Thanks for the post. This makes sense—so many more deaths are caused by eating more chicken that it makes sense to avoid it altogether. This reminds me of the recommendations done in One Step for Animals.
However, I am a bit bothered that the climate change study doesn’t include the impact on famines, wars, infectious diseases, floods and other risks—since they are by far the biggest risks. The biggest danger of climate change isn’t heat—it’s that it changes absolutely everything else in the Earth system.
According to this study, the excess deaths from temperature are much larger than the deaths from climate change related famines, floods,… I’m not sure if deaths from wars have to be included, because I would say the aggressor who starts the war is responsible for those deaths.
I don’t have access to the study (I may find a way to access it later). I’m just surprised by the result.
The most pessimistic pathway without mitigation would result in a net economic impact equivalent to 6.6% (3.9–8.6%) of global GDP at the end of this century.
This impact sounds awfully small. The worst climate causing a decrease of 4% to 8% GDP?
Are these impacts derived from DICE or calculations by Nordhaus, or his peers ? If yes, there are huge methodological flaws in the way this results was obtained (for instance, they only model the impact on GDP for outdoors activites).
I recommend watching this video to understand commons limits of calculations made on GDP impacts.
I really deaths from war should be included, if the war wouldn’t have taken place without climate change (which is of course very hard to evaluate—climate change is one factor that adds pressure but is combined with others).
Neither DICE nor calculations by Nordhaus were used in that study. Here I was not talking about the impact on GDP, but on the expected deaths from undernourishment, fluvial flooding,… (supplementary material figure 3) (These deaths were then used to calculate loss of economic welfare in monetary terms using the value of a statistical life, but that contestable step is not important here.)
Ok, I don’t really have the time to look into this in detail, this just sounds very much like an underestimate (especially as economic predictions usually don’t include tipping points, cascading risks, and include poorly tail risks).
For instance, at −5°C compared to preindustrial during the last ice age, the North of America and Europe (including Canada and Scotland) were under a 3km thick ice sheet. I fear current climate change damage models would count this as a 4% GDP loss.
Thanks for referring to that study. That 1 death per 1000 tons is in the same order of magnitude of the 1 death per 4000 tons that I used based on Daniel Bressler’s study. So I think the main takeaways are still valid. But yes, there is a possibility that deaths from climate induced famines, wars,… are some orders of magnitude larger than deaths from temperature change
Just read the article by Parncutt about the 1000 tonne rule. Apparently, it is 1 death per 1000 tonnes of carbon, i.e. 1 death per 3700 tonnes of CO2, close to Bressler’s estimate
Thanks for the post. This makes sense—so many more deaths are caused by eating more chicken that it makes sense to avoid it altogether. This reminds me of the recommendations done in One Step for Animals.
However, I am a bit bothered that the climate change study doesn’t include the impact on famines, wars, infectious diseases, floods and other risks—since they are by far the biggest risks. The biggest danger of climate change isn’t heat—it’s that it changes absolutely everything else in the Earth system.
I have a found another study that thinks there is 1 additional deaths for 1000 tons emitted : https://​​www.frontiersin.org/​​articles/​​10.3389/​​fpsyg.2019.02323/​​full#h5. What do you think about it ?
This doesn’t change your conclusion that meat should be avoided altogether I think.
According to this study, the excess deaths from temperature are much larger than the deaths from climate change related famines, floods,… I’m not sure if deaths from wars have to be included, because I would say the aggressor who starts the war is responsible for those deaths.
I don’t have access to the study (I may find a way to access it later). I’m just surprised by the result.
This impact sounds awfully small. The worst climate causing a decrease of 4% to 8% GDP?
Are these impacts derived from DICE or calculations by Nordhaus, or his peers ? If yes, there are huge methodological flaws in the way this results was obtained (for instance, they only model the impact on GDP for outdoors activites).
I recommend watching this video to understand commons limits of calculations made on GDP impacts.
This papers on the topic is also very interesting.
I really deaths from war should be included, if the war wouldn’t have taken place without climate change (which is of course very hard to evaluate—climate change is one factor that adds pressure but is combined with others).
Neither DICE nor calculations by Nordhaus were used in that study. Here I was not talking about the impact on GDP, but on the expected deaths from undernourishment, fluvial flooding,… (supplementary material figure 3) (These deaths were then used to calculate loss of economic welfare in monetary terms using the value of a statistical life, but that contestable step is not important here.)
Ok, I don’t really have the time to look into this in detail, this just sounds very much like an underestimate (especially as economic predictions usually don’t include tipping points, cascading risks, and include poorly tail risks).
For instance, at −5°C compared to preindustrial during the last ice age, the North of America and Europe (including Canada and Scotland) were under a 3km thick ice sheet. I fear current climate change damage models would count this as a 4% GDP loss.
Thanks for referring to that study. That 1 death per 1000 tons is in the same order of magnitude of the 1 death per 4000 tons that I used based on Daniel Bressler’s study. So I think the main takeaways are still valid. But yes, there is a possibility that deaths from climate induced famines, wars,… are some orders of magnitude larger than deaths from temperature change
Just read the article by Parncutt about the 1000 tonne rule. Apparently, it is 1 death per 1000 tonnes of carbon, i.e. 1 death per 3700 tonnes of CO2, close to Bressler’s estimate
Oh, true. I didn’t catch that.
Thanks for the precision.