by C. Morrison, Not 3, 2026
Fresh from a summer season in Mystic Meg’s fairground tent, the weather attribution queen Friederike Otto has returned to Imperial College to bring news that 50,391 heat-related deaths occurred in 854 European cities in June, July and August, while 32,619 fatalities were attributed to human-caused climate change.
Such precision! A feature of all good clairvoyants, and a skill we might conclude is honed in the company of more commercially-minded soothsayers. Who needs doctors to tell us if we are dead and provide a certificated cause when Madame Otto is consulting in front of her computer crystal ball. Of course, the precise figures are not based on actual fatality data but are modelled estimates using population numbers and previous historical stats on temperature and summer mortality. In fact, data on historical mortality and temperature were only sought from 232 cities but, details, details! when a computer model can fill in any gaps.
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Weather attribution computer models were first designed to create useful press headlines and to stick it to oil and gas companies in the law courts. Whatever use they have in the political arena, they cannot make plausible estimates to the nearest one person about how many people died in a hot summer due to a claimed anthropogenic weather change. Even Mystic Meg would struggle with that one.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X. His new best-selling book is IMPLAUSIBLE: How scientists, activist politicians and journalists invented a climate crisis, weaponised junk computer model findings and claimed a fake consensus to promote the collectivist Net Zero fantasy– out now and available on Amazon where it has a five-star rating and is currently No. 1 in Amazon paperbacks Global Warming and Ecology and Amazon downloads Environmental Issues. Only £3.99 for the download and £8.99 for the paperback.