Like Frogs Flocking To The Pot: Phoenix Faces A Solid Month Of 110F Highs; Burn Deaths Spiking [View all]

[hatrack]

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Link to tweet

These figures are not estimates of excess mortality coinciding with extreme heat, where different methodologies can produce different figures. They are specific individuals whose death was judged by a medical examiner to have been directly caused by extreme heat. Some are people who suffered severe burns when their skin came into contact with pavements superheated to as much as 82C (180F). This is not a forecast for 50 years time, it’s happening today.

As climate anxiety grows, the risk that humanity continues to be the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water is only exacerbated by the fact that we continue to emphasise abstract statistics instead of things that people can really see and feel. I understand the focus on the 2C limit, but it a) sounds small, b) refers to some date in the future, c) lacks any connection to human experience and d) does a pretty bad job of describing what is happening with temperatures.

In much the same way that focusing on the average US lifespan of 76 years encourages one to think about older people and obscures the tens of thousands of young adults who died to create that tragic statistic, focusing on average temperature growth obscures the extremes that drive loss of life and total transformation of living.

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https://climatecrocks.com/2023/07/21/the-frogs-keep-coming-to-phoenix/#more-88634