{"id":433889,"date":"2026-03-24T16:10:03","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T15:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=433889"},"modified":"2026-03-24T16:10:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T15:10:05","slug":"wrong-mainstream-media-people-are-not-going-to-die-from-inactivity-due-to-global-warming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=433889","title":{"rendered":"Wrong, Mainstream Media, People Are Not Going to Die from Inactivity Due to Global Warming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Linnea Lueken<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several mainstream media outlets, including The Daily Mail<\/em>, Economic Times<\/em>, and The Washington Post <\/em>released articles referencing a study that claims global warming will result in a decline in exercise and physical activity, leading to a large increase in premature deaths. This is nonsense. This study relies entirely on assumptions that can\u2019t be proven and notably unrealistic computer model scenarios. The media should have shown a little justified skepticism and debunked this research, or ignored it entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Daily Mail<\/em> titled their article \u201cTerrifying study predicts exactly how many people will DIE by 2050 if we don\u2019t take urgent action to curb climate change<\/a>.\u201d The title is obviously hyperbolic, meant to frighten readers instead of informing them, demonstrating right away some problems with how the study was conducted. The Washington Post\u2019s<\/em> headline was only slightly less alarming, \u201cInactivity in a warming world could spur hundreds of thousands of deaths<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to The Daily Mail<\/em>, the researchers \u201cset out to understand how rising temperatures will affect physical activity \u2013 and as a result, premature deaths,\u201d which calls into question whether this study is a case of finding data to fit a particular conclusion, especially since it depends on computer models the researchers had to program the conditions for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study<\/a> concluded that \u201cby 2050, each additional month with an average temperature above 27.8\u00b0C will increase physical inactivity by 1.5 per cent globally,\u201d which \u201ctranslates to a predicted 470,000 to 700,000 additional premature deaths every year \u2013 and up to $3.68 billion in productivity losses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study admits that \u201cglobal evidence on how sustained warming translates into physical inactivity remains scarce, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries.\u201d Yet those low- to middle-income countries are also the ones, generally, that the study says are the most at risk of the impact of heat-induced sedentary lifestyles. So, it seems where data are absent or lacking, the idea is that it is legitimate to use computer model projections to make it up. No need to go about the hard scientific work of actually doing research and collecting real world data. Contrary to the impression given by various media outlets\u2019 headlines, there is no real-world data indicating that people exercise less if temperature rises by one or two degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The countries this study says are most at risk are places where hot temperatures are the norm, especially around the equator, like equatorial nations in Latin America, the Caribbean, East Asia, and the Pacific. In those countries, often lacking modern energy infrastructure, people have always gone about their business daily working and playing in the hot sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the many problems here is that climate change theory, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and data agree that the greatest amount of temperature change in a warming world is occurring and will occur at the poles. Countries around the equator experience little if any rise in temperatures and attendant climate impacts. Another problem is that most warming occurs at night\u2014it\u2019s not that daytime highs are becoming much higher, but nighttime lows are less<\/em> low. That is not something one would expect to have an impact on physical exercise. People don\u2019t typically exercise in the middle of the night, they are sleeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another problem is that this study relies on the infamous and widely discredited SSP5-8.5, which is a very extreme<\/a>, in fact, likely impossible, scenario compared to real world emission trends. The future warming and associated impacts predicted by SSP5-8.5 are simply not going to come to pass. Using bad science to promote policy is irresponsible. Climate Realism<\/a><\/em> has addressed the failings acknowledged by climate scientists of the 8.5 climate change emissions scenario on a number of occasions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study presents layers and layers of computer simulations with assumptions built in every step of the way. As Climate Realism<\/em> has often shown (here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>, for example) computer models that produce outputs that don\u2019t match real-world observations and data prove nothing other than the fact that the models are inadequate. What real-world data show is that cold<\/a> kills far more people than heat each year, by a factor of 10 to one, and as the Earth has modestly warmed, deaths tied to non-optimum temperatures have fallen dramatically<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This study is not \u201cterrifying\u201d unless you assume that human beings are one-track, unadaptable automatons doomed to simply sit around and suffer from slightly warmer average temperatures. In reality, when the temperature outside bothers people, they simply move indoors to exercise or shift the times when they exercise, taking their walk or run in the evening or early morning rather than midday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study suggests that air conditioning (AC)  contributes to a sedentary \u201cfeedback loop,\u201d where more AC makes people lazier. Yet the AC the authors and media outlets complain about is widely acknowledged to save tens of thousands of lives each year, as discussed at Climate Realism<\/a><\/em>, and in studies published by the American Medical Association<\/a> and the International Energy Agency<\/a>. Indeed, air conditioning is common in gyms, recreation centers, and other places where people exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mainstream media, including The Daily Mail<\/em> and others, are using this study to fearmonger but the connections are so tenuous it\u2019s barely science at all. There are many factors that contribute to sedentary lifestyles, including culture, and there is no reason to think that increasing wealth and access to technology that can provide some respite from the heat won\u2019t help mitigate any dangers from high temperatures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several mainstream media outlets, including The Daily Mail, Economic Times, and The Washington Post released articles referencing a study that claims global warming will result in a decline in exercise and physical activity, leading to a large increase in premature deaths. This is nonsense. This study relies entirely on assumptions that can\u2019t be proven and notably unrealistic computer model scenarios. The media should have shown a little justified skepticism and debunked this research, or ignored it entirely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":433890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691822135,691818056,691819743,691836568,691818087,691820111,691821837],"class_list":{"0":"post-433889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-american-medical-association-ama","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-climate-propaganda","11":"tag-computer-model-projections","12":"tag-global-warming","13":"tag-mainstream-media","14":"tag-rising-temperatures","16":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0sammy-sander-man-5530768-scaled-1.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1OSd","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":225951,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=225951","url_meta":{"origin":433889,"position":0},"title":"Wrong, BBC, Global Human Health Outcomes Are Improving as Climate Changes","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"10\/27\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The timing of the report\u2019s release and attendant media coverage of it are intended to spur climate action by government negotiators at the forthcoming 27th\u00a0Conference of the Parties (U.N. 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