I referenced this paper a few days ago. This blog post extrapolates the numbers to Canada.
After collecting reams of data, and performing careful calculations, the researchers conclude that US heating bills declined noticeably between 2005 and 2010 “due to the boom in shale production of natural gas.”
That price decline, they write, “caused a 1.6% decrease in the winter mortality rate for households using natural gas for heating.”
Only 58% of American households heat with natural gas, so the drop in the death rate for the US population as a whole over a full calendar year works out to about half a percentage point. The bottom line: lower energy prices saved 11,000 lives annually.
Which brings us to the carbon tax recently imposed on all sources of home heating here in more northerly Canada. Enbridge, the company which supplies natural gas to Ontario homes, says it needs to raise the price it charges households by 11% just to pay for this carbon tax.
If deaths drop when heating costs decline, they’ll surely increase when heating costs spike. So let’s not beat around the bush: Canada’s carbon tax is going to kill people.
Extrapolating from those US numbers, 1,100 Canadians will die unnecessarily next winter. And the winter after that. And the one after that. As the size of the carbon tax increases, the number of annual victims may well rise in tandem.
sunshine hours 
So the shareholders who, to receive their dividends, imply an increase in energy rates, are murderers.
The paper references the drop in NG costs because of fracking … which obviously saved lives.
Hydraulic fracturing saves lives! Wow!
According to the “Global Warming” everything has consequences and they are usually horrible if we don’t stop using fossil fuels.
But in the real world cheap energy has good consequences for civilization. People can heat their homes for less leaving more money for food and other essentials.
But the medica never presents it that way.
It’s really a vision of the world. Should I live more comfortably today at the risk of destroying the future of humanity?
You go ahead. Give up fossil fuels.
I myself ride a bike. But I’d still like cheap home heat. And I won’t get it. And Canadians (and many others) will die from the cold.
The energy for heating, I understand. Perhaps the use of energy for necessary and not futile purposes needs to be reviewed. In France, we plan to build ski slopes in the plain instead of fields! What about you?
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.