NPR’s special series, “The Undercount: The invisible death toll from climate change,” aims to answer this question. When climate and health reporter Alejandra Borunda asked doctors what important topics she should focus on, she heard the same thing over and over: Climate change is hurting a lot of people, but we aren’t doing a good job of keeping track of how many. “We’re undercounting the damage by an enormous amount,” Borunda says.
The answer to the basic question here is no; it’s impossible to provide even a good guess as to this figure, if only because there is no way to ascribe a certain catastrophic event, say a hurricane or a wildfire, to climate change. It’s really not a matter of doing a good or a bad job at keeping track.
Consider what appears to be a far more black-and-white situation, deaths from COVID-19. As discussed in this paper, it’s not a straightforward task to say that a certain victim died “with” COVID or “of” COVID.
As unsatisfying as it may be, I’m afraid that the community of climate scientists will eventually give up on the task of counting the deaths due to global warming.
NPR: Is it Possible to Know How Many People Have Died Because of Climate Change?
I met a guy earlier today who told me that wind and solar are controversial, and that some people say that the mining and manufacturing of wind turbines requires more fossil fuels that the turbines themselves produce.
I told him that I’m aware of such people; they’re called “professional liars.”
I explained the concept of EROI, energy return on investment, and surprised him by saying that the EROI of wind is somewhere between 18 and 30, meaning that each wind turbine you see as you drive along the freeway will generate at least 18 times as much energy as was required in its mining, fabrication, installation, maintenance, and decommissioning–all the way up to 30 times that amount.
The generation of disinformation of renewables has become a cottage industry. People are paid to make up and publish complete bullshit, so as to discredit the burgeoning clean energy industry, and keep Big Oil in place.
As bad as things are in the United States, they could always get worse.
Trump could succeed in his quest to be a dictator, Christianity could be taught in schools, and unvaccinated adults and their kids could trigger another epidemic.
In terms of our reputation on the world stage, however, things really can’t get must worse; the countries around the globe already regard us with a mixture of hate and derision.
Yet regardless of what the future holds, there will always be idiots who that believe that Trump is our savior, like the author of the meme above.
Good to see John Eastman disbarred in California; it’s a small measure of justice.
Criminal prosecution in the future?
A Protracted US–Iran War Could Strain Climate Finance From Wealthy Countries to Developing Nations
Illinois Weighs Early Warning System For Pesticide Spraying Near Parks, Schools
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