The BBC reports:
Shifts in climate are strongly linked to increases in violence around the world, a study suggests.
US scientists found that even small changes in temperature or rainfall correlated with a rise in assaults, rapes and murders, as well as group conflicts and war.
If you can get past the “climate change” propaganda aspect, there have always been studies and theories about what hot weather does to people. People are most definitely affected by heat, cold, wind, etc. I live in a high wind area–which people often flee due to the 35 mph sustained winds.
None of this can be “prevented” by cutting CO2 emissions–especially since that would eliminate A/C immediately. You can’t run large scale A/C on wind turbines or solar panels. Plus, even if the world was cooler (in areas, remember, since global climate is really just a bunch of local climates pasted together) people still tend to gravitate to the warmer areas. Florida has more people moving in than the North Slope of Alaska. It’s an interesting part of human behaviour, but not one over which we exercise great control. Moving people to temperate zones over-crowds and increases violence also.
Curious. I remember a Minnesotan I used to work with bragging that life up north was so good because all the scum (his expression) moved to Southern states, where it is easier to leave without working. Never trust people’s perceptions.
But the point remains: in urban trouble zones, crime levels go up and down with temperature (whatever their geographic baselines are). I don’t have data for Chicago (where I simply hear from police officers that they get substantially more work and make more arrests on warm days), but here’s some data for Dallas:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3415828/
FBI 2011 data for US cities of 250,000+ population…
Violent crime: Lowest = Plano, TX. Highest = Detroit, MI
Forcible Rape: Lowest = Fresno, CA. Highest = Minneapolis, MN
Aggravated assault: Lowest = Virginia Beach, VA. Highest = Detroit, MI (agaon)
It looks like warming *reduces* crimes of violence…
One word junk science red flag: “study”.
Funny enough, in Chicago, warming does cause rape, murder, and war. During warm and very warm weather, welfare users without A/C in their homes get out on their porches, making it easy for everyone looking for trouble to find it.
Based on this science, Chicago should have a much lower murder rate than any southern city.