The Lancet pulls a fast one 10

[JoshPlumSE]

That is a good report, except for the summary at the top, where it says that global warming will increase temperature deaths. It reports an increase in deaths from high temperatures, but a much greater decrease from low temperatures. By my sums, the report itself says that worldwide, or at least in the countries they reported on, there were some 6.19 million deaths from cold, and only 637000 from hot. How could rise in temperature fail to decrease the net death rate from temperature? This study, a good Australian one by the way, has destroyed your theory.

Good summary.... Certainly, there is a tendency to ignore the BENEFITS of small levels of global warming. There is also a HUGE tendency to ignore the benefits to the use of fossil fuels. Meaning that climate related deaths (from either heat or cold) are greatly reduced by the use of fossil fuels. So, if temperatures were to stay the same as they are now with no increase or decrease then the death rate from these events would go WAAAY up based on the current policies related to fossil fuels.

 

[BridgeSmith]

It took me a few minutes to notice that the scale on the left is 5x the scale on the right. When you have do crap like that to push your agenda, it makes it obvious you have no scientific support for that agenda.

 

[SwinnyGG]

It took me a few minutes to notice that the scale on the left is 5x the scale on the right

You mean the scale which still very clearly indicates a much larger number of deaths due to cold weather than to heat?

That scale?

 

[BridgeSmith]

You mean the scale which still very clearly indicates a much larger number of deaths due to cold weather than to heat?

Except the graph visually doesn't "clearly indicates a much larger number of deaths due to cold". It minimizes the difference by a factor of 5, making it look as though heat kills nearly as many people in Europe as the cold does.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

You mean the scale which still very clearly indicates a much larger number of deaths due to cold weather than to heat?

The point is that the chart (at least at first glance) is still deceptive. But, the if they used the same scale on both sides, it becomes overwhelmingly obvious that we should be much more concerned about deaths due to cold than to heat.

I won't say that it was INTENTIONALLY deceptive. This is one single chart from that paper, they may have been many. I'd have to see the chart in context of the paper in which it was included in order to give a full critique of the article itself.

My biggest takeaway is what I mentioned in my previous post. That there are BENEFITS to global warming that get ignored. There are certainly serious drawbacks as well that we should be concerned about. But, when evaluating how to spend limited government funds, we are really obliged to spend them on ways that best benefit our country (and mankind overall).

 

[SwinnyGG]

clearly indicates a much larger number of deaths due to cold

It does so extremely clearly. The fact that you couldn't figure it out at first glance is not the fault of the maker of the chart. Lack of reading comprehension on the part of the reader does not mean the writer had some insidious purpose.

You're taking that point of view because you want to. Simple as that.

But, the if they used the same scale on both sides, it becomes overwhelmingly obvious that we should be much more concerned about deaths due to cold than to heat.

It's still obvious from that chart that 'cold death' numbers are much larger than 'heat death' numbers. If that's supposed to be the main takeaway from the chart, that's exactly what it communicates.

They modified the scale on the heat side to show additional granularity between the various values. Had they used the same scale, it would've appeared that many of those countries had 'heat death' numbers which were exactly the same, which would be a misrepresentation of the data. It also would have made it much more difficult to easily read the age band values for each country on that side of the chart.

They had very good reasons to present the chart the way they did which have nothing to do with hiding data.

 

[TugboatEng]

They had very good reasons to present the chart the way they did which have nothing to do with hiding data.

Do you know this to be a fact? Did you ask the authors? Your's and Greg's assumptions have equal validity. However, with the patterns of data manipulation we see so regularly that tends to bias our assumptions.

 

[SwinnyGG]

with the patterns of data manipulation we see so regularly that tends to bias our assumptions.

You see 'patterns of data manipulation' where and when you want to.

Your personal point of view has nothing to do with the truth.

I don't have to ask the author - because I can read a chart. I understood that the two halves of the chart were scaled differently upon the first viewing. It's not hard. They made it very clear.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

It's still obvious from that chart that 'cold death' numbers are much larger than 'heat death' numbers. If that's supposed to be the main takeaway from the chart, that's exactly what it communicates.

You see 'patterns of data manipulation' where and when you want to.

I think the key factor is context. I don't know the context where that data was presented. I don't know how it was described. It might be in a very academic paper and was done solely for brevity of space. If, however, it was done for a popular publication (like USA today or such) meant for the general public, then that is something else.

The general public tends not to be as discerning about such things. Or, as good at detecting data manipulation. I'll be happy to suggest that the "patterns of data manipulation" that TugBoat is referring to is likely related to items published in mainstream media targeting the general population. And, not related to the more academic articles that I suspect this graph came from.

 

[SwinnyGG]

Lancet is a scientific journal.

 

[LionelHutz]

The whole part of using charts and graphs is to be capable of visually comparing data. I can recall many charts where the overall chart like that would use one common scale so it properly represent all the data in a way that could be easily visually compared. Then they'd expand the low resolution parts to a larger scale to better illustrate that part of the data or they would also provide the data in a table so the actual numbers are available.

With this chart, I have to read the data of each bar from the scales and go back and forth to try and compare hot vs cold. If I have to read off the data points to compare them then just put the damn data in a table. Making a chart to visually represent data with scales that makes the visual rather useless is simply dumb at best and gamesmanship at worst. I haven't looked at the report, but if the numbers are also in a table then I'd 100% call it gamesmanship.

Claiming they ~had~ to do it that way so the data is readable is not a particularly strong argument for making stupid charts like this.

 

[LionelHutz]

My biggest takeaway is what I mentioned in my previous post. That there are BENEFITS to global warming that get ignored. There are certainly serious drawbacks as well that we should be concerned about. But, when evaluating how to spend limited government funds, we are really obliged to spend them on ways that best benefit our country (and mankind overall).

I agree. Unfortunately, a lot of spending is done to line the pockets of the politicians buddies these days.

 

[rb1957]

"Claiming they ~had~ to do it that way so the data is readable is not a particularly strong argument for making stupid charts like this." ... they could have used a log axis ... it is a scientific journal, after all.

"a lot of spending is done to line the pockets of the politicians buddies these days." ... and yesterday and tomorrow ... t'was (and will be) ever thus.


"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.

 

[LionelHutz]

They couldn't use a logarithmic scale though, the blue bar is divided into shades for various age groups.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Claiming they ~had~ to do it that way so the data is readable is not a particularly strong argument for making stupid charts like this.

I don't think they HAD to do it that way. It just MIGHT have been simpler for them within the context of all the data they were presenting. I still say that the context of this chart is the most important.

The chart by itself (without any context), is definitely deceptive. We can disagree on the level of deception. Does the chart still get the main point across, or does it truly minimize it. That's all debatable.

However, I haven't read the journal article. So, I don't want to assign improper motivations to the authors. The discussion of this chart may not be what we think they are. They might have been talking specifically about how much more dangerous cold weather is in terms of climate related deaths. They might present their data a number of different ways. I just don't know.

I certainly understand why many people would assign such motivations to the authors. This is based on a lot of dishonest reporting from journalists in the past. But, I'm pretty sure the author's aren't journalists. They may be activist researchers who want to get this sort of thing into the mainstream media. Or, they may have just put together a crapload of charts to present their data and didn't do a great job on this one.

 

[bradrs]

Is there a link to the article that shows that graph? I agree that it seems a bit deceptive at least, if you just look at the lines without looking at the scale. You see more red area than blue area. If people are reading quickly or otherwise not focused on the details of the chart, they might assume that the scale is the same. If they really wanted to make it easier to differentiate between the groups within a specific bar, different colors would have been easier to see/differentiate vs different transparency levels of the same color.

 

[Rputvin]

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/...23)00023-2/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_aip_email

 

[SwinnyGG]

Literally the first line of the findings summary:

Across the 854 urban areas in Europe, we estimated an annual excess of 203 620 (empirical 95% CI 180 882–224 613) deaths attributed to cold and 20 173 (17 261–22 934) attributed to heat.

Makes it quite clear that the results of the study are that excess 'cold deaths' exceed excess 'heat deaths' by a factor of 10.

This is the description of the chart from the report - which basically just verbally describes the data presented, including maxima for age groups and heat/vs cold. Zero political interpretation. Zero intent to do anything other than just show the numbers..

Figure 3 shows the raw excess death rates broken down by age groups at the country level. For both cold and heat, the effect was noticeably larger for the oldest age group, with 82 (72 to 91) and seven (six to eight) excess deaths per 100 000 person-years. This excess represented around 60% of the total burden for both cold and heat. In contrast, there was around one death per 100 000 person-years in the youngest age group for cold, and less than one per 100 000 person-years for heat. The impact of cold is important everywhere, but is generally smaller in the western region and larger in the northern and eastern regions, with a maximum of 240 (151 to 327) raw excess deaths per 100 000 person-years due to cold in Latvia. There is wider heterogeneity in the effect of heat, which is low in the northern region, with the exception of Latvia and Lithuania, and much higher in the southern region, with a maximum of 37 (25 to 49) excess deaths per 100 000 person-years in Croatia.

if you just look at the lines without looking at the scale. You see more red area than blue area

Literally not true. If this chart was presented with no scale at all, it still very clearly shows about double the area committed to excess 'cold deaths' as compared to 'heat deaths'.

This whole conversation is baffling to me. There is literally zero political influence in the context of this chart as presented in the report, and no intent to deceive by the authors.

In my opinion the only reason you would ever interpret that graphic in that way is if your personal point of view is so strongly biased against any scientific communication of climate-science-related-data that you believe nothing in the data can possibly be true. This is a case where bias is only there if you're determined for it to be.

I continue to be so disappointed in the culture of this forum.

This article contains a whole lot of interesting data - and that data would make a case for someone to argue about whether global warming actually means fewer excess deaths overall. That would be an interesting conversation where we could talk data. Like, you know, engineers.

Instead, out of the entire article, one chart gets quoted completely out of context and gets a bunch of political assignment assigned to it which pretty plainly isn't there when it's viewed in context.

Aren't we better than this? If not, shouldn't we be?

 

[GregLocock]

Except that The Lancet has history in scary climate scienciness.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[BridgeSmith]

As engineers we strive to provide clarity in what we provide to our clients don't we? The details we provide to the contractors to build our bridges are drawn to scale. We don't show a 1' wide corbel wider than the 2.5' wide abutment it's on. That would be misleading. We show pile lengths, span lengths, curb heights, etc. all to scale. Should we not expect similar clarity from a scientific journal?

SwinnyGG, you can express your disappointment with the responses of your fellow forum members all you like, and since you feel that's fair game, let me express my disappointment with you stating speculation as fact; i.e. stating there was "no intent to deceive by the authors." None of us here know the intent of the report's authors. If you want us to respond in analytical fashion, perhaps you could set the example, and be careful to qualify your speculations as such.