So now we have the climatists calling for attributing many more deaths to warmer temperatures in order to blame CO2 emissions. No doubt they noticed how powerful were the Covid19 death statistics in getting the public to comply with lockdown regulations. Their logic is clear: When people die with multiple diseases, pick the one that’s politically useful. (“Never let a crisis go to waste.”) Never mind that 90+% of Covid deaths were people with cancers, chronic lung disease, obesity, diabetes, and so on.

Ideological Perversion of Science

This push for climate death certificates demonstrates a recurring pattern: reducing life’s multitude of factors and values down to a single dimension as the be all and end all. Environmentalism puts nature first, ignoring that humans are a part of nature, and have a managerial role to play. Many naturalists have reduced further into climatists, who extrapolated the 1978 to 1998 warming into hellfire and brimstone for the planet. Anything bad that happens, from Acne to Zika virus, was caused by global warming/climate change.

These reductionists, or single-issue partisans, are upset that the public is not as concerned as they are. A recent Gallup pole of US voters reported that climate concerns ranked dead last among most important problems. Thus the interest in amping up the death tolls attributed to fossil fuels.

Where’s the Utility in Assigning Causes?

The fundamental flaw in all this advocacy is what to do about the threat. Currently there is much ado about a dam breaking in Michigan because of rainfall. Of course, it’s blamed on CO2 emissions, with concerns that more and more dams will fail because of higher precipitation. Buried in the details is the news that the dam operator was refused permission to release water from the reservoir to protect the fresh water mussels downstream. So we have not only single issue environmentalists, but also single-species advocates.

Even if there were evidence (generally there isn’t) to expect higher rainfall in a catchment area, what action would practically protect the dam? Sign up to an international Climate Treaty? Legislate quotas for electricity from renewables? Ban oil and gas pipeline? Divest from Big Energy companies? Sue somebody, everybody?

The only useful thing to do is reinforce the damsite to increase its capacity, which would likely involve heavy machinery powered by fossil fuels.

This is but one example of the upside-down thinking by all single-issue advocates, including climatists. If you claim hotter weather is coming (despite no statistical proof), what action would usefully protect against mortality? More and better air conditioning has worked so far, carbon offsets not so much.

Footnote:  For a discussion of how climate alarmists reduce reality down to their preconceived notion, see Climate Reductionism