The Effects of the Climate Crisis Are Complex and Interconnected. One Is That It's Getting Deathly Hot.

A new study published in Nature suggests that, already, the climate crisis is putting most of the world in the same boat.

Across all study countries, we find that 37.0% (range 20.5–76.3%) of warm-season heat-related deaths can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change and that increased mortality is evident on every continent. Burdens varied geographically but were of the order of dozens to hundreds of deaths per year in many locations. Our findings support the urgent need for more ambitious mitigation and adaptation strategies to minimize the public health impacts of climate change.

The results of the study have shaken even people who have been marinating in the data while the planet parboils.

Increased air pollution, wildfires, agricultural stresses and direct physiological failures – these are just some of the consequences of a heatwave that impact health.

One of the basic climate-denialist strategies is to pretend that the various consequences of climate crisis are not interdependent, like lobbyists picking apart an appropriation bill. That way they can ignore or minimize those consequences piecemeal, and raise doubt about the obvious conclusion that the consequences are as interconnected as any other ecological phenomenon. Studies like this one are necessary to blunt this strategy at the very least.

Another independent researcher, climate scientist Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick from UNSW Canberra, says the results are important but unsurprising.

“It is good to actually see some studies actually starting to address this issue and be able to give us numbers and more hardcore scientific evidence that yes, more people will be adversely affected health-wise,” she says. Perkins-Kirkpatrick also notes that a multidisciplinary approach, involving epidemiologists and climate scientists, will be increasingly important as we continue to grapple with the impacts of climate change. “We have to be able to speak the same language to get this work done,” she says.

The same, of course, could be said of all of us.

From: Esquire US