Does Europe suffer more heat deaths than the US?
6/17/202629 min
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:
(00:31) Claims have circulated on the internet that Europe sees a particularly high number of deaths from heat waves, especially when compared to the US. Can we really compare the statistics, and is air conditioning a silver bullet?
(06:59) Sainsbury’s are making the switch from brown to white eggs, on the basis of claims about their carbon footprint - but how do you work this out? We talk to an egg man about eggs. A lot.
(13:56) Are Conservative MPs frit? That’s what a Labour MP thinks after a recent PMQs saw no Conservative backbenchers ask a question. Are they really afraid to ask Keir Starmer a question? Or is it just probability?
(19:20) In a series full of Welsh twists, another Welsh twist; have we been guilty of drastically underestimating the area of Wales by failing to account for its majestic mountains and plunging valleys? Topography is top of mind for our top team.
More or Less is the programme that looks at numbers and statistics in news and in life. We’re always looking for questions from listeners - you can contact us on moreorless@bbc.co.uk.
Guests:
Gary Ford - policy advisor at the British Free Range Egg Producers Association Dr Laura Graham - computational and spatial ecologist at the University of Birmingham Dr Jen Visser Rogers - statistician and chief scientific officer at Coronado Research.
Special guest appearance:
Elis James
Presenter: Tim Harford Series Producer: Tom Colls Reporter: Lizzy McNeill Producers: Nathan Gower, Josh McMinn Editor: Richard Vadon Programme Coordinator: Brenda Brown Sound Engineer: Neil Churchill
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsTim Harford· Host0:00
Hello, and welcome to More or Less, your weekly guide to the numbers in the news and in Wales. I'm Tim Harford. This week, conservative backbenchers were conspicuous by their absence in a recent Prime Minister's Questions. Running scared or a run of bad luck? We'll run the numbers. Are white eggs really more environmentally friendly than brown eggs? If so, why? And our listeners ask if Wales is actually bigger than England once you take into account all the lovely crinkly bits. But first, some hot takes on the internet have left some of us feeling cold. Posts comparing deaths from high temperatures in the US and Europe, then for some reason comparing that to US gun deaths swept across the Twitter sphere.
Lizzie McNeil0:48
As summer comes into view, always remember that more Europeans regularly die in heatwaves than Americans die in gun violence.
Tim Harford· Host0:54
The tweet was illustrated by a bar chart showing that almost seventy thousand Europeans died because of heat in twenty twenty-four, compared to around two thousand Americans. The chart also shows that almost fifty thousand Americans died due to gun violence. Now, we're not gonna waste time comparing gun deaths in a country of three hundred and thirty million people to a continent of seven hundred and forty million. That would be silly, and not just because a gun death is much easier to define and arguably prevent than a heat death. But it