Climate Denial Killing Still More People

New York Times, today: "In One Week During Europe’s Record Heat Wave, Deaths Increased by 16,000." (Should be a free article, or you might need to first get a free NY Times account.)

There are all excess deaths, not just those from heat. So the spikes in excess deaths in November to January are due to respiratory illnesses such as the flu. There were 25,000 heat deaths earlier there this summer, so this makes 41,000 at least. Over 30,000 in India. (I wrote a recent Phys.org article about India.) 

NYT: "Most of the deaths were in northern countries — France, Belgium and Germany — that are not accustomed to such high temperatures and struggled to respond."

France is debating ("bickering") air conditioning. It doesn't help that they love their old buildings built in the Little Ice Age. 

Of course, A/C doesn't stop wildfires. Future people may be stuck in air-conditioned houses and apartments wearing masks because of all the wildfire smoke, unable to buy home insurance since the insurance companies have left that market (as they are in Florida, partly due to rising hurricane costs).

It's too bad no one foresaw all these problems several decades ago--we might have taken actions to stall the problem. 

It's now clear that climate denial -- and climate deniers -- kill people. Lots of people. Where are the prosecutors?

Only 2 in 5 Americans Give a Sh!t about Climate Change

From CNN's chief data analyst Harry Enten:

I mean, just look at these numbers. Okay, top issue in a midterm vote — you can list up to three issues. The economy, not surprisingly, comes in at number one at 54%. Immigration, 28%. Look at climate change — it’s tied for 14th, tied for 14th, all the way down here at 3%. Johnny, I’m not the greatest mathematician in the world, but I sure as heck know that 54% is a whole heck of a lot higher than 3%. So despite the climate being so warm in the month of July, the hottest month on record here in the United States of America, the voters, simply put, do not say that climate change is going to be an issue on which they vote in the midterm election.

And you can see this 3% here, and you can see in these slides right here: “Say climate change is a very big problem.” In 2016, it was 40%. It was 40%. Look where we are in 2026 — it’s 39%, it’s 39%. Now, Johnny B, you’re talking about change. Where the change we have seen is partisanship, right?<

And what we can see is Republicans, more so than anybody else, have been shifting away from the idea that climate change is a top issue for them. Take a look at this — the least important issue for Republicans, it’s just at 14% in terms of saying that climate change is a very big problem. So we’re seeing a large partisan split, but when it comes together, Democrats are going in one direction, Republicans are going in another direction. But when you put those two together, the bottom line is we’re only talking about two in five Americans, both now and 10 years ago, saying that climate change is a very big problem.

Maybe a few more towns burning down will convince them. Higher home insurance rates in Florida (if homeowners can get it at all). A few more records (this July was the warmest month ever recorded in the continental US). Or more thousands of deaths.

Relative to a 1951-1980 baseline, July's USA48 temperature anomaly is 1.81°C. Relative to 1901-2000 the anomaly is 2.34°C. [NOAA's USA48 data starts in 1895.]

This decade-to-date is 0.53°C warmer than the last decade-to-date. The 30-year linear trend is 0.31°C/decade (0.55°F/decade). The total (linear) warming since 1895 is 1.33°C (2.39°F).

Two El Niño Graphs

El Niño is early and strong, already with a Niño3.4 SST anomaly above 2.0°C. It's like on of those 6 ft 6 in (198 cm) kids in seventh grade--the high schol basketball coaches are keeping a very close eye on him as he casually scores 48 points a game in youth basketball.

University of Maine Climate Reanalyzer, Niño 3.4 region:

From the Copernicus Marine Service.

The Nino 3.4 region coordinates are: 5N-5S, 120W-170W.

Book Review about Howard Zinn

I found this video from an interesting book review in the NY Times about Howard Zinn, the famed historian and author of A People's History of the United States. Zinn dared to write that, actually, America's history is actually pretty fucked up, with a huge amount of oppression. In this messed up country that kind of inflammation will get you both prosecuted and respected. I read it many years ago but lately, as I'm now > 65 yo and supposedly on the US health program for seniors, Medicare, but still find it very difficult to get affordable health care. Trump plans to make medication for seniors even more expensive, despite his hypocritical lying saying he would always protect Medicare.  So I'm listening more than ever and am angry more than ever.

Just wish most people speaking in this vid weren't all actors and celebrities.

Yikes

Whispering Pines Golf Course, Texas, hole 15, par 3. May be the scariest par 3 I've ever seen.

Your worst fears about cultural collapse might be true

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/jul/29/sarah-wilson-book-interview

“In Sarah Wilson’s new book, one page is mostly blank. It’s intended as a reprieve, a neutral space “for you to stare at for a minute while your feelings catch up”.

“You will need it. In I Eat the Stars, Wilson argues that the world as we know it is in collapse – and that we are too late to avoid the worst.

“This is not just about the climate, but civilisation buckling under the weight of its own complexity. Given worsening inequality, political polarisation, falling fertility, resource shortages and global conflicts, Wilson argues that we are hurtling towards the same end as ancient Rome, the Mayan civilisation and every other sophisticated society before us.”

No Pause in Global Temperature

Trying to diagnose a "pause" using a graph of rates of temperature change really isn't useful, I realize now. Duh!! Here's a better chart of just global temperature, from GISS. Doesn't show much of a pause. 

June Temperatures

For June, GISS has the globe at 2nd-warmest, same for land-only and Northern Hemisphere, and 4th-warmest (but tightly packed) for the Southern- hemisphere.

Relative to the first 30-year interval possible, 1880-1909, June's global anomaly was 1.44°C. The total change is approximately 1.23°C (2.21°F). Land-only is 1.56°C. The respective 30-year trends are +0.25°C/decade for the globe, and +0.30°C/decade for land-only.

A degree Celsius of global warming every four decades, at this rate. That's astonishing. That means we'd hit 1.5°C of total global warming in 2.4 more years, relative to the first interval available. (Remember, trends are independent of the choice of baseline.) Less if you use a trend of just the last 10 years. Probably less because the warming rate is accelerating:

The error bars are the 95% confidence limit.

Unless an asteroid hits us (*or a comet, or the sun falters, or aliens put up a sunscreen to get rid of us, or there's global nuclear war, you know what I mean), we're hitting 1.5°C of warming in just a few years. 

There should be a global funeral, organized by someone at the right time.

So linear regression is probably losing some of its efficacy. You could also say that the 30-yr trend from the period ~1969 to ~1992 is larger than that from ~1992-today, so the global warming trend is slowing down. "The pause" still makes it difficult to reach decadal changes. 

The 30-yr warming rate from ~1992 to ~2016 was (according to the graph above) about constant which does not say that warming paused, it just didn't accelerate. Since then the linear trend has increased, which is an acceleration of warming. The linear trend of global temperatures since Jan 2016 is +0.32°C/decade, but since the beginning of 2017 it's +0.43°C/decade. Error bars on each are 0.10°C/decade.

Foster and Rahmstorf wrote a paper earlier this year saying global warming has accelerated. (It's open access.) They are much more careful about how they do fits (lowess instead of regression) and obtain this:

PLF=piecewise linear function. You can read the paper if you're ambitious. (Today is a Friday so you're probably not. Me neither, and in any case I have other work to do.) 

Cheers.

 

Warren Zevon When Younger

Late last year I posted about Warren Zevon's last appearance on the David Letterman show, on October 30, 2002. He died 11 months later at the age of 56. On that video he looks rather tired and resigned, but I just found a performance of his from 1982. He's 20 years younger and, of course, much more animated and vivacious. I never saw anything like this before. He was about 36 yrs old.

World Cup & Football/Soccer in the US

I watched three of the last few World Cups games: England vs Norway, Spain vs France and England vs Argentina, and was going to write about them and why I think soccer/football is unlikely to ever catch on in the US. Then I realized I know very little about this sport and, moreover, I don't care what the average American thinks of the game, or of anything really, I mean, they re-elected Trump. So I decided to just shut the f up.

The Last Ever Climate Science Report

Short But Moving

NYT: "In April, the energy think tank Ember found that all of the new electricity demand around the world in 2025 was met with green power." 

The whole interview ("The Very Good and Very Bad News on Climate," with Bill McKibben) is worth reading. Free link.

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China's population peaked in 2021 and has declined every year since. In 2025 it was 5.8 million lower than the peak year, or -0.4%.

On the other hand (assuming I have two hands, which I do), India's population has increased every year, by 0.9% each of the last three years. India's population was 1.464 B in 2025, compared to China's 1.407 B that year. The difference is 57 M.  

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In the US, coal mining jobs in June 26 were 39.3 K. That's a change of -1.2 K since Trump2 took office. During Trump1 the change was -12.6 K, and during Biden the change was +2.3 K. 

I feel kind of bad for coal miners, who all three times supported Trump. I guess for them it's jobs but also guns & Jesus. I guess that explains why they voted for a guy again even though jobs were down 25% during his first term. It wasn't entirely the pandemic; coal mining jobs were down 5.9 K in March 2021, -12% from when Trump's first term began.

Someone should be designing & implementing a huge job training program for coal miners because these jobs are going, boys, and they ain't coming back. You know, like what Hillary proposed. But she got slammed in her 2016 presidential campaign for wording it wrong, saying "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business," during a March 2016 CNN town hall in Columbus, Ohio. It might have cost her the election. 

Short but moving:

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Various Bullet Points

I was wrong on this post from 2 days ago: the El Niño is already here. NOAA called it on June 11.

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Capitalism at its most rapacious: a women was kicked off a plane for someone who paid more for her seat. Happened in the US, of course.

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The January 2025 fires in Los Angeles burned an area equivalent to a square 9.5 miles on a side. 51 deaths, 18,000 homes and other structures destroyed. Journalists could start calling these events "heat bombs," the deaths from very extreme heat. 

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The Athletic:

The city of Buenos Aires, it found, had a disproportionately high number of therapists; 222 of them per 100,000 people. The United States, in comparison, had 30.

When you watch Argentina play, you can understand why. After every game, you need to talk to someone. You have to share what you’ve been through. “Am I losing my mind? Is this normal? How do I cope?”

One minute, you’re on the floor. Down and depressed. The next, you’re in heaven. Euphoric. The adrenaline. The dopamine. It’s a natural psychedelic. It’s no surprise Argentinians follow their national team everywhere. This is more than patriotism. It’s an addiction. Everyone tells you it’s not healthy. You know you should stop. But nothing has made you feel this way before, and you crave that feeling again and again and again.

The feeling hit hard in Atlanta on Tuesday.