Climate deaths drop despite population growth

[Sormine]

Animals and plants become extinct all the time, and not always because of climate change or because of humans.

"Things die so we might as well kill them now" isn't as strong of an argument as you might think.

[Deleted]

So, some random climate denier tweeted a random thing without giving any kind of scientific, factual or reality-based evidence. Then it was posted by some random person on a random forum on the interwebs. I guess we should take that at face value.

[Masark]

So, some random climate denier tweeted a random thing without giving any kind of scientific, factual or reality-based evidence. Then it was posted by some random person on a random forum on the interwebs. I guess we should take that at face value.

He's not a climate change denialist per se, but rather a political science guy who likes talking above his sandals and exclaiming that rather than dealing with climate change, we should instead put the money towards other things.

[Torto]

I'm pretty sure the CO2 level is around 400PPM regardless of which country you're in.

As far as trees, the US is net positive on growing trees. Environmentalist fear mongers have been laughed out of the country, life is thriving on nearly all parameters.

Isn't Al Gore still there peddling his bullshit, all while living in a house so big it requires enough electricity to run a small country?

[Zeta333]

Never said climate change is not real, there is plenty of evidence of that. My contention has always been about the cause and the alarmists ridiculous claims about the possible consequences.

But, this is a good news story. It seems we as a species will survive after all.

The causes and effects are pretty much fact. We are doing it, we are changing it fast. What would have taken thousands of years is happening in 10s of years.

[Torto]

So, some random climate denier tweeted a random thing without giving any kind of scientific, factual or reality-based evidence. Then it was posted by some random person on a random forum on the interwebs. I guess we should take that at face value.

He's not a denier, he's a believer. He's a political scientist whose focus is to look at the social impact of climate change etc. He was given a grant at one of our Australian Universities some time ago but it was withdrawn at the last second because the far left extremists were not happy. He thinks we should deal with climate change and not send ourselves broke by trying to fix it.

[Deleted]

Catastrophes - does that include famine ? if not, well...

[Torto]

The causes and effects are pretty much fact. We are doing it, we are changing it fast. What would have taken thousands of years is happening in 10s of years.

Yep and it has happened before and it will happen again. It's called climate. Why don't you blame us humans every time a volcano erupts?

[PC2]

The causes and effects are pretty much fact. We are doing it, we are changing it fast. What would have taken thousands of years is happening in 10s of years.

What's your point? The whole point of civilization is to change our environment by plowing over the previous eco-system.

[Dr Assbandit]

It just warms the cockles of my heart to see some conservatives have this cult-like obsession with first outright denying climate change, then humans effect on climate change, and then now I guess the narrative is hey "it's not that bad!" . Also I guess we're basing the entirety of our argument on one researcher who feeds our confirmation bias rather than the mountains of evidence that states otherwise.

Seriously, you lot are adorable.

[Orbitus]

Taken from Bjorn Lomborg's twitter:

Sorry, but you are citing a shill for the oil and gas industry.

He has worked for the Heartland Institute, who gets its funding primarily from ExxonMobil; Frasier Institute, who gets their funding from the Koch Brothers; Hoover Institute, who gets their funding from oil and gas like Exxon, and other climate change denial people.

Just because people are more prepared and aware of what is going on, doesn't mean climate change isn't happening.

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I assume you know who Bjorn Lomborg is....

Yeah, climate change denier and shill for oil and gas companies.

[Deleted]

"Hopefully this will finally put to bed the silly notion that climate change will destroy the planet and we can focus on more pressing and immediate issues."

any decent scientist wouldn't claim this, they might claim it will become inhospitable to the majority of life.

[Deleted]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%...fic_dishonesty

In January 2003, the DCSD released a ruling that sent a mixed message, finding the book to be scientifically dishonest through misrepresentation of scientific facts, but Lomborg himself not guilty due to his lack of expertise in the fields in question.

So, he's a layman who doesn't understand what he's talking about, and he's purposefully peddling bullshit.

Hopefully this will finally put to bed the silly notion that we should take a single word this person says seriously.

[THEORACLE64]

One source says something different so it must be true? Lolno. That’s not how science works, sweeties. Go and do a review on the literature within the past 5 years and come back and tell me that deaths from Climate Change are decreasing.

I’m also SCREAMING that the guy who wrote this articles used TWO references over all, one which was web based - one was about the fake missle alert Hawaii had, and another speculating about a possibly war with Korea. Everything in that “article”, and to what the OP refers to, he literally has zero hard evidence for. There’s a reason this guy is writing articles and not getting his “study” published, and that’s literally down to the fact they’re absolute trite.

[Deletedaccount1]

"Hopefully this will finally put to bed the silly notion that climate change will destroy the planet and we can focus on more pressing and immediate issues."

any decent scientist wouldn't claim this, they might claim it will become inhospitable to the majority of life.

I don't see how the Earth becoming 2 degrees warmer over the next one hundred years makes it inhospitable to the majority of life. Predictions longer than that are not reliable.

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Lomborg's point is something that others like David D. Friedman and David R. Henderson have made for years which is that it is cheaper to mitigate the externalities of climate change in other ways besides passing legislation to slow it.

I've heard convincing arguments from the other side (such as carbon taxes proposed by Mankiw) but Lomborg has given convincing evidence (in his book and elsewhere) that combating climate change through global initiatives and government policies is less effective than letting each individual place that it harms find their own way of dealing with it.

One example: If Bangladesh is threatened by rising sea levels, a more reliable solution than global government interventions is simply diking the coast which countries like the Netherlands have done for hundreds of years.

[Zeta333]

Yep and it has happened before and it will happen again. It's called climate. Why don't you blame us humans every time a volcano erupts?

Becuase we cant change as of yet how often volcanos erupt. We can change how fast we cause the next ice age or how fast we cause greenhouse gases to run rampant.

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What's your point? The whole point of civilization is to change our environment by plowing over the previous eco-system.

Wont do us much good if we destroy a good portion of of populated coastline before we have the tech to move populations off earth.

[Deleted]

Aren't natural disasters a way of nature to balance population numbers?

[Aggrophobic]

The only thing thats silly here is you, OP.
Go back to school.

[Kiri]

I don't see how the Earth becoming 2 degrees warmer over the next one hundred years makes it inhospitable to the majority of life. Predictions longer than that are not reliable.

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Lomborg's point is something that others like David D. Friedman and David R. Henderson have made for years which is that it is cheaper to mitigate the externalities of climate change in other ways besides passing legislation to slow it.

I've heard convincing arguments from the other side (such as carbon taxes proposed by Mankiw) but Lomborg has given convincing evidence (in his book and elsewhere) that combating climate change through global initiatives and government policies is less effective than letting each individual place that it harms find their own way of dealing with it.

One example: If Bangladesh is threatened by rising sea levels, a more reliable solution than global government interventions is simply diking the coast which countries like the Netherlands have done for hundreds of years.

There are several issues with that.
Firstly, predictions beyond the two degree increase are unreliable because after that, due to climate change potentially becoming self-perpetuating and accelerating. That is what could lead to the point of inhospitabality, but sadly, skeptics look at that and say 'see, they can't predict with 100% accuracy that we will all die. No reason to worry', which is usually how the skeptic community goes - ironically being always optimistic that the alarmists can't be right, even when they themselves cannot prove the opposite on that 100% standard either.
Second, there is some truth to it that it is cheaper to do that - as long as you do not aggregate over the long run. Dikes in Bangladesh are cheaper than reducing global emissions, of course. But other economists have, for decades, argued that reining in climate change altogether is cheaper as spending the next 100 years constantly treating the symptoms.
Third, and most importantly: due to geographical and other reasons, those most heavily impacted by climate change are usually not those hit the most severely. That is why we call it a negative externality. It may be 'cheap', i.e. affordable for the Netherlands and Bangladesh to build dikes, but that looks different in other Asian and African regions. The US can deal more easily with extended heatwaves than central Africa, etc. Sure, if the global community came together to combat the symptoms, that would be cheaper in the short run at least. But it won't. The US won't give too much of a toss about people in Africa suffering from the effects of climate change, even if it causes that.

But then again, that is the whole premise of this thread, isn't it? 'Less people died to the effects of climate change (compared to 1920, lol), that means we can adapt to it and don't need to worry'. That essentially means 'Well, other people did and still do die to these effects, but I and my friends can likely adapt, so screw those guys. I need to make money'.

Aren't natural disasters a way of nature to balance population numbers?

No. If they were, population would not have been steadily increasing of the past decades. Natural disasters like heavy rainfall, droughts or earthquakes are not caused by population numbers, so they cannot be a way to balance them.

[Masark]

I don't see how the Earth becoming 2 degrees warmer over the next one hundred years makes it inhospitable to the majority of life.

Which is why we are attempting to limit warming to that level. Your coideologists have stalled enough stopping the warming is no longer an option, so the Paris Agreement has set as its goal to limit warming to a maximum of 2C by 2100.

Our current emissions trajectory is projected to lead to 3.7-4.8C of warming by 2100 (page 8).