Report on Global Warming Deaths 'Worse Than Fiction'

More than 315,000 dead from climate change each year — that's the estimate presented by the Global Humanitarian Forum's report last week. But experts on climate change risks have said that the figure represents a statistical phantom. 

"It is a methodological embarrassment and poster child for how to lie with statistics," writes Roger Pielke Jr., a policy expert on climate change at the University of Colorado, Boulder, on his Prometheus blog. 

Pielke posted his full criticism on the blog, which was originally cited in a New York Times story last week. He points out that the estimate of deaths comes from the "very strange comparison of earthquake and weather disasters in 1980 and 2005" — something that he finds flawed for many reasons, but mainly because previous reports have noted the difficulty of linking climate change to losses from natural disasters such as hurricanes. 

Keep in mind that Pielke considers climate change to be a serious issue which requires action. He has also previously talked about the effects of natural disasters on poorer nations, which the Global Humanitarian Forum's report emphasizes. But he has not hesitated to critique what he considers as numbers manipulation by notable scientists or advocates, including Al Gore. 

A majority of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and could have serious impacts on human communities worldwide. Pielke's fear is that "deeply flawed" reports such as the latest will only backfire on encouraging action on both climate change and natural disasters.