In The Temperature’s Rising I re-visited an old topic that the Guardian trots out on a fairly regular basis. I had previously looked at in Losing The Plot. In those two pieces, I was at pains to point out that many more people in every continent and on a global level die from extreme cold than from extreme heat. Thus, for the foreseeable future, global warming – all things being equal – is likely to reduce, rather than increase, the number of deaths resulting from extreme temperatures. The point has to be repeated continually, because the Guardian is constantly seeking new ways to spin that reality so as to convince its readership that global warming is somehow going to cause more fatalities.

A few days ago, it took advantage of another opportunity to repeat that tired old trope. This time they seized on a study that was specific to Mexico to supply a headline aimed at persuading any wavering readers that global warming is going to kill them. This time, however, the story generated a neat twist – if you’re young, then you should be afraid: “Younger people at greater risk of heat-related deaths this century – study – New research estimates a 32% increase in deaths of people under 35 if greenhouse gases not radically cut”. I appreciate that headlines are drafted so as to catch the eye, and that even one running to 29 words and figures will struggle to reflect the nuances of the story, but even by Guardian standards this is pretty desperate stuff. Unless you read on and think about the conclusions of the study in question you might well – if you are aged 34 or under – be left with the completely false impression that even here in the UK people of your age are facing a risk of an early demise increasing by almost one-third unless greenhouse gases are “radically cut”. Needless to say, that isn’t what the study has concluded at all.

The first three paragraphs of the Guardian article continue to suggest that global warming (or climate change, call it what you will) is now going to be particularly cruel by leaving the old people to live longer while targeting its rage on the young instead. The implication, perhaps, is that in addition to all the COP-related claims that “the climate crisis” hits women and the poor in the developing countries the hardest, now it’s ageist too: the young are also in its cross-hairs. Having (for once) acknowledged that old people are more likely to die from cold than from heat, the Guardian moves into scary territory. Forget the old – it’s the young who have to worry:

As the world heats up, it will be younger people that will suffer disproportionately as the mortality burden shifts, with the new study estimating a 32% increase in deaths of people under 35 years old this century from heat if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t radically cut.

Only in the fourth paragraph do we learn that “[t]he study is based on data drawn from deaths in Mexico, a country of extensive mortality records and high “wet bulb” temperatures, which is a measurement that factors in humidity to ascertain the heat stress level upon people.” The article then acknowledges that even in Mexico – “like in most countries” – more people die from cold than from heat, but then suggests that although fewer old people will die due to temperature extremes, the increasing heat will kill more young people.

Where things become interesting is when the Guardian chose to seek a handy quote from Andrew Wilson, a Columbia University researcher who led the study. It appears he did what was desired, because the Guardian tells us that:

This pattern [i.e. temperature-related mortality adversely affecting the young] may well be replicated in other countries such as the US and in Europe, Wilson said, due to fundamental similarities in how different age groups react to temperature.

However, if one looks at the study, it makes no such claim. I have read it in full, and carried out a specific word-search for “Europe” and “United States” in the study, and can find no reference to either, other than a small number of references to the US and the UK that do not seek to make the point made by the Guardian. Indeed, if anything, it suggests the opposite: “Research on the US shows that mortality vulnerability to nonoptimal dry-bulb temperatures has decreased historically.” The nearest it comes to extrapolating its findings beyond the borders of Mexico is here:

Our finding that young people in Mexico are especially vulnerable to heat may have global implications because hotter and lower-income countries—which are expected to be the most adversely affected by climate change—have among the youngest populations in the world currently and over the coming century….The youngest and hottest locations in the world are concentrated in Africa, Central America, the Middle East, and portions of South and Southeast Asia. The bottom panel of fig. S12 situates Mexico in the context of the rest of the world. Mexico is near the middle of the global distribution of countries by share of population under 35, and its extreme wet-bulb temperatures are essentially only surpassed by countries in Asia….

Europe and the USA, to the best of my knowledge, lack both that age demographic and the wet-bulb temperatures referred to (apart from perhaps in the southern areas of both with regard to the second essential element of the findings). It also finds that heat-related deaths among younger people may well be connected to them being more likely to be carrying out strenuous work, such as in agriculture – a factor that I assume is less likely to apply in wealthier countries such as the USA and in Europe. Presumably that is why the study doesn’t mention them when extrapolating its country-specific findings.

The study is interesting, nevertheless. It does make a point that I would endorse, namely if the balance of mortality in a warming climate shifts away from the elderly towards the young, then that should recalibrate how we look at it, since younger people will lose more years of life than older people:

Thus, the choice of whether to value life years—where premature deaths among younger individuals are considered more costly than premature deaths among old individuals—or to value all premature deaths the same becomes especially important.

The key points, however, are that the study – very fairly and very properly – contains a number of caveats to its findings, such as that its findings could be affected by demographic changes and the impact of adaptation. It also reiterates that even in a relatively warm country such as Mexico, cold kills more people than heat:

Consistent with past literature on temperature-related mortality in Mexico, we find that cold is historically associated with more deaths than heat across the whole population: Cold causes 14 times more deaths than heat…

In conclusion, I am grateful to the Guardian for drawing my attention to a study that I might otherwise have missed. It does raise some interesting points that should, perhaps, give policy-makers food for thought, especially in hot, poor countries with a young age profile where many people are occupied in strenuous outdoor activities. Beyond that, however, my message to the Guardian is to stop scare-mongering, stop pretending that a warming planet will – overall – be more dangerous to health than a non-warming one, and stop pretending that we in the UK are at great risk. In short, just stop it. Instead, return to the standards of the great broadsheet you once were, and cut out the cheap tabloid-style misleading headlines. Nothing, after all, has changed. A warming planet will – for the foreseeable future – have a positive impact on human mortality, rather than a negative one.