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A CO2 Coalition newsletter emailed July 25 incorrectly identified the journal Nature as the publication reporting a story about deaths from heat and cold. Below is a corrected newsletter with a link to the study in The Lancet that includes the chart that is technically correct, but intellectually dishonest.
It is very well documented that many more people die from cold than from heat. The largest study on deaths attributable to heat or cold found that cold weather kills 20 times as many people than heat. Another study in the U.K. and Australia found that cold-related deaths in these countries accounted for more than 15 times higher mortality than heat.
The results of a new European study in The Lancet reported that cold-related deaths account for 10 times the number as deaths due to heat. But when it came to presenting the results, they pulled a graphical sleight of hand.
Chart "A" on the left is from The Lancet article. Note that the X axis at the bottom uses two different scales for heat and cold mortality. There is a five-fold difference that accentuates heat-related deaths and minimizes deaths due to cold.
Chart "B" on the right was created by the CO2 Coalition technical staff and accurately depicts the huge disparity.
Nice try, but The Lancet has just been exposed. Warmer weather would likely save millions of lives.
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