From WSJopinion: Using previous years’ data to extrapolate, climate-related deaths will probably total about 6,600 by the end of the year. That’s almost 99% less than the death toll a century ago, writes BjornLomborg
, only measuring the total damage of natural disasters over time misses the important point—there’s much more stuff to damage today than there was several decades ago.
Still it’s easy to misuse the data to make things seem worse than they actually are. The International Disaster Database—the biggest disaster data depository in the world—attempts to register every catastrophe around the globe using reports from sources ranging from the press to insurance companies to United Nations agencies.
Death totals, on the other hand, are much less pliable. While reports on climate catastrophes multiplied over the last century, large-scale deaths have been consistently recorded. In fact, the disaster database’s death toll is very close to official estimates. And that data tells an incredible and heartening story. A century ago, almost half a million people died on average each year from storms, floods, droughts, wildfires and extreme temperatures.
As has been the case across this series of articles, economic growth and technological innovation get the credit for our improving position. Human beings are pretty good at adapting to their environment, even if it’s changing. Keep that in mind when you see another worried headline about climate disasters.
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