of as especially hot, such as India, cold-related deaths significantly exceed heat-related deaths.
The fact that far more human beings die from cold than from heat means that for the foreseeable future, even without accounting for the heating and cooling benefits of fossil fuels, fossil-fueled global warming will save more lives from cold than it will take from heat.
Every story about warming and human mortality should obviously mention that deaths from cold are the biggest source of temperature-related mortality. However, this is rarely mentioned in stories about global warming. This level of ignorance and/or dishonesty cannot be tolerated.
Earth is warming slowly — and less in warm places. Earth has warmed by about 1°C from a cold starting point in Earth’s history 150 years ago. Since cold kills more than heat, this 1°C warming by itself should not alarm us, especially when compared to daily and yearly temperature variations.
So, climate alarmists resort to using deceptions to scare us. They exaggerate the significance of this slow warming by using compressed graphs that make small temperature changes seem large. They highlight "the hottest year on record," even though with limited temperature history and ongoing warming, new records are expected. And they equate short-term local heat waves with global warming, even though the most severe heat waves in the U.S. happened in the 1930s.
So far, warming has been gradual and mild, but will future warming make the Earth unlivable? No — because the warming impact of CO2 is diminishing (every new molecule of CO2 we add to the atmosphere has less of a warming effect than the previous one), and because warming is concentrated in colder areas, times and seasons where it could actually save lives.
The fact that virtually no reporting acknowledges this shows that much "reporting" is propaganda.
Fossil fuels make us safer from dangerous temperatures. Fossil fuels not only contribute to slow and, in many ways, beneficial warming but also provide the uniquely cost-effective energy needed to protect us from both cold and heat. Catastrophists exaggerate the danger of warming by focusing only on the negatives of fossil fuels while ignoring the benefits of temperature mastery that fossil fuels offer.
To stay safe from extreme temperatures, we need insulated buildings, heating and air-conditioning — all of which require energy, primarily from fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are currently the only affordable, reliable energy source for billions of people, especially in the developing world, where unreliable solar and wind energy fall far short.
It should be common sense for reporters and leaders that if we’re going to be looking at the temperature side-effects of fossil fuel use, we also need to consider the enormous temperature mastery benefits that come with them. But this common sense is almost never practiced.
Anti-fossil-fuel policies increase danger from cold and heat. On a planet where cold is a bigger killer than heat but both are major threats, the key to safety is affordable and plentiful energy to power heating and air-conditioning. For the foreseeable future, this means more fossil fuels.
Yet today’s media and leaders dishonestly pretend that heat is the only problem and the solution is to follow anti-fossil-fuel policies that will supposedly cool the Earth. These policies deprive people of the energy they need and won’t cool the Earth for decades, if at all. They particularly harm poor people who need affordable energy now for heating and cooling, not expensive policies that claim to reduce emissions in the distant future.
The only moral and practical way to reduce CO2 emissions is through innovation that makes low-carbon energy cheaper long-term, not by pushing anti-fossil-fuel policies that make energy expensive today.
To protect ourselves both from heat and the far bigger problem of cold, we need to use more fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
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