WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden and his team are getting the numbers wrong when they talk about the scale of the increasing COVID-19 death toll and the looming threat to climate change.
A look at the claims:
COMMANDMENTS: “Every day I receive a small ticket in my pocket that I take with me in my timetable. It shows the number of Americans infected or dead with COVID-19. Today we are a cruel, heartbreaking milestone: 500,071 dead. More Americans died in this pandemic in one year than in World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War combined. ‘- remarks Monday.
COMMANDMENTS: “As of yesterday, there are 500,071 people who have died from this – 500. That is more people who died in the First World War, World War II and Vietnam in one year – in a year.” – remarks Tuesday in a round table with black essential workers.
THE FACTS: His list of three wars is wrong. Based on conventional measures, coronavirus deaths in the US currently die no more than those of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam conflict.
According to the Congressional Research Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs, there were 116,516 U.S. deaths in World War I, 405,399 in World War II – which includes both casualties and other deaths in service but not in the theater – and 58,220 in Vietnam -conflict. That equates to about 580,000, which exceeds the half-million deaths of COVID-19 as of Monday.
The death toll from viruses has instead come close to the number of Americans who died in World War II, Korea and Vietnam combined. With 36,574 deaths in the Korean War, the total number of casualties from that military conflict was 500,193.
At the request of Biden’s accounting, a White House official said in his speeches that Biden intended to combat deaths in World War I, World War II and Vietnam, which amounted to a modest 390,000.
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JOHN KERRY, Biden’s climate envoy: “Well, the scientists told us three years ago that we had twelve years to prevent the worst effects of the climate crisis. We are now three years away, so we have nine years left. ”- interview with CBS News on 19 February.
KERRY: “Three years ago, scientists warned us strongly. They said we have twelve years to avoid the worst effects of climate change. ”- summit on virtual climate adaptation, presented by the Netherlands on 25 January.
THE FACTS: He is wrong that 2030 is an expiration date to ward off the “worst effects” of climate change, although it is true that the planet is deteriorating with each passing year. According to climate scientists, this is not an all-or-nothing kind of situation that implies his remarks.
In a report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, drawn from the work of hundreds of scientists, 2030 is used as a prominent measure because signatories to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change had voluntarily cut emissions by that time. The date is not a last chance, hard deadline for action.
The report ‘never said we had ’12 years left’ in 2018, ‘says Jim Skea, co-chair of the IPCC and one of the lead authors of the report. He said Kerry and others erroneously interpreted references to the year 2030 in the report, which was used as a ‘goal post’ for no other reason than to mean the transition from one decade to the next, ‘ promised to reduce emissions to act.
Climate scientists certainly see the need for broad and immediate action to address global warming, but they do not agree that 2030 is a point of return.
In the 2018 report, scientists outlined the differences between the two goals for the fight against global warming agreed in the Paris climate agreement. The two targets limit heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) and 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. The objectives were based by diplomats on scientific reports.
“Every bit of warming has had consequences and there will be significant differences between the effects between 1.5 and 2 degrees,” Skea, an energy professor at Imperial College London, said in an email.
“That said, we are not falling off a cliff of 1.5 degrees – it is only getting worse.”
Drew Shindell, a Duke University Earth scientist, co-author of the report, said: “Kerry is not very wrong, but is a little too focused on specific numbers.” He said there’s nothing special about 12 years or 2030. If we cut emissions by 2029 or 2031, the necessary cuts would be similar, but we only had years to look at multiples of 10. ”
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Yen reported from Austin, Texas.
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NOTE FROM THE EDITOR – A Look At The Truth Of Claims By Political Figures.
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