Costs of Climate Change - Deaths

 I supposed the ultimate cost of any catastrophe would be the deaths the catastrophe causes.  Climate change has been identified as a cause of a significant number of deaths globally.

The World Health Organization has estimated that close to 500,000 deaths globally can be attributed to heat.  And we all know that climate change is making things hotter.  In Europe, the number has been estimated to be around 175,000 heat-related deaths, as described here:

Heat in European region kills 175,000 a year, WHO estimates

Mostly what the heat does is make various chronic conditions worse.  Conditions like cardio-and-cerebro-vascular diseases (strokes and such).  Diabetes-related conditions as well.  Of course, many of these chronic conditions are more common in the elderly.  However, as we saw during the pandemic, some people see the elderly as expendable, especially when it comes to taking any kind of proactive measures like masking, vaccinating or, in the case of climate change, actively working to reduce greenhouse gases.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released an analysis looking into the various ways climate change was impacting people.  It can be seen here:

Climate Impacts on Human Health

Basically, the report looks at things like temperature, vector-borne diseases, food safety and nutrition, mental health concerns and air quality impacts.

Air quality, of course is affected in a number of ways.  With increasing temperatures, ground level ozone is expected to increase.  More forest fires, already happening because of more hot and dry conditions, causes increases in particulate matter in the air.  These all have quite negative effects on health.

Food and nutrition will be affected, as shown in the following picture (a larger image can be found on the link above):

The Climate Atlas of Canada also has an article dealing with Climate change and Health.  The article considers many of the same issues and includes a number of actions that can be taken to mitigate the effects of those issues.

Once again, it's clear that inaction on climate change is going to be costly, particularly in terms of human health.