Metrics from Cornell and Michigan universities to YouGov surveys show that the more concerned someone is with environmental issues, the less likely they are to do anything, even something erroneous, to combat those issues. Conversely, the less concerned they are, the more likely they are to do things that could be beneficial for the environment.

A recent prediction from Texas A&M and the University of Illinois at Chicago estimated that the U.S. may face upwards of 200,000 temperature-related deaths every year by 2100, a scary number until one realizes that this is not only a computer prediction but far less than half of the number of people who died yearly in the early 20th-century. Other headlines read for the same year that civilization will have totally collapsed by then anyways. So which is it?

Neither take into consideration that record heat is based on computer models and manipulated readings, while record cold, although arbitrary, is getting worse every year. The fact that there is a 17 to 1 ratio of cold to heat deaths globally is also ignored.

Reuters fact checked this claim about climate deaths, saying that disaster mortality is not a useful metric, while adding that economic estimation is a more reliable measure. How can this be when values increase and decrease so erratically? Reuters also says that number and intensity of climate disasters have increased, a fact made true only by changing metrics and observational practices.

The BMJ then recently published a report on how climate should be addressed as a public health emergency, just like disease or even guns. We can add to this hysteria that drug overdoses, accidents, poor diets, and the like are often blamed on climate change, pandemics, and even racism.

So what is causing this climate of confusion?

A recent story suggested that the Roman Empire collapsed because of climate change, despite industrialization, the usual suspect, being recent. In other words, the underlying theme is that it’s really civilization itself that is the problem.