The Night Crescent, 31st Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): Analysis by ProPublica and The Guardian that draws on modeling performed by independent researchers found that the Stable Genius' drill, baby, drill agenda of expanded fossil fuel use while also fighting efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will substantially add to the number of people dying from increased temperatures. 

The vast majority of deaths are expected to occur outside the US. Most of the people expected to die from increasing temperatures in the coming decades live in poor, hot countries in Africa and south Asia. Many of these countries emitted relatively little of the pollution that caused the climate crisis, and are least prepared to cope with the increasing heat.

The US has only 4% of the world’s population but produces 20% of its greenhouse gases. 

The greenhouse gases released in the next decade as a direct result of the Stable Genius' policies are expected to lead to the deaths of 1.3 million more people worldwide in the next 90 years than would die otherwise. The actual number of people who die from heat during that period will be much higher, although a warming planet will also result in fewer deaths from cold.

The analysis used modeled estimates of the additional emissions that will be released as a result of the Stable Genius' policies as well as the mortality cost of carbon. That metric, which builds on Nobel prize-winning science that has informed federal policy for more than a decade, predicts the number of temperature-related deaths from additional emissions. The estimate reflects deaths from heat-related causes, such as heatstroke and the exacerbation of existing illnesses, minus lives saved by reduced exposure to cold. It does not include the massive number of deaths expected from the broader effects of the climate crisis, such as droughts, floods, wars, vector-borne diseases, hurricanes, wildfires, and reduced crop yields.

The numbers, while large, are just a fraction of the estimated 83 million temperature-related deaths that could result from all human-caused emissions over the same period if climate-heating pollution is not curtailed. But they speak to the human cost of prioritizing US corporate interests over the lives of people around the globe. 

A great America is a clean, healthy country with clean, healthy air. A cut-rate, dollar-store America is one where natural resources and ecological services are sacrificed to increase the bottom line of business.