this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 137 points 1 year ago (10 children)

I'm 110% on board with global warming, but this graph is misleading.

The author needs to at least correct for population changes (heat deaths per X residents). Even better would be to account for changing demographics, like age and county. From this random stats website, it looks like there has been a dramatic increase in proportion of older residents since 1970. Old people are more likely to die, so more elders = more deaths.

If I wasn't about to head to bed, I might try to fix it, but.... sleep.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure there has been an increase in small plane crashes in AZ. The hot air is much thinner than most pilots are used to, so they tend to forget accounting for changes in thrust and climb rates. I'm pretty sure a couple happened in just the last few weeks.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And whenever you have a chart of historical data like this, you have to at least consider that an increase could be reflective of either improved diagnostic or record-keeping abilities.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (4 children)

If we stop testing we will have 0 cases!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

More like you just died from old in 1970, versus acute heat stroke in 2023.

I say this being fully on board with the climate change. Charts like this serve little purpose when you don't properly adjust for the myriad changes that have occured over the last half century. And before anyone says "you mean like global warming," no, don't account for that one, because that's what we're trying to see.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

yeah, people lose so much credibility when they don't even control for simple easy things.

there will always be some confounding factors, but doing rate per population, is rarely hard - andneeded over decade comparisons.

demographic risk adjustment is more complex, so i'd not expect that. but if it is at least acknowledged, then the article is more credible and will get more (of my) attention.

media (and i guess their audience) seem to enjoy hype though . . .

oh shit this is the f.t. i used to think they were among the more credible journo's. pity.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As an analyst, this pissed me off. There's like an oath to never fudge, misrepresent, or be selective with data to manipulate the viewer. We collect raw data for the purest source of fact. It is a single source of truth.

Just a quick Google on one of the glaringly obvious misrepresentations in this graph, and AZ's population in 1970 was 1.77M; it is now 7.36M. Displaying this graph more truthfully would still highlight increased temperatures impacting increased rate of death to heat, but not at all dramatically, so the creator has misrepresented. Then there's a lot more to factor in for proper analysis. Healthcare rate with growth? Infrastructure for the same? Why just Arizona?

Climate change science has fact and figure on its side. There is not need to misrepresent it like deniers do. Doing so dilutes and damages the cause by denying the one thing it has, truth.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Maybe we should burn more fossil fuels about it

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Just shoot at it with all the guns.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Every time I see crazy heat data for Arizona and other places like it in the US, it makes me wonder. When the fuck will we see a reversion of population trends of people moving south? Arizona, Texas, etc. are only going to get worse. Everywhere is going to get worse, but there's a lot of rapidly growing areas that are on track to be non-viable for 1/3+ of the year within 10-20 years.

People should not be moving to Arizona, not with climate change as it is.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I live in the southwest and it’s definitely something I worry about. Every year it gets worse in our apartment during the summer. Our cooling bill is ridiculous for ~1/3rd of the year. The amount of heat transfer coming in through our single pane windows is insane. The walls barely seem insulated at all. On most hot days (95F/36C+) with the A/C blasting we can’t get it below 80F/26C inside.

Laws where I live require only minimum temperatures that must be met by residences, not maximums; almost nobody is freezing to death here (very rarely someone unhoused will), but people ARE dying of heat related illnesses. It makes me so angry, not only because it’s miserable to be hot all day and expensive to run the A/C as hard as we do, but because it’s so wasteful. The amount of electricity we have to use because our landlord is some bean counting, soulless corporation is sickening.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If only we had some kind of warning?!? If only there was something we could do about it?!?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I tried praying, don't look at me I did my part

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

I did both thoughts and prayers.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Surely we can just pray for it to go away.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  1. Build cities in the desert
  2. Heat up climate
  3. ??????
  4. Oh god what have I done
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

Just thought I'd add this report from the AZ health department. This breaks down the factors MUCH better and comes to a similar, but not quite as extreme, conclusion. Only part is normalized for population, but it gives an idea of how to scale the numbers.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Wake me up when it's guillotine day.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

We can thank the boomers for that

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Climate change is just getting started and people should start suing cities and design firms for failing to include shade requirements in their standards and for making roads too wide to properly shade

Where natural shade can't be sustained artificial shade needs to be provided.

The single family house on a grass lawn is such a stupid idea in many places

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Ironically the oil companies back in the 60’s, did an extensive research into what exactly would happen to the climate and ecology etc, if they kept drilling for and using fossil fuel etc. It’s so accurate that even todays models aren’t that good (I find that fact odd), but bottomline, they knew.. they knew, but kept on doing it anyway.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

NGL... First glance at the chart I thought the left hand scale was temperature with a sudden spike to 250°.... no wonder people are dying when your iced tea boils in your glass as you try to drink it!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're just going to let the homeless die in the streets, aren't they? 😑

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

They always were

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Is there a source that doesn't require me log into Twitter?

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You can always count on the right winged politicians and voters to prepare for disasters instead of trying to prevent them.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We desperately need regulation for people and workers in extreme temperatures. We'll be dealing with more and more of it as times goes on so the protections need to be in place.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (8 children)

And regulations for less pavement, concrete etc and more green and trees to provide shade and cooler temperatures.

You can live in extreme temperatures, provided the infrastructures are built for that (ie. Ouarzazate in Morocco).

But with the US urban planning and all for cars policy it won’t happen before it’s too late.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Only another 100 years or so until maybe temperatures come back down.

Maybe.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just want to say that graphs like this should be contrasted with the number of deaths from extreme cold. I know Arizona probably doesn't have the numbers of say, Alaska, but it's worthy of note to contrast the two.

I'd also point out that it is far easier for an individual to protect themselves against the rigors of cold than it is for heat; in the cold, with warm clothing, you can keep yourself warm, while the environment is very cold; fire is relatively easy to make, even if you have little more than sticks, and thus getting warm or keeping yourself warm is by and large easier to accomplish than staying cold.

When you're in an extremely hot environment, it's not like you can make yourself more naked than naked. You need some outside influence to keep you cool, like a swamp cooler, a misting sprayer, a cool body of water (like a river or lake), or some kind of man-made cooling device like an Air Conditioner, in a relatively sealed enclosure (which relies on consistent access to power to run it). most of these are either inaccessible to people in a city or built-up area; sure, there are fixtures, like fountains that contain water, usually not enough to keep them from heating up, and usually the water is recycled, so the heat stays with the water. all other water access is typically restricted to water lines, which usually someone is paying for, and nobody wants to pay to keep random people cool when they don't have to. All man-made (air conditioner) type cooling is generally access restricted to either workplaces, homes, or businesses/storefronts, where the expectation is that you'll be spending money there (which not everyone has).

I'm just saying, that the limiting factor to reducing death by extreme heat, is a far larger one, than death by extreme cold, where you should only need to hand out sweaters, gloves/mittens, jackets, blankets, etc, to keep people from dying from it. There's far-end extreme cold that almost nothing will save you from short of a heated structure, but generally, places that are inhabited by people who don't have access to safe heat and cooling (like a home), are more temperate than that extreme of cold.... not exactly too many homeless people walking around the arctic or Antarctic circles....

Neither is good, but both seem inevitable; regardless we should be doing all we can to help to ensure the survival of everyone, as a species. Whether that's saving them from the heat, the cold, from starvation or dehydration, we should be helping in any way we are able to.

[–] sukhmel 14 points 1 year ago

To be honest, I lost track of what was your point except for the fact that we need to pair the graph with one about extreme cold deaths

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

We’re fucked bros

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