Merriam-Webster defines "bunkum," sometimes spelled "buncombe," thusly:
Insincere or foolish talk : nonsense
Needless to say, much of the legacy media are purveyors of bunkum/buncombe, along with every other variety of nitwittery, much of which is counter to actual facts. Politico, as a confirmed member of the legacy media and also a confirmed purveyor of climate panic hooraw, is no exception. Their latest outpouring of horse squeeze comes in the form of another article promoting panic of increased climate-related deaths, but as a guest editorial by the Heartland Institute at the Climate Realism site points out, climate-related deaths aren't increasing.
In an article in Politico, titled “EU has no plan for rising climate-related deaths, scientists warn,” writer Rory O’Neill warns that “Europe is increasingly grappling with illness and deaths from extreme weather and the arrival of tropical diseases but it has no plan to prevent and cope with rising climate-related health problems.” This is false. In fact, evidence from multiple sources suggests that climate and temperature related deaths globally — and in Europe — are in long-term decline, rather than increasing.
O’Neill continues:
Scientists fear mosquito-borne diseases dengue and chikungunya that were once confined to tropical regions could become endemic in Europe due to the northward spread of tiger mosquitos, which have made it as far as Brussels and 20 other towns in Belgium.
Meanwhile, heat-related deaths are projected to increase threefold by the end of the century, while deaths caused by extreme events including floods and wildfires are rising.
Perhaps the most glaring lie Politico tells is that deaths from extreme weather events are rising. The truth is just the opposite: climate-related deaths worldwide have declined by more than 98% since the 1920s and are approaching zero. (see Figure 1, below)
Here's Figure 1:
— Ward Clark (@TheGreatLander) June 21, 2025
Politico gets all spun up over a supposed increase in tropical diseases in Europe, dengue fever among them, but they are getting themselves agitated over what is essentially a rounding error.
Politico attempts to whip up hysteria by claiming that dengue and chikungunya will soon become endemic in Europe due to climate change. The facts tell a very different story.
While the tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) has spread into parts of southern Europe, the number of actual dengue cases remains minuscule. As Politico itself admits (buried mid-article), there were only 304 dengue cases in the EU in 2024 — barely higher than the 275 total cases from the previous 15 years combined.
This is not an epidemic; it is a statistical blip. As Watts Up With That covered here, the principal factors behind the spread of these diseases are not temperature but international travel, global shipping, urbanization, and human settlement patterns — factors which have nothing to do with CO₂ emissions.
In other words, Politico, in this rather shameless and unforgivable piece of panic-mongering, gets almost everything wrong. And here is the final straw on that camel's back; the majority of "climate-related" deaths, which are more properly attributed to weather, not climate - they are not the same thing - are due not to heat, but to cold. Even in Africa, this isn't even close.
A landmark study published in The Lancet analyzed mortality data from 13 countries, concluding that cold kills roughly 20 times more people than heat, as shown in Figure 3 below:
Here's Figure 3:
— Ward Clark (@TheGreatLander) June 21, 2025
In none of the areas studied were weather-related deaths due to heat anywhere near those due to cold.
See Also: Another Nail in the Coffin of 'Settled Climate Science'
How Net Zero Is Collapsing, and Why That's a Good Thing
There's a solid reason for that. A look at the human body, by anyone who has taken even high-school level biology, reveals very plainly that we are, by and large, a species adapted for warm, not cold weather. Even the most cold-adapted people in the world, the Inuit, are only able to survive at the high latitudes they inhabit because of their command of fire, and the knowledge to use animal furs for warmth, and how to build shelters. Naked and unequipped, the most hardy of them would perish in moments in an Arctic winter. Humans just are not equipped, biologically, for cold weather; no coats of fur, no subcutaneous blubber layers (well, that last one may be subject to debate), and none of the usual adaptations you'll find on mammals inhabiting the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
And yet humans do very well indeed in some of the hottest areas on the planet.
Politico's editorial board should be ashamed of this sort of fact-free panic-mongering. This is the work of climate scolds taken to the next level, the product not of science but activism, relying not on data and facts, but, yes, you guessed it, bunkum.
The facts are there, if people are willing to look for them. Climate Realism presents them daily. The fact is, there is no reason to panic over Earth's climate. We don't understand it well enough to make any valid predictions; one needs only look at the results of past predictions by climate scolds to realize that. And while the climate overall is warming and has been since the last Ice Age, we will deal with any issues not by abandoning technology, but by using it. As I'm fond of repeating, we solve today's problems with tomorrow's technology, but no problem has ever been solved by abandoning technology.
So, put not thy faith in princes or climate scolds. The facts are out there.
