Spyke

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I was just in France a little while ago, and I can see why downings are up. I went swimming nearly every day just to beat the heat for a couple hours.

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In Australia, drownings are taken as seriously as sun cancer. It's in the culture.

Europe is more and more like Australia as this climate change goes on.

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In the UK I find warnings very inconsistent. One beach says you must not swim outside of the 100m wide band between flags by the RNLI hut. The beach is several km long. Next beach doesn't even have RNLI presence and signs just designate a suggested area for swimming and suggested area for other watersports.

The actual risks/dangers are the same on both beaches.

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[relevant xkcd]

If more people use bicycles to get around, then bicycle road deaths increase, but life expectancy also increases. The improved physical health from exercise more than makes up for the number of crashes.

If more people eat ice cream, then ice cream choking deaths increase, and life expectancy decreases. Ice cream doesn't fill a shortage in most people's diets but makes them more likely to become overweight with the associated medical issue. So should we try to reduce ice cream intake?

If more people go swimming, then drowning deaths increase, but does life expectancy decrease or increase? And if life expectancy decreases, is it worth it or not in terms of the joy it provides?

We're all going to die somehow. We need more information before we can conclude whether the increased drownings are a bad development.

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France links sharp rise in drownings to prolonged heatwaves | Spyke