PH02

I think you may have missed the point. It's not a matter of more old people, it's more old people relative to the rest of the population.

The excess death numbers reported will happen because more people live longer in the EU than in other places. Those excess death numbers can't be sustained over time, because our population pyramid will gradually resemble something more like yours.

Alternatively put, if the EU population pyramid resembled the US population pyramid we wouldn't have the excess death numbers that have been reported during the heatwaves (because most of those people would have already been dead).

It's not the case that people are boiling in the streets. It's more similar to COVID-19. People who were going to die relatively soon die earlier. That's what excess deaths is.

People live longer in many parts of Europe than the USA. Does that mean the USA is somehow negligent?

Excess deaths due to heat are primarily the in the elderly. The excess numbers we are seeing now are because the proportion of elderly people in France, Germany and Spain are higher than in the USA.

If the population pyramid in the EU was more similar to that of the USA the number of excess deaths would be lower. I'm not sure negligent is the correct word to use. Climate change will reduce quality of life. Because of these changes people will not live as long.

That's how excess deaths work.

Yes there are going to be a lot of excess deaths. To be honest anyone who doesn't understand that the number of excess deaths we are seeing now is a fraction of what is going to happen worldwide doesn't understand what is happening. I'm not arguing that isn't happening. I was saying the very widely reported graphs that started this whole 'why don't europeans fit AC everywhere' argument was based on modelling.

Your solution is to put AC all over Europe. That won't work because our buildings are not made for AC, the amount of retrofitting required would be insane and it probably wouldn't have a significant impact on excess deaths. Counties like France and Germany have a higher percentage of elderly relative to the USA. These people will be contributing massively to the excess deaths. Your AC solution is not going to be in place fast enough for them.

I'm not sure what you mean. I'm in the UK we categorized into deaths due to COVID-19 and those who died with COVID-19.

If you get hit by a truck while infected with COVID-19 you died because you were hit by a truck. I'm not sure how you would do it any other way.

The US gun deaths figure comes from death certificates. The EU heat death figures comes from modelling.

I'll leave it to you to work out why that comparison doesn't hold.

What a genius idea. How about we pump the heat out of our buildings into the already hot local environment? We could use electricity to do it and increase our carbon footprints.

You should compare the average carbon footprint in the US with the EU before making these kind of comments.