As the United Nations’ annual global climate conference, Cop27, begins, it’s important to look with scepticism at the academic reports many news outlets cite as evidence supporting radical climate policies. Too often, they use highly skewed data that seem to have been carefully selected to support aggressive environmental regulations. One recent and much-cited Lancet report appears deliberately deceptive.
The study offers a frightening statistic: rapidly rising temperatures have increased annual global heat deaths among older people by 68 per cent in less than two decades. That stark figure has been cited all over, from the BBC and Time to the Washington Post and the Times of India, the world’s largest-selling English-language daily. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres publicised the report, tweeting a link with a grave
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