Hot Facts about Heat – Follow-up
14 hours ago Kip Hansen
Opinion by Kip Hansen — 5 July 2024
In a recent essay, Hot Facts about Heat, I said:
“I have been communicating with the Climate Indicators team at EPA about this: they up-dated the Heat-Related, but not the Cold-Related, Deaths page. And yes, golly, it does suspiciously look like they have managed to change down-trending data into up-trending data. Not jumping to conclusions yet. I’ll let readers know when I have sorted it out with EPA.”
I wrote a pleasant inquiry to the Climate Indicators Team at the EPA: (excerpt):
“I am a Science Research Journalist and appreciate your reply. However, …we are counting on your team to keep these indicators up to date for all of us — the Cold Deaths data is now eight years out of date, or, being charitable, six years allowing for the two-year lag at CDC.
If you are familiar with the data on the two pages, Heat and Cold deaths, you will realize that the official statement made on the Heat Deaths page is in error. It states “Heat is the leading weather-related killer in the United States” — which your data on the Heat and Cold Deaths directly refutes. Cold is shown as have a death rate per million at 5.5 to 6 (even back in 2016) while even the updated Heat Deaths does not even reach 5 per million.
Given this, it appears that EPA is intentionally or negligently obfuscating the data to support a false claim.
I would appreciate a more thorough answer before I go to press.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/07/05/hot-facts-about-heat-follow-up/
