A Reexamination of Climate Change Issues

The Reality of Human Deaths Related to Global Warming

 updated November 29, 2009


It is found that colder climate temperatures have a greater impact on human mortality than warmer temperatures, yet media reports often make exaggerated claims about the health dangers of a warmer climate due to global warming.

Deaths and illnesses do exist due to heat waves— including from heat stroke, heart attacks, and asthma attacks.  But many health dangers are associated with cold weather as well, such as accidents due to slipping on ice, increased aliments such as cardio-vascular disease, stroke, and respiratory diseases such as colds, flu, and pneumonia.

Even more important than comparisons of hot and cold weather in determining which causes higher mortality is the fact that even under the most extreme projections for the warming of the climate, it is shown that summer temperatures would only rise by a small amount while winter temperatures would rise more significantly— thus resulting in curtailing of cold weather ailments while not increasing summer illnesses by a significant amount.



Following are points from the book “Unstoppable Global Warming— Every 1,500 Years” showing the effects of cold weather being statistically more dangerous that hot weather:

— From 1979 to 1997, extreme cold killed roughly twice as many Americans as heat waves, according to Indur Goklany of the U.S. Department of the Interior. link

— Due to increases in air conditioning during the summer months, heat related deaths in twenty-eight US cities dropped from 41 per day in the 1960s to 10.5 per day in the 1990s.

— Siberian health records between 1982 and 1993 show a 32 percent higher risk of stroke on colder days than on hot days (link), and Korean studies show similar results.

— A Norwegian study found 47 percent more cold weather respiratory disease consultations. link