By Paul Homewood
h/t Joe Public
I see the BBC are up to their usual tricks again:
India saw a 55% rise in deaths due to extreme heat between 2000-2004 and 2017-2021, a recent study published in the medical journal, The Lancet, found. Exposure to heat also caused a loss of 167.2 billion potential labour hours among Indians in 2021, resulting in loss of incomes equivalent to about 5.4% of the country’s GDP.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-652998
To simply compare two 5-year periods is highly unscientific and meaningless statistically.
Nevertheless the Lancet study clearly shows that cold-related deaths vastly outnumber heat-related ones in Southern Asia:
The Lancet paper also links to a study by Gasparrini et al, which specifically covers India. The latter includes this table:
Table 2. Deaths (in thousands) attributable to hot and cold ambient temperatures in India in 2015.
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002619
So cold-related deaths outnumber heat ones by about 7 to 1. Yet nowhere in the BBC article is there are any recognition of this. Neither do they ask the question of what the Indian government is doing to protect its people from cold weather.
The final paragraphs of the BBC report are therefore doubly ironic:
But clearly, Indians are still not taking heat seriously enough.
According to reports, the place in Navi Mumbai where the government ceremony had taken place had recorded a maximum temperature of 38C (100F) on Sunday. Yet, photos of the event showed thousands sitting directly under the sun with no roof or covering to offer shelter. Only a few carried umbrellas, or wrapped towels on their heads.
"I live in Delhi where the temperature can touch 50C and I see very few people even bring out their umbrellas," Mr Pillai says.
Without wishing to underplay the health risks of hot weather, particularly amongst the vulnerable, it is plain that most healthy Indians are not averse to a bit of sunshine!
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
April 21, 2023 at 12:47PM
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