Medical Science: Should We Worry about Heat Deaths
- Details
- Category: Medical Science
- Published on Thursday, 27 July 2023 14:19
- Written by Dr. Jane M. Orient, M.D.,
Summer is here and the living, in these record temps, is far from easy. I hope you are staying well-hydrated and protecting your skin from excess sun exposure. There are real dangers from heat exhaustion and skin cancer.
A graph published in the Lancet warned of the dangers of heat waves—but distorted the comparison between hot and cold temperatures by changing the units on the axis. There’s not unprecedented heat, so why the fearmongering?
If you are not able to sweat normally, there is an increased risk of heat exhaustion. Causes include skin or nervous system disorders, connective-tissue disease, and certain drugs, such as antidepressants and opioids.
Climate and the Future
Of course, you should wear protective clothing or use sunscreen if you will be heavily exposed to sunlight to reduce the risk of skin cancer. But some exposure is needed to make vitamin D.
Achieving “climate goals” such as increasing electric vehicles will not help. If every country in the world did this, the predicted decrease in average global temperature would be 0.0002 °F.
The calculation may not include increased carbon dioxide emissions from fires, such as the huge cargo ship fire in the North Sea caused by an EV. Some apartment buildings won’t allow you to park your EV in an underground garage. Such fires are extremely hard to control.
Pay attention to the other side of the graph: deaths from cold. Winter is coming!
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If you are in an area where electrical outages may occur, do you have a generator? Note that new Biden regulations may make portable generators unaffordable or impossible to obtain. Do you have emergency blankets or sleeping bags, at home and in your car?
Preparations need to be made in advance. Remember that weather-dependent electrical generators don’t work in bad weather.
Are we Having Record Heat?
I hope you have electricity flowing to your air conditioner. It’s summer, and it is hot in Tucson. It’s hard to believe the summer of 2023 is cooler than usual.
Nonetheless, the climate change chorus claims that this summer is worse “in profound ways,” and there are computer models about hypothetical climate “tipping points”—not “documentation” of actual occurrence.
For perspective, Phoenix had 18 consecutive days of 110° temperatures in 1974, and Death Valley hit 134° in 1934. The six hottest July 19ths in the U.S. occurred in 1934, 1932, 1936, 1930, 1926 and 1901—when almost half of the US was over 95 °F (35 °C). Atmospheric CO2 levels were much lower then.
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Every day, a new record is being set somewhere. If you have temperature stations at 10,000 locations and they have an average length of 100 years, then during a 100-day-long summer, you would expect to get about 10,000 daily maximum temperature records set.
What will happen to the climate if we spend trillions of dollars and turn off 80 percent of the world’s energy supply (“fossil fuels”)? Will the constantly postponed predicted climate crisis be averted? Will the global average temperature drop a fraction of a degree, as computer models predict? Will you feel cooler at 109.9 than at 110°?
What will happen to you without adequate electricity to cool—or heat—your home? Or without gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles? (Note that heat waves can cook electric car batteries too.)
NOVA "Chasing Carbon Zero" Explores What It Will Take To Achieve Its Climate Goals
Additional information:
· The effect of Net Zero energy policy: Terry Gannon lecture at 41st annual meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness
· Climate change model predictions vs. observations
· Health effects of climate change
Additional information: Improvised Clothing and Protective Gear. Chapter 15 in Nuclear War Survival Skills.
Jane M. Orient, M.D. obtained her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1974. She completed an internal medicine residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital and University of Arizona Affiliated Hospitals and then became an Instructor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and a staff physician at the Tucson Veterans Administration Hospital. She has been in solo private practice since 1981 and has served as Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) since 1989.
She is currently president of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. She is the author of YOUR Doctor Is Not In: Healthy Skepticism about National Healthcare, and the second through fifth editions of Sapira's Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis published by Wolters Kluwer. She authored books for school children, Professor Klugimkopf's Old-Fashioned English Grammar and Professor Klugimkopf's Spelling Method, published by Robinson Books, and coauthored two novels published as Kindle books, Neomorts and Moonshine.
More than 100 of her papers have been published in the scientific and popular literature on a variety of subjects including risk assessment, natural and technological hazards and non-hazards, and medical economics and ethics. She is the editor of AAPS News, the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Newsletter, and Civil Defense Perspectives, and is the managing editor of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
If you would like to discuss these issues, contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Jane M. Orient, M.D., Executive Director, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
