Europe's heat deaths soar while climate denial becomes a political badge
Noel Turnbull's Pearls and Irritations article argues that Europe's roughly 50,000 heat deaths in the northern summer of 2026, far above the previous high of 29,000, make growing climate denial among politicians like One Nation and the Victorian Liberals a badge of identity rather than logic. He compares fossil-fuel marketing to tobacco industry tactics, citing Nature Health researchers' call for rapid emissions cuts and an El Niño that Zeke Hausfather writes may be the strongest in a millennium.
