UK Guardian: “The lifestyles of around three average Americans will create enough planet-heating emissions to kill one person…according to the first analysis to calculate the mortal cost of carbon emissions.” … “The new research builds upon what is known as the ‘social cost of carbon’, a monetary figure placed upon the damage caused by each ton of carbon dioxide emissions, by assigning an expected death toll from the emissions that cause the climate crisis.” …
“The analysis draws upon several public health studies to conclude that for every 4,434 metric tons of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere beyond the 2020 rate of emissions, one person globally will die prematurely from the increased temperature. This additional CO2 is equivalent to the current lifetime emissions of 3.5 Americans.” …
“The figures for expected deaths from the release of emissions aren’t definitive and may well be “a vast underestimate” as they only account for heat-related mortality rather than deaths from flooding, storms, crop failures and other impacts that flow from the climate crisis, according to Daniel Bressler of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, who wrote the paper.”
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Climate Depot’s Marc Morano comments: “We have officially reached peak climate madness. The climate community has been sitting by for over a year and a half watching COVID-19 fears and liberty destroying ‘solutions’ steal their thunder. Climate activists have even gone so far as to propose adding climate change as a cause of death to death certificates. [See: Calls to add ‘climate change’ to death certificates – New study demands ‘climate change’ be added as ‘pre-existing condition’]
Climate activists are trying to now convince Americans that they are selfish for…being Americans! This is now sounding like a very Soviet-style climate community. Just like COVID-19 authoritarians’ claim that Americans who refuse to get vaccinated or wear masks or support lockdowns are ‘selfish’ and “murdering grandma,” climate activists are now aping the same tactics.
Like your SUV or pick-up truck? You just killed a Bangladeshi! Use your AC in the summer? You just murdered a Brazilian! Ate a hamburger for lunch? You just committed homicide against a Kenyan! Unless American’s support the Green New Deal, renounce their single-family homes in the suburbs, quit eating meat, stop flying commercial, stop driving gas-powered privately owned vehicles, and stop voting for climate ‘deniers’ we will be accused of murder!”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/29/carbon-emissions-americans-social-cost
Three Americans create enough carbon emissions to kill one person, study finds
The analysis draws on public health studies that conclude that for every 4,434 metric tons of CO2 produced, one person globally will die
By Oliver Milman
The lifestyles of around three average Americans will create enough planet-heating emissions to kill one person, and the emissions from a single coal-fired power plant are likely to result in more than 900 deaths, according to the first analysis to calculate the mortal cost of carbon emissions.
The new research builds upon what is known as the “social cost of carbon”, a monetary figure placed upon the damage caused by each ton of carbon dioxide emissions, by assigning an expected death toll from the emissions that cause the climate crisis.
The analysis draws upon several public health studies to conclude that for every 4,434 metric tons of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere beyond the 2020 rate of emissions, one person globally will die prematurely from the increased temperature. This additional CO2 is equivalent to the current lifetime emissions of 3.5 Americans.
Adding a further 4m metric tons above last year’s level, produced by the average US coal plant, will cost 904 lives worldwide by the end of the century, the research found. On a grander scale, eliminating planet-heating emissions by 2050 would save an expected 74 million lives around the world this century.
The figures for expected deaths from the release of emissions aren’t definitive and may well be “a vast underestimate” as they only account for heat-related mortality rather than deaths from flooding, storms, crop failures and other impacts that flow from the climate crisis, according to Daniel Bressler of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, who wrote the paper.
Air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels is also directly killing people, with a landmark Harvard University study published in February finding that more than 8 million globally are dying each year from the health effects of toxic air.
“There are a significant number of lives that can be saved if you pursue climate policies that are more aggressive than the business as usual scenario,” Bressler said. “I was surprised at how large the number of deaths are. There is some uncertainty over this, the number could be lower but it could also be a lot higher.”
The research, published in Nature Communications, illustrates the vast disparities in the emissions generated by people’s consumption in different countries around the world. While it takes just 3.5 Americans to create enough emissions in a lifetime to kill one person, it would take 25 Brazilians or 146 Nigerians to do the same, the paper found.
The social, or financial, cost of carbon has become a widely-used metric after its creation by economist William Nordhaus, who subsequently won a Nobel prize, in the 1990s. The measurement calculates the damage caused by a ton of emissions, factored with the ability to adapt to the changing climate.
Under Nordhaus’ DICE model the 2020 social cost of carbon is $37 a metric ton but Bressler’s addition of the mortality cost brings this figure up to $258 a ton. This change to the model would imply that an economically optimal policy would be to radically reduce emissions to reach full decarbonization by 2050, a scenario that has also been backed by climate scientists as one that would avoid the worst ravages of global heating.
“Nordhaus came up with a fantastic model but he didn’t take in the latest literature on climate change’s damage upon mortality, there’s been an explosion of research on that topic in recent years,” said Bressler.
Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at New York University who was not involved in the research, said that the social cost of carbon is a “crucial policy tool” but is also “very abstract”.
“That makes attempts to translate our climate impact into more relatable terms so important,” he said, adding that the new research on the mortality cost shows the “results are certainly dramatic”.
A series of heatwaves has swept the globe over the past month, including the dramatic heat and wildfires in the US Pacific north-west, where temperature records in Seattle and Portland were shattered and caused hundreds of people to die from heat stroke and other related conditions. Scientists say the climate crisis, driven by carbon emissions, is making heatwaves far more frequent and severe.
Bressler said that while his paper looked at the emissions caused by individual activity, the focus should instead be on policies that impact businesses and governments that influence carbon pollution on a societal scale.
“My view is that people shouldn’t take their per-person mortality emissions too personally,” he said. “Our emissions are very much a function of the technology and culture of the place that we live.”
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Related Links:
People are dying ‘on the scale of the Holocaust’ due to ‘climate change’ & fossil fuels, claims NY Mag Editor David Wallace-Wells on CNN
CNN’s Brian Stelter show Reliable Sources featured New York Magazine editor-at-large David Wallace-Wells. Wallace-Wells quoted estimates that “suggest burning of fossil fuels kills 10 million people every year, which is dying on the scale of the Holocaust — in fact, larger than the Holocaust — every single year. And yet we don’t see many public health stories, we don’t see many moral crises stories addressed to that issue.” Wallace-Wells was referring to a 2012 Science Direct study, which indicated that pollution from fossil fuels caused in excess of 10 million (one crore) deaths every year across the globe.
Global Warming Is Actually Sparing Lives …Cold Kills 17 Times More Than Heat, According To Lancet!
Activists call for climate change to be listed as cause of death on death certificates
“Given the focus on COVID-19 infection rates and death tolls, it appears the climate activists in academia may want in on the scary and emotional death toll counts in order to draw attention back to their climate cause,” Mr. Morano explained.
Cause of Death? Climate Change.
“Climate change is a killer, but we don’t acknowledge it on death certificates,” co-author Dr Arnagretta Hunter, from The Australian National University (ANU) Medical School, said. “There is second component on a death certificate which allows for pre-existing conditions and other factors.
“If you have an asthma attack and die during heavy smoke exposure from bushfires, the death certificate should include that information. We can make a diagnosis of disease like coronavirus, but we are less literate in environmental determinants like hot weather or bushfire smoke.” …
“Climate change is the single greatest health threat that we face globally even after we recover from coronavirus,” Dr. Hunter said.
Analysis: Social Cost of Carbon is a “Transparent and Obvious Fraud” – —Francis Menton in 2016: “The ‘Social Cost of Carbon’ can fairly be described as the mother of all government cost-benefit analyses…”In reality, it is a completely dishonest scam that wildly exaggerates costs and ignores benefits in order to justify vast seizures of power unto the government….“
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Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore: “Clearly, the social cost of carbon is negative on so many fronts. Perhaps we should be paid for emitting it. It is responsible for up to 70% of increased food crop production (I guess they didn’t factor that in). It is greening the land and presumably the oceans. It is perhaps involved in slightly increasing global temperature above the frigid Pleistocene Epoch the Earth has been locked in for 2.6 million years, although there is no proof of this. It makes all plants more efficient in their use of water. It makes greenhouse production of food 30-60% higher than at ambient levels.”
Analysis: The Social Cost of Carbon and Climate Sensitivity Is Model Manipulation at Its Finest
Patrick J. Michaels / Kevin Dayaratna: “Here is a dirty little secret that few are aware of: All those horrifying future temperature changes that grace the front pages of papers of record aren’t really the predicted warming above today’s level. Instead, they are the difference between two models of climate change. The “base climate” isn’t the observed global temperature at a given point in time. Instead, it is what a computer model simulates temperatures to be prior to any significant changes in carbon dioxide.
Reality need not apply to these calculations.”
Biden’s Bogus Climate Report on the ‘social cost of carbon’
Statistician: Why ‘Social Cost of Carbon’ Is Most Useless Number You’ve Never Heard Of
Statistician Kevin Dayaratna: “Dubbed by some as ‘the most important number you’ve never heard of,’ the social cost of carbon is defined as the economic damages associated with a ton of carbon dioxide emissions across a particular time horizon. That metric, relied upon heavily by the Obama administration, has been used as the basis for regulatory policy in the energy sector of the economy. …
Assumptions made by modelers can drastically change the purported estimates and thus beef up the damages as much as they want.”
Climate Depot’s Morano on Sun News with Ezra Levant’s ‘The Source’ on Leonardo DiCaprio:
Morano: ‘This is someone who does nothing but carbon dioxide belches. He’s perverting the language. we are talking about carbon dioxide. We are carbon based as humans. We inhale oxygen and we exhale carbon dioxide at 40,000 ppm in our breath. So if CO2 is poison, then human beings are nothing but poison machines.
Meteorologist Anthony Watts: “New data shows the global climate-related death risk has dropped by over 99% since 1920. Despite the near constant caterwauling from climate alarmists that we are in a “climate emergency”, real-world data, release at the end of 2020 shows that climate related deaths are now approaching zero. The data spans 100 years of “global warming” back to 1920 and shows “climate related” deaths now approaching zero. Above is an update of the graph in the 2020 peer-reviewed article by Bjørn Lomborg: Welfare in the 21st century: Increasing development, reducing inequality, the impact of climate change, and the cost of climate policies.”
