Old, sick and frail people are more likely to die during winter than during summer. This is no secret, of course. It has always been this way, and this is the way things are even today, despite modern houses and heating.
Modernity has brought relief, but it has not managed to balance things out completely. Winter is still the season when people are most likely to die.
The average cold weather death toll for England is 25000 people. Better heating and better houses could no doubt reduce this number by quite a lot. But it will never be zero. Winter will always be the harshest of the seasons.
The trend in cold weather deaths was until recently downwards. However, that appears to have changed. 34000 excess deaths were recorded last winter, and 40000 excess deaths are expected this winter.
Something dramatic appears to have happened. Fewer people are able to keep sufficiently warm through the winter.
Since houses are unlikely to have changed much in quality over such a short time span, and winters are no colder than usual, we can only conclude that energy prices must have gone up or people in England have become poorer.
Quite possibly, there's a mix of both higher heating costs and lower incomes. Whatever it is, one thing is certain, the increase in climate related deaths in England is not due to global warming.
No comments:
Post a Comment