By Paul Homewood
The BBC continue to print this lie:
There have been more than 50,000 heat-related deaths and more than 200,000 related to cold in England and Wales since 1988, new official figures show.
The Office for National Statistics said very low and very high temperatures both increased the risk of death.
And although cold is the bigger killer, the ONS said heat-related deaths appeared to have risen in recent years.
Some 4,507 deaths were estimated to be linked to heat in England last year – when temperatures topped 40C.
That was the highest number of estimated heat-related deaths over the last 35 years – but does not take into account population growth, and is a similar number to levels in the 1990s and early 2000s when the population was smaller.
Last year, the UK saw record-breaking heat – with climate change playing a key role in pushing temperatures so high.
The extreme heat caused disruption across the country, and data has already suggested about 3,000 more over-65s died than usual in England and Wales last summer.
According to the ONS, once temperatures hit 25C, the number of temperature-related deaths go up by about 50%, compared to the optimal temperature for people. Below -5C, the number of temperature-related deaths shoot up by about 75%.
However such temperatures above 25C or below -5C were only experienced on relatively few days over the study period, and therefore contributed relatively few deaths, the ONS points out.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66890135
There are a number of issues with this ONS report.
For a start, the claim of 50,000 heat deaths since 1988 works out at 1400 a year. Out of total annual deaths of around 600,000, this figure is laughingly small, and cannot be regarded as statistically meaningful.
There is also the fact that according to the ONS themselves, excess winter deaths have been running at around 30,000 a year since the 1980s. Plainly the new claim of a total of 200,000 cold related deaths since 1988 is a woeful underestimate, which raises the question of the legitimacy of this new study.
More fundamental is the fact that the number of deaths in summer is always by far the lowest of any season, this year being no exception:
This should set alarm bells ringing regarding claims of heat related deaths. After all, if cold is killing people in winter and heat in summer, what is killing them in autumn and spring?
So let’s take a close look at the new ONS study:
First of all, they stress caution when using the data. They are clearly concerned about the quality of their own report:
The previous analysis they mention says this:
We found relatively little increase in deaths caused by warmer weather and a reduction in deaths caused by cold winters, leading to a net decrease in deaths; in contrast, there was a net increase in hospital admissions linked to warmer weather, especially from injuries.
Previous research has linked warmer weather to injuries from outdoor activities, increased violence and mental health problems; direct harm from extreme heat is still less common but this is likely to change over time.
Our findings are consistent with previous research and confirm that the warming trajectory predicted by climate scientists is already affecting health in England and Wales; however, in the UK’s cool-to-temperate climate, the mortality impact is limited and appropriate policy and behaviour changes could mitigate much of the health risk from increasing temperatures.
That message could not have been clearly – a warmer climate has saved lives.
But that clearly was not the message the government wanted, so they told the ONS to go back and produce “the right result”
This is what they came up with:
So what is going on here? The Notes give us a clue:
What does this tell us? Quite simply that the observed mortality risk is based on people dying on that particular day or shortly after, not over the season as a whole, which is how the Winter Excess Deaths are calculated.
And here we can return to last year’s ONS study on Excess Mortality during heat waves, which quite astonishingly is not mentioned at all in this new report, other than as a related link at the bottom:
Last year’s report also find excess deaths on extremely hot days, but crucially made this qualification:
In short, people may have died a few days earlier than they would otherwise. But the heat did not kill them at all – they were dying anyway, and the heat was no more than a trigger, just as a bit of cold or wet weather could have been.
This of course explains why the overall mortality rates in summer as a whole remain lower than other seasons, as they are not affected at all by daily spikes. On the contrary, in winter the cold and damp weather kills relentlessly, throughout the season.
It seems clear to me that the ONS have been leaned on by the government to come up with some dodgy statistics to “prove” that hot weather kills. This seems pretty obvious from this paragraph in the ONS report:
For a start, why would a warmer climate lead to more extreme temperatures? Statistically the whole idea is absurd. And statistics is after all what the ONS is supposed to be about!
And they must know full well that a warmer climate will reduce winter excess deaths in the UK. So why are they lying about it?
And with the media giving full publicity to this fraudulent report, the government is no doubt very happy!
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October 6, 2023 at 01:12PM
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