Both are addressed in the article. The floated theory is that a lack of uv is responsible for more death then skin cancer.
I can 100% understand nl's position - skin cancer is really prevalent here, and the sun can be incredibly harsh. The skies here are usually completely cloudless, and we're affected by the ozone hole too. Skin cancer is a big deal here. The aboriginal people are very dark, which should be a big hint as to the amount of UV we get, and that will have been selected for from before the ozone hole.
I keep track of UV levels on my personal dashboard, so I know when it's dangerous or not. Previously I was overly cautious, but now I can enjoy time outdoors with skin exposed without the worry of burning, and get gentle UV exposure over my whole body for the vit D.
Personally I prefer to cover up rather than use sunscreen. I don't like the feel of sunscreen, and when covered up there is no risk of the sunscreen slowly washing away. I do use sunscreen on exposed areas, such as hands, face, and feet.
Here are the UV widgets I use.
https://www.arpansa.gov.au/our-services/monitoring/ultraviol...
https://www.cancer.org.au/preventing-cancer/sun-protection/u...
It also discusses studies that show vitamin D supplements don't change life expectancy.
But it jumps from this to "don't use sunscreen" which is a dangerous jump, completely unsupported by anything discussed in the article.
They have a correlation between low levels of sunlight exposure and higher death rate. They know it isn't shortage of vitamin D that causes that. But they don't know if sunscreen stops whatever it is that reduced the death rate.
As a random hypothesis: we know sunlight reduces depression[1], and that depressed people have lower life expectancy. The mechanism there is serotonin production, which isn't blocked by sunscreen.
I'm not claiming that's the answer - I'm just pointing out that there are many alternative explanations and the evidence for the dangerous advice he is giving ("don't use sunscreen") is missing.
[1] https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20021205/unraveling...