NRDC released a report [this week] projecting that more than 150,000 additional Americans could die by the end of this century due to excessive heat caused by climate change. This startling conclusion is based on peer-reviewed scientific papers published recently by Dr. Larry Kalkstein and colleagues.

This is the kind of study that should make headlines around the country but is generally ignored when published only in scholarly journals. So NRDC is presenting the information in a more accessible manner, adding calculations of the cumulative additional death toll attributable to projected global warming by mid-century and century’s end (the report, including these additional calculations, was reviewed by Dr. Kalkstein to ensure that we have presented the information accurately)

The “Killer Summer Heat” report gives the results for all 40 cities analyzed in the original papers. The three with the highest number of projected heat-related deaths through the end of the century are: Louisville, KY (19,000 deaths); Detroit (18,000); and Cleveland (17,000). Other cities’ death tolls include:
•Baltimore: 2,900 deaths
•Boston: 5,700 deaths
•Chicago: 6,400 deaths
•Columbus: 6,000 deaths
•Denver: 3,500 deaths
•Los Angeles: 1,200 deaths
•Minneapolis: 7,500 deaths
•Philadelphia: 700 deaths
•Pittsburgh: 1,200 deaths
•Providence, R.I.: 2,000 deaths
•St. Louis: 5,600 deaths
•Washington, D.C.: 3000 deaths.

The projected deaths are based on the widely-used assumption that carbon pollution will steadily increase in the absence of effective new policies, more than doubling the levels seen today by the end of the century.

These findings bring home the fact that global climate change has a number of real life-and-death consequences in our local communities. One of which is that as carbon pollution continues to grow, climate change is only going to increase the number of dangerously hot days each summer, leading to a dramatic increase in the number of lives lost.

Already an average of 1,300 heat-related deaths occur per year due to direct and indirect effects of heat exacerbating life-threatening illnesses, such as heat exhaustion, heat stroke, cardiovascular disease, and kidney disease, according to Dr. Kalkstein’s analysis. That estimate comes from analyzing the 40 largest U.S. cities from 1975 through 2004, so it doesn’t account for the impact of the record-setting heat seen more recently. Last summer at least 42 states saw record daytime highs and 49 states saw record high nighttime temperatures, according to NOAA. And last week NOAA reported that the twelve months that ended on April 30th were the warmest twelve months in the United States since reliable record-keeping began in 1895.

To prevent the health impacts of climate change from getting as bad as the “business-as-usual” scenario portrayed in today’s report we need to change business as usual by establishing a comprehensive program to reduce heat-trapping pollution from all sources. The biggest step taken by the Obama administration so far is a set of landmark clean car standards that will cut tailpipe carbon emissions from new vehicles in half by 2025. The EPA also took an important, but limited, step forward recently by setting the first national standards to reduce air pollution from wells that use fracking to stimulate natural gas production.

But there are still no national limits on carbon pollution from power plants—the largest source of global warming pollution in the United States. That will be the subject of public hearings tomorrow on EPA’s proposal to limit carbon pollution from new power plants. Of course, pollution from existing power plants, refineries and other sources will need to be addressed as well.