English references

Heat caused 2,300 deaths across 12 cities, of which 1,500 were down to climate crisis, scientists say

Previous health impact assessments of temperature-related mortality in Europe indicated that the mortality burden attributable to cold is much larger than for heat. Questions remain as to whether climate change can result in a net decrease in temperature-related mortality. In this study, we estimated how climate change could affect future heat-related and cold-related mortality in 854 European urban areas, under several climate, demographic and adaptation scenarios. We showed that, with no adaptation to heat, the increase in heat-related deaths consistently exceeds any decrease in cold-related deaths across all considered scenarios in Europe. Under the lowest mitigation and adaptation scenario (SSP3-7.0), we estimate a net death burden due to climate change increasing by 49.9% and cumulating 2,345,410 (95% confidence interval = 327,603 to 4,775,853) climate change-related deaths between 2015 and 2099. This net effect would remain positive even under high adaptation scenarios, whereby a risk attenuation of 50%

Au milieu des années 1990, la population de vautours, forte de 50 millions d'individus, s'est effondrée, au point de devenir presque nulle, à cause du diclofénac, un analgésique non stéroïdien bon marché utilisé pour le bétail, mais qui est fatal aux vautours. Une nouvelle étude établit un lien entre le déclin des vautours en Inde et la propagation d'une bactérie mortelle, à l'origine de quelque 500 000 décès.

Coal and gas exports expected to remain roughly at current level until at least 2035 with 4.5% of emissions linked to Australia, report finds

Current methods to calculate the so-called social cost of carbon largely leave out how many future people our emissions will kill. This study tries to correct that.

Policy-makers seeking to limit the impact of coal electricity-generating units (EGUs, also known as power plants) on air quality and climate justify regulations by quantifying the health burden attributable to exposure from these sources. We defined “coal PM2.5” as fine particulate matter associated with coal EGU sulfur dioxide emissions and estimated annual exposure to coal PM2.5 from 480 EGUs in the US. We estimated the number of deaths attributable to coal PM2.5 from 1999 to 2020 using individual-level Medicare death records representing 650 million person-years. Exposure to coal PM2.5 was associated with 2.1 times greater mortality risk than exposure to PM2.5 from all sources. A total of 460,000 deaths were attributable to coal PM2.5, representing 25% of all PM2.5-related Medicare deaths before 2009 and 7% after 2012. Here, we quantify and visualize the contribution of individual EGUs to mortality.

Extreme weather is ‘smacking us in the face’ with worse to come, but a ‘tiny window’ of hope remains, say leading climate scientists

The celebrated science broadcaster and environmental activist says we have to stop elevating the economy and politics over the state of our world

Heat and cold are now established health risk factors, with several studies reporting important mortality effects in populations around the world.1, 2, 3 The associated health burden is expected to increase with climate change, especially under the most extreme scenarios of global warming.4, 5 However, robust estimates of excess mortality in the current and future periods are still challenging to obtain due to the numerous factors influencing vulnerability to heat and cold, including climatic, environmental, and socioeconomic conditions.6 These factors represent the main drivers of variation in mortality risks, which have been shown to differ geographically and across age groups.

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In 1973, Ernest Becker, a cultural anthropologist cross-trained in philosophy, sociology, and psychiatry, invoked consciousness of self and the inevitability of death as the primary sources of human anxiety and repression. He proposed that the psychological basis of cooperation, competition, and emotional and mental health is a tendency to hold tightly to anxiety-buffering cultural world views or “immortality projects” that serve as the basis for self-esteem and meaning. Although he focused mainly on social and political outcomes like war, torture, and genocide, he was increasingly aware that materialism, denial of nature, and immortality-striving efforts to control, rather than sanctify, the natural world were problems whose severity was increasing. In this paper I review Becker’s ideas and suggest ways in which they illuminate human response to global climate change. Because immortality projects range from belief in technology and materialism to reverence for nature or belief in a celestial god, they act bo

Nuclear Winter or a Climate-Change-Induced Nuclear Summer? Let’s not be shy. If there’s one word that comes to mind (mine anyway) at the moment, it’s madness.

The fallout when the industry fails to act is still smaller than the rewards for pumping out more pollution

A just-published study coins a new metric: the "mortality cost of carbon." That is, how many future lives will be lost—or saved—depending on whether we increase or decrease our current carbon emissions. If the numbers hold up, they are quite high. The study was published today in the journal Nature Communications.

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