While more elderly tend to die during heat waves, the modern proximate cause is lack of air conditioning brought on by, say, making electricity too expensive.
From HealthCanal.com:
–2012 was the hottest year on record. How will a warmer global climate affect the growing elderly population? In a session presented at the American College of Sports Medicine’s 60th Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, W. Larry Kenney, Ph.D., FACSM, of Penn State University, will discuss how climate change affects human life and death, with an emphasis on the world’s aging population.
“Global warming increases the frequency and severity of heat waves. People over age 65 die at disproportionate rates during heat waves,” said Dr. Kenney. “Surprisingly, death is typically related to cardiovascular complications rather than heat stroke.”
Let’s assume for a moment that I have a magical deathclock that can account for all possible causes of death except weather.
I scan grandpa and it says he has three months left due to his gradually worsening heart condition.
However, he expires on an extraordinarily hot day in July.
Is it accurate to say that global warming caused that hot day?
Is it accurate to say that the heat on that single day “caused” his death?
Sadly I have no such deathclock, but does it take a genius to figure out that disproportionate numbers of elderly people dying from cardiac problems during heat waves is not surprising in the least?
The problem for most seniors is not excessive warmth but moderate cold that has no affect onyounger people. That’s why many seniors do as I have done: emigrate to the tropics.
Did he define heat wave? A heat wave at Penn State is very likely normal summer farther south. One of the things I’ve discovered since becoming one of these doddering, north of 65 persons, is getting old isn’t for sissies because everything is out to kill you. It’s supposed to be in the 90’s today, does that mean I don’t change the oil in two cars and spend the afternoon outside at a shooting range?
Hey, W. Larry, how about some comparable statistics on cold conditions?!
What a jerk.