Perhaps the goal of climate hysteria-mongers isn’t really to save the planet at all, but to drown it in so much nonsense that rational people grow weary of fighting the New World Order they are attempting to impose upon us.
Monday’s edition of The New York Times ran an article titled “Heat Deaths Jump in Southwest United States, Puzzling Officials.”
The jump involved a spike in deaths over a four-year period in Arizona and Nevada, most of which occurred in Phoenix and Las Vegas. While the increase was statistically significant — 105 in 2014 versus 374 in 2017 — we’re talking about fewer than 70 people a year in two cities with combined populations of over 5 million
In a desert.
In summertime.
Throw in the 40 million tourists that Las Vegas plays host to annually and the problem, while worth looking at, doesn’t seem quite as alarming.
Where the Times goes with this is what caught my eye:
The long-term health effects of rising temperatures and heat waves are expected to be one of the most dangerous consequences of climate change, causing “tens of thousands of additional premature deaths per year across the United States by the end of this century,” according to the federal government’s Global Change Research Program. The effect could be even more severe in other parts of the world, potentially making parts of North Africa and the Middle East “uninhabitable.”
Still, the fact that deaths have already increased so rapidly in Nevada and Arizona is surprising, according to David Hondula, a professor at the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. He said heat deaths have generally been declining in the United States, thanks to changes like better health care, more air-conditioning and improved weather forecasting.
I was born — and now live again — in the Sonoran Desert, which is where Phoenix is. It’s hot here. Always has been. I live in one of the cooler parts of this desert (Tucson) and it’s going to be 106 here today. At the end of August.
Because it’s a desert.
It has always been hot here. I once asked my grandfather what they did here during the summer in the days before air conditioning. His terse reply, “Not much.”
The article does explore more plausible explanations, like an increase in the number of homeless or elderly people in the two cities.
While the Las Vegas homeless population has decreased, the number of tourists isn’t factored into the possibilities in the article. Tourists, by the way, are notoriously stupid when visiting the desert:
A group of nearly four dozen fitness coordinators from Kansas became overwhelmed while hiking in the Superstitions yesterday, and two needed to be airlifted: https://t.co/eCfT4f5JpE #abc15 pic.twitter.com/Hav7afNVhi
— ABC15 Arizona (@abc15) August 24, 2019
Also left out of consideration is the fact that Phoenix is the fastest growing city in the United States, and Las Vegas is in the Top 15.
Again, the increase is definitely worth exploring, and I’m not diminishing the fact that people are dying. The heat in the desert is very, very dangerous. I was outside for 15 minutes one day last week when it was 109 and got lightheaded, and I handle the heat very well.
My problem with this entire article is that it leads with the climate change stuff and sticks with it, even while admitting authorities aren’t sure exactly why the increase happened.
Even if it is on average a couple of degrees warmer in the desert now than it was in the early part of the century, there is air-conditioning everywhere, as the article mentioned.
The difference between 104 degrees and 106 degrees is probably not suddenly making people die. It’s all dangerous after 100 degrees, even when the humidity is low. The desert sun is not to be trifled with no matter how much humidity is in the air.
The article concludes with something painfully predictable from the climate crowd — a plea for the government to do more.
The government can’t make outdoor summer temperatures any cooler in Phoenix.
Because it’s a desert.
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Stephen Kruiser is the author of “Don’t Let the Hippies Shower” and “Straight Outta Feelings: Political Zen in the Age of Outrage,” both of which address serious subjects in a humorous way. Monday through Friday he edits PJ Media’s “Morning Briefing.”
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