From Princeton University
With climate change, heat more than natural disasters will drive people away
Although scenes of people fleeing from dramatic displays of Mother Nature’s power dominate the news, gradual increases in an area’s overall temperature — and to a lesser extent precipitation — actually lead more often to permanent population shifts, according to Princeton University research.
The researchers examined 15 years of migration data for more than 7,000 families in Indonesia and found that increases in temperature and, to a lesser extent, rainfall influenced a family’s decision to permanently migrate to another of the country’s provinces. They report in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that increases in average yearly temperature took a detrimental toll on people’s economic wellbeing. On the other hand, natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes had a much smaller to non-existent impact on permanent moves, suggesting that during natural disasters relocation was most often temporary as people sought refuge in other areas of the country before returning home to rebuild their lives.
The results suggest that the consequences of climate change will likely be more subtle and permanent than is popularly believed, explained first author Pratikshya Bohra-Mishra, a postdoctoral research associate in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP) in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The effects likely won’t be limited to low-lying areas or developing countries that are unprepared for an uptick in hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters, she said.
“We do not think of ‘environmental migrants’ in a broader sense; images of refugees from natural disasters often dominate the overall picture,” Bohra-Mishra said. “It is important to understand the often less conspicuous and gradual effect of climate change on migration. Our study suggests that in areas that are already hot, a further increase in temperature will increase the likelihood that more people will move out.”
Indonesia’s tropical climate and dependence on agriculture may amplify the role of temperature as a migration factor, Bohra-Mishra said. However, existing research shows that climate-driven changes in crop yields can effect Mexican migration to the United States, and that extreme temperature had a role in the long-term migration of males in rural Pakistan.
“Based on these emerging findings, it is likely that the societal reach of climate change could be much broader to include warm regions that are now relatively safe from natural disasters,” Bohra-Mishra said.
Indonesia became the case study because the multi-island tropical nation is vulnerable to climate change and events such as earthquakes and landslides. In addition, the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) conducted by the RAND Corporation from 1993 to 2007 provided thorough information about the movements of 7,185 families from 13 of the nation’s 27 provinces in 1993. The Princeton researchers matched province-to-province movement of households over 15 years to data on temperature, precipitation and natural disasters from those same years. Bohra-Mishra worked with co-authors Michael Oppenheimer, the Albert G. Millbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs and director of STEP, and Solomon Hsiang, a past Princeton postdoctoral researcher now an assistant professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley.
People start to rethink their location with each degree that the average annual temperature rises above 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit), the researchers found. The chances that a family will leave an area for good in a given year rise with each degree. With a change from 26 to 27 degrees Celsius (78.8 to 80.6 Fahrenheit), the probability of a family emigrating that year increased by 0.8 percent when other factors for migration were controlled for. From 27 to 28 degrees Celsius (80.6 to 82.4 Fahrenheit), those chances jumped to 1.4 percent.
When it comes to annual rainfall, families seem to tolerate and prefer an average of 2.2 meters (7.2 feet). The chances of outmigration increased with each additional meter of average annual precipitation, as well as with further declines in rainfall.
Landslides were the only natural disaster with a consistent positive influence on permanent migration. With every 1 percent increase in the number of deaths or destroyed houses in a family’s home province, the likelihood of permanent migration went up by only 0.0006 and 0.0004 percent, respectively.
The much higher influence of heat on permanent migration can be pinned on its effect on local economies and social structures, the researchers write. Previous research has shown that a one-degree change in the average growing-season temperature can reduce yields of certain crops by as much as 17 percent. At the same time, research conducted by Hsiang while at Princeton and published in 2013 showed a correlation between higher temperatures and social conflict such as civil wars, ethnic conflict and street crime.
In the current study, the researchers found that in Indonesia, a shift from 25 to 26 degrees Celsius resulted in a significant 14 to 15 percent decline in the value of household assets, for example. Precipitation did not have a notable affect on household worth, nor did natural disasters except landslides, which lowered assets by 5 percent for each 1 percent increase in the number of people who died.
The article, Nonlinear permanent migration response to climatic variations but minimal response to disasters, by Pratikshya Bohra-Mishra, Michael Oppenheimer and Solomon Hsiang, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online on June 23, 2014.
PURE BS it is cold that drives me away, heat attracts..
I wonder which 15 years of data they looked at.
Oh, yeah? How did anyone live in Kansas or Texas or Florida before de-humidifying air conditioning?
Explains why the Tropics is devoid of people … BS.
Ahh nevermind… ’93 to ’07. I wonder if the results would have been different if they looked at ’60 to ’75
So that’s why no one lives in Phoenix.
People start to rethink their location with each degree that the average annual temperature rises above 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit), the researchers found.
People also start to rethink their location when the town becomes a city and things get crowded. Is there any metadata on Indonesian weather stations?
I guess a study of the population movements of the Southern and Western regions of the US would not have fit their agenda.
“Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not revesed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of eco-refugees, threatening political chaos.” -Noel Brown, ex UNEP Director, 1989
“[Inaction will cause]… by the turn of the century [2000], an ecological catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible as any nuclear holocaust.” -Mustafa Tolba, 1982, former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” -Paul Ehrlich, 1968, The Population Bomb
“[in twenty years (2008)] the West Side Highway [and thus much of Manhattan] will be under water.” -James Hansen, 1988, NASA
Utter nonsense. Retired people don’t move to Nanavut for the climate, they move to Florida.
Of course, the places where annual temperatures are as high as 27C are also mostly places with less-than-nice political systems. Makes you wonder if the emigration was time-based instead of temperature-based, especially if the authors assumed a regular temperature increase over time.
Household assets lose value when it gets hotter ? 14% to 15% with a ONE DEGREE TEMP. RISE ?
What are they smoking ?
The authors have obviously eliminated every other factor that may cause a family to migrate and came up with temperature as the only factor. Climate researchers just love single variable models.
-3.2C here this morning. My wife keeps threatening to migrate, with or without me.
I guess they didn’t include the snowbirds from Canada heading for Florida, Mexico, Caribbean, Hawaii…. in January in their study. This is a bullspit study. The emigration from Mexico to the US is driven by a drug war, unemployment and other factors. Why would they go to such places as New Mexico, Arizona and Texas which are generally hotter than than much of central Mexico if they were too hot. Hey, also, it hasn’t warmed much in the tropics – it’s still 28C in Lagos, the same as when I was there in the 1960s. Repeat after me: Polar Amplification, Polar Amplification…Tropics stay the samey….. If we’ve warmed in the temp zone by 0.7C in a century, what are we talking here for the tropics? Hey, and those Middle East and Sahel folks haven’t moved away from 40C+. Finally, let me help you with the migration of Pakistani men from rural areas:
“These were mostly men looking for an escape from rural poverty.” (and this was to Britain!!)
http://www.mylearning.org/migration-from-india-and-pakistan/p-3201/
Anyway, this study is like the Get Smart TV character. Okay so natural disasters aren’t increasing, would you believe its because its gotten hotter?
Seems pretty full of ASSumptions, ie., “We do not think…”; ‘results suggest; likely be more subtle; “Based on these emerging findings, it is likely that the societal reach of climate change could be; “a shift of 25 to 26 Celsius resulted in a significant 14 to 15 percent decline in the value of household assets”. Interesting that there are no statements such as “people surveyed said …”.
Here’s a novel idea. Instead all those ASSumptions, and inferences from correlations that do not prove causation, why didn’t they just ask the people why they relocated? Of course then they would run the risk of receiving results that didn’t fit their desired narrative?
Really? Funny, every fall we have millions of people streaming down here to the hot beaches in Florida and away from the cold of the northern states and Canada…
It was 95 degrees F here today and the humidity was near 100 percent. The forecast for the next 5 days is basically the same. In fact, I think maybe the news stations play a taped re-run every day in the deep summer here in central Florida. (unless we see a swirlie out in the ocean and give it a name) I love this weather. I garden all summer and ride my bicycle. Man was made for hot weather. (or evolved in hot weather if you don’t buy we were engineered by space aliens)
It is reports like this that make me think that the movie “Idiocracy” was not over the top after all.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
From the abstract : “A study suggests that long-term changes in climate may exert a greater influence than episodic natural disasters on permanent human migration patterns. Climate change impacts may render some areas inhospitable or uninhabitable, possibly spurring human migration to favorable climates. Pratikshya Bohra-Mishra and colleagues examined survey data tracking inter-province migration patterns of 7,185 households in Indonesia between 1993 and 2007.“.
Long term changes in climate … between 1993 and 2007???
We Canadians better start fortifying our border now. In 20 years what’s happening on America’s southern border will be replicated on its north. Exactly what we’ll do when Nancy Pelosi reaches our border seeking landed illegal immigrant status, I cannot say.
There is, and has been, a lot of religiously motivated political and social unrest in Indonesia. I wonder if the researchers thought of correlating migration with social upheavals.
Approximately 11-12% of the US population moves in a given year. The interannual difference is 1-2 points. They are going to tease significance from a 0.8 to 1.4% relocation rate linked to temperature? Not to mention this study involved about 7,000 families. In a nation with a population of 253 million, plus or minus.
I’ve no doubt that these families were an impeccable cross section of the general population, allowing such stunningly accurate estimates of the influence of annual temperatures on relocation choices. /sarc
I wonder if the taxpayers paid for this load of cr@p.
“The effects likely won’t be limited to low-lying areas or developing countries that are unprepared for an uptick in hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters….”
Even black box hockey stick maker Richard Muller pointed out that the theory is that hurricanes will be less energetic, nor more, by the basic theory that polar amplification of warming will lessen the energy differences that drive violent weather:
“But the number of hurricanes has been constant – in fact, it has been going down slightly. The theory doesn’t predict more intense storms. The theory says that’s a possibility, but intense storms come about when there are big temperature differences between the Equator and the Poles – that’s what drives the energy up and makes the hurricanes. And in global warming theory, you expect the temperature difference to decrease, because the Poles warm more than the Equator.”
It’s wonderful when they keep making these claims as the opposite occurs. This puts more an more rational liberals under pressure to worry of making themselves ridiculous. All the while seniors move from various states to Florida to retire! How many fragile people move to Minnesota to retire?
And birds fly north for the winter……until they slam into a dam windmill
Gee Florida is gaining population, while New York and some other northern sates are losing population.
In the current study, the researchers found that in Indonesia, a shift from 25 to 26 degrees Celsius resulted in a significant 14 to 15 percent decline in the value of household assets, for example.
Replace “resulted in” with “was associated with.” Until they do a controlled experiment and prove the link, it’s just statistical inference.
The full article is available here …
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/06/18/1317166111.full.pdf+html
Evidence for an Economic Mechanism by Which Environmental Factors
Influence Migration. Of all of the environmental factors, temperature
had the most significant effect on migration. There are
multiple channels through which temperature can influence migration
behavior. Studies establishing a negative effect of temperature
on agriculture productivity (16–19) have shown, for
example, that each 1 °C increase in growing-season minimum
temperature in the dry season resulted in 10% decline in rice
yield in Philippines (18). Similarly, each degree increase in average
growing season temperature resulted in 17% decline in
yields of corn and soybeans in the United States (19). Research
has also shown that in response to higher temperature, economic
output losses in the nonagricultural sector can even exceed
losses occurring in agricultural sectors, and these losses
grow nonlinearly near 25 °C (12). Furthermore, each degree
increase in annual temperature has been shown to reduce annual
economic growth by as much as 1.1% points (20). Temperature
increases are also shown to be associated with increase
in the risk of violent conflicts (21–23). A rising temperature
could therefore increase outmigration through a negative effect
on income in agriculture as well as nonagricultural sectors and
potentially over time by creating a less stable social environment.
Prior work suggests there is evidence that temperature
affects migration through its influence on agricultural productivity.
(13–15).
Science making fantasies – this seems to be occurring more and more as the Pause continues.
Today, 85F, warm, very humid & a couple rumbles of thunder. Love it.
A ridiculous study, on many levels. Where is the data to support the hypothesis that temperatures across Indonesia have even changed? Then there is the clothing aspect: instead of a sarong, many Indonesian women now wear clothing fashionable a millenium ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
Moving from one province to another will result in what? It’s Indonesia, it’s hot everywhere. I can guarantee you 99.9% of people can not tell the physical difference between 26°C and 27°C.
Of course, population movement could absolutely have nothing to do with employment into growth industries over that same time period. It’s boomed since 1999, rebounding from a financial crash in 1997 just as we had a nice big El Nino and a peak in global temperatures. Indonesia now has the biggest economy in SE Asia, 16th largest economy in the World and is predicted to be the 7th by 2030. People move to where the jobs are by necessity, not because it’s a degree warmer.
And how the hell do the value of a household’s assets drop 15% due to it being a degree Celsius warmer? Gee…do you think maybe they couldn’t afford as many luxuries when times were tough?
In the actual paper (link above in my comment above, chart at the top of page four) the “Change in Annual Migration Probability” went up with a fall in temperature as well. It’s a little like Goldilocks and the Three Bears — not too hot, not too cold but just right.
With a change from 26 to 27 degrees Celsius (78.8 to 80.6 Fahrenheit), the probability of a family emigrating that year increased by 0.8 percent when other factors for migration were controlled for.
The entire study rests on this statement. The slightest error, and I do mean SLIGHTEST given the small sample size and time frame, would invalidate the results. Further, I didn’t bother to read the paper, but it doesn’t sound like they bothered to actually CONTACT those 7,000+ families and ask them why they moved. Further, I am betting that had they done so, the near universal answer would have had to do with job opportunities. That is almost exclusively the reason people relocate voluntarily, and has been for centuries.
They seem to very carefully avoid any mention of where these people migrated to – I suspect a lot of it was rural to urban and economically driven. I would also guess that Indonesia being plagued by serious earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that might also have a significant bearing on the issue.
the probability of a family emigrating that year increased by 0.8 percent
Well perhaps someone from Indonesia can comment on the area being studied because I know it just isn’t like the modern western world, but gee…. Who uproots their entire family without considerably planning? I’d expect the move would LAG temp increases by the amount of time it takes a family to decide that they ARE going to move, WHERE they are going to move to, SELL any local property etc, and THEN move. Even in poor countries there ought to be a major lag between the driving event and the actual moving.
This explains why nobody lives in California, Texas, or Arizona and Alaska is our most populous state.
Quote from a friend’s 12 year old, on her first “take your girl to work” day: “They PAY adults to do THIS?”
Hmmm…So when Barack Obama emigrated from Indonesia back to Hawaii was that because of climate-change?
Just kidding.
Seek (for evidence to support your pre-conceived notions) and you shall find!
Please enlighten us all, Princeton University, at what time in history did human activity change Sahara from rainfall and green valleys to the dry sand desert we have today.
Had you at Princeton University done your homework which include Natural changes in weather and climate due to Earth’s history, the wobbling as well as the movement of Tectonical Plates to name a few of the 40 most important factors for changing of climate, had you done that, you wouldn’t have made such a fool of a good University which in the past never ever would have forgotten the Theories of Science for usage of the worst Fallacies in argumentation
Btw. You better read Science 2006, the July 21 issue
as well as
Recherches sahariennes / Groupement d’intérêt scientifique “Sciences humaines sur l’aire
ISBN 2-222-02537-0 Paris 1979
Essai sur le climat de montagne au Sahara, l’Ahaggar. Travaux de l’Institut de recherches Sahariennes / Université d’Alger, 0372-3836 ; 27, Dissertation Paris 1965
“… with co-authors Michael Oppenheimer … ”
Says all one needs to know.
I don’t think this study was intended to be read. I think the expectation was that you buy a copy, roll it, and smoke it, ideally in a car with the windows rolled up. Now that makes sense. The study? Not so much.
I just wonder if this is the junk that the science department at Princeton is putting out what sort of idiocy is taking place in say the gender studies departments of public colleges?
I don’t know why, exactly, the authors find it unnecessary to tell us the size of these 7,000 families but I have a suspicion. There are about 7,000,000,000 people on this planet and I’m going to guess those 7,000,000,000 people initially came from some kind of family regardless of how teensy, fatherless, or dysfunctional it may have been (although those in the political classes may have hatched out of eggs). Since a sample size of 7,000 people, in a world of 7,000,000,000 people, is so ridiculously, and vanishingly small as to be utterly useless in deriving a trend something, somehow must be done to camouflage the pointlessness of the exercise. I know, call the study groups “families” so that the reader can fantasize that the sample size, in relationship to the whole, may somehow, if one uses their imagination, possibly be a tad representative. Just think, if each of those families comprises ma, pa, and 998 children, then our sample size creeps up to one in a thousand. Voila, we can now plot the movement of humanity on this Earth!
It must be the intense heat in the northeast of the US that drive all those people into the relative coolness of Florida. That explains it. I suppose he didn’t study any thing that was happening with migration of people within the US…. I wondered why sunbelt states were gaining population and northern cities were losing people. The only variable there was temperature change? Nobody moved because there were better opportunities elsewhere? If temperature were the case India would be deserted. I can assure you that without frequent trips away from Princeton during the winter, the only thing most anyone that has to tolerate winter there thinks about is moving someplace warmer. And Princeton for the most part is a wonderful place to live.
Well, all you wiseacres have already said it, so I’ll just say that it’s been fun and great minds think alike.
NEWS FLASH!
Poor people with little to no access to indoor heat or air conditioning tend to move away from extreme climates (hot or cold) towards more moderate climates when they have the opportunity.
This news flash was brought to you by the office of Captain Obvious.
This explains why when people retire and are loosed from the chains that hold them to their jobs, they choose to migrate north to live in cooler climates. No wonder there are so many retired Floridians who move to Buffalo, NY. /Sarc
They should study some folks with a northern set of genes. I’m 3/4 Swedish. The biggest problem I have with New Hampshire are the SW winds in the summer bringing in 90F temps and 70F dew points. (35C temp and 20C dewpoints.) Okay, the winters are a bit long, but that could be fixed trading November for a repeat of October.
In the U.S., we seem to like it hotter: http://www.cato.org/blog/some-it-hot
-Chip
It’s true, look at all the people fleeing Mexico to come to the cool of the USA, same with Syria, going to turkey where they get snow.
Heat, or to be more exact – lack of.
I wonder did they consider that in the tropics, humidity is normally very high, which keeps the temperature pretty even. To get an increase in average temp for the year, it probably means that the humidity has decreased, bringing a commensurate drop in rainfall. Many rural Indonesians grow rice for a living, which needs a lot of water. Reduce the rainfall & you reduce the amount of rice they can grow. Could that explain the increase in migration?
Retired people in Australia move to Queensland to enjoy warm weather and sunshine, retired people in America move to Florida for the same reason. People in Indonesia move to Jakarta and other big cities to find work. The yearly average maximum in Jakarta is 29-31 C degrees year long and the minimum is 23-24 C degrees year long. Over the last hundred years its climate has varied almost not at all. The early Dutch colonists would recognise todays weather as being just the same. Volcanic activity is the major weather event creator. Volcanoes have created the immensely fertile land in Java where most Indonesians live.
The Science Department at Princeton seems to be wasting its money on CAGW propaganda again.
“People start to rethink their location with each degree that the average annual temperature rises above 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit), the researchers found. The chances that a family will leave an area for good in a given year rise with each degree. With a change from 26 to 27 degrees Celsius (78.8 to 80.6 Fahrenheit), the probability of a family emigrating that year increased by 0.8 percent when other factors for migration were controlled for. From 27 to 28 degrees Celsius (80.6 to 82.4 Fahrenheit), those chances jumped to 1.4 percent.
When it comes to annual rainfall, families seem to tolerate and prefer an average of 2.2 meters (7.2 feet). The chances of outmigration increased with each additional meter of average annual precipitation, as well as with further declines in rainfall.”
People also start to rethink their location with each degree that the average annual temperature falls below 25 degrees Celsius?
In Southern Norway ithe average annual temperature is 6 degrees Celsius. Probably why so few live here?
Eric:
“”” “[in twenty years (2008)] the West Side Highway [and thus much of Manhattan] will be under water.” -James Hansen, 1988, NASA”””
Perhaps you could provide specific references to the primary source material you are claiming to quote. Or maybe you could just google it for yourself and learn that the quote refers to a hypothetical situation in 2028 with 560ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. Or you could just continue to look like an idiot.
If long-term changes in temperature of 1° can have such a huge impact how about long-term changes from other confounding factors?
Like wealth for instance?
Cheap energy for all would have a larger proportional impact a energy access is limiting to the use of air-conditioning, creation of fertilisers, access to clean water (desalination in extreme cases)…
If they are correct about the sensitivity then the clamour for the cheapest reliable energy source should be overwhelming.
cesium62(re: Eric):
” “[in twenty years (2008)] the West Side Highway [and thus much of Manhattan] will be under water.” -James Hansen, 1988, NASA”
Perhaps you could provide specific references to the primary source material you are claiming to quote. Or maybe you could just google it for yourself and learn that the quote refers to a hypothetical situation in 2028 with 560ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. Or you could just continue to look like an idiot.”
There was an error in the original story that had Hansen making the prediction for twenty years out instead of, correctly, forty years. This was noted by Anthony Watts, here:
“Thanks to a tip from Willis Eschenbach, there’s some developing news in that story from Dr. James Hansen. The Salon interviewee and book author, Rob Reiss that I quoted, now admits he somehow conflated 40 years with 20 years, and concedes that Dr. Hansen actually said 40 years for his prediction. However, as the newest analysis shows, it doesn’t make any difference, and we still aren’t seeing the magnitude of sea level rise predicted, now 23 years into it.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/22/a-little-known-but-failed-20-year-old-climate-change-prediction-by-dr-james-hansen/
The claims that purport to arise from this paper are so bad and so opposite to that of real world reality that it is a classic example as to why the entire methods of funding science today should be completely overhauled and take a radical new course.
1 / Let the research applicants apply for funding to the relevant funding authorities.
2 / Funding only to be paid AFTER the research and papers pertaining to that research project has been completed and written up and published in an open forum such as on the internet .
3 / Every single item and data and methods used for that research project MUST be published along with the paper to allow a review of every aspect of that research.
4 / Allow a period of at least three months after initial publication of the full results of that research project for public appraisal, review and analysis of the project and it’s relevance and it’s contributing to science and society outcomes.
5 / Reviewers are the public along with scientifically credential-led reviewers. ie The public is fully entitled to review and express their views and vote on the validity of the outcomes of the research project.
The public, the tax payers are after all bearing the entire costs of the project IF after the review period it is found to be acceptable as a science research project that has contributed to science and society.
6 / If deemed as an acceptable contribution to science and society the allocated funding would be paid for the project’.
It’s called “Market Forces” in a Capitalistically orientated society.
This method of financing science is no different to the way in which any would be entrepreneur who wants to start their own business has to finance their ambitions.
They borrow the money in their belief and their financiers belief that they will succeed with their project and make a profit and be able to repay the loan.
So if some would be scientists wants to do a research project then he gets assurance of the amount of funding available to him from the funding authorities to be paid if he meets the requirements for an acceptable scientific advancement to science and society
He / She borrows against that assurance to do the project.
Then at the completion of the project or that funded phase of the project, the open public review and it’s reviewers, the market in short assesses the viability and impact of the research after it or that phase of it has been completed.
;ie ; Marketability. Will it sell? Is it of sufficient scientific import and of a standard that will actually increase society’s and science’s knowledge base and contribute something positive to science and society.
If so the allocated funding from the funding authority is paid over and the scientist and /or his / her team can repay the loan raised to conduct the research.
If the science is rubbish, cat skats in plain fact then funding is denied and bad luck, you have a nice big debt to repay because of your lousy science.
It is after all Other Peoples Money [ OPM ] and they are just as entitled to get value for their dollar as they would expect from any financial fund they might contribute too or as any banker or financier would expect and demand.
Science would probably lose three quarters of it’s present numbers but the good dedicated scientists would get recognised and have no trouble getting interim funding for their projects
And the bonus would be that it would cut the cost of science enormously while still in all probability getting even better science which could be much better rewarded as there would be more money per research project available, than the miserable incompetent , science journal padding so called research we seem to so often see today that is passed off as science.
Let the market forces cast it’s discipline on science as well as all the other factors in our society and we will get the science we will be prepared to pay for instead of being forced to pay for total garbage that is passed off as supposedly science of some sort today.
Yeah, Jimmie “Death Train’s” prediction will definitely come true in ~15 more years. It’s not like all of the wild alarmist predictions never come true leaving the predictor having to spin like crazy when their predictions don’t pan out..
cesium62:
re your post at July 1, 2014 at 12:48 am.
Perhaps you wish to withdraw your remark in the light of the information provided by Ken L. at July 1, 2014 at 3:38 am ?
Of course, you may not wish to withdraw it because, to quote an anonymous troll, “you could just continue to look like an idiot.”
Richard
i concur ,heat has driven many people from scotland to the mediterranean during what we call the scottish summer for decades ,am i doing this right ?
Yep, science is settled; the evidence is in. Nobody is moving to Florida and those that were here are leaving in droves. /s
What is it about AGW fanatics and stupidity? The two go together like white on rice.
The *only* environmental niches not well populated are the cold ones.
When I turn on TV, I notice that the World Cup this year is in the booming, growing nation of Brazil.
Not the population shrinking Scandinavian area.
The Antarctic, Arctic Greenland and the frigid Tibetan Plateau are the least populated places on Earth.
Life does well in warmth.
CO2 obsessives, no matter their education or IQ testing, seem to be able to be really dumb.
DDP says:
June 30, 2014 at 5:13 pm
Almost certainly another case of inverting cause and effect. When population shifts out of an area for whatever reason, there is a surplus of available housing and prices will drop. People do not move because the value of their house drops; often that prevents them from moving. Just ask people in the US trying to get out of their houses around 2009 — they stayed put as long as they had the income to pay the mortgage and taxes.
Unless a large portion of your household assets is in ice cream, they are not sensitive to a 1 degree temperature shift.
hunter says:
July 1, 2014 at 4:42 am
> The *only* environmental niches not well populated are the cold ones.
How about the hot, dry ones? At the extremes, the Sahara and Death Valley don’t have a very high population. (Modulo one’s definition of “well populated” – I could argue Antarctica is well populated given the political constraints on development there.
OT – when I moved to Massachusetts in 1978 I was amused by roadway warning signs that said “Thickly settled”. IIRC, there was some rule in the driving regs where that implied a 35 mph speed limit.
BallBounces says:
June 30, 2014 at 4:50 pm
Just assign her Quebec. 🙂
IIRC, the Indonesian government had a policy in the past to move folks from more densely populated areas to less populated provinces. I wonder if this would affect the results of the study, and whether the authors controlled in some way for it.
I very vaguely recall that AGW means that most of the global warming will be felt most at the poles and less at the equator. AGW would also make itself felt most in the winter and at night. Indonesia is ON the equator. In Indonesia the number of tourists had been going up each year, while the heat drives the villagers away. So much for acclimatization – it seems locals just can’t do it while tourists from Sweden can. ;-P
“Number of Foreign Tourists in Indonesia Rises to 2 Million in Q1-2013”
Why is it that every year millions upon millions of people head south towards the equator to get sunburn while on summer holiday?
The Afar Depression (Ethiopia) has one of the year-round hottest, inhabited places on the planet at 48 °C (118 °F) during the dry season (Danakil Depression). The area is also thought to be where some early hominids evolved.
“Inside the hottest place on Earth ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7950845.stm
Hominids
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091007/full/461705a.html
Maybe that’s why net migration between Mexico and the USA is at zero and is probably moving the other way for once.
“At the same time, research conducted by Hsiang while at Princeton and published in 2013 showed a correlation between higher temperatures and social conflict such as civil wars, ethnic conflict and street crime.”
All that shows is that people prefer good , warm weather when they pursue outdoor activities, whether sports or crime. The same results would have occurred if they had studied the American Revolution or Civil War. During the winter, the British settled in Philadelphia or Boston, while the Americans settled in at Valley Forge, with no fighting until spring.- Likewise, during the American Civil War, few battles were fought between January and March.
The actual paper mentions the word “model” or “models” 16 times. It does not appear once in the press release above.
Here are snippets from the paper.
The press release says:
Some time back I hear Somalian piracy went up in tandem with temperatures. This is pseudoscience, garbage of the highest order.
@nickreality65
I don’t know how anybody lives in Kansas now. Seriously, I lived in Kansas for over 30 years and moved to Las Vegas.
But regarding this “study” — Bull. People are flocking to the sunbelt. Even if correct for Indonesia and claim it applies globally.
Florida is bereft of people. Kenya, on the equator is barren. All hope is lost. Economics and overcrowding, increased wealth have nothing to do with why people move in or out of anywhere in the world. Heat is the key.
Sweden is cold. Kenya is hot. So why do the Swedes head to the equator, and saunas, in such great numbers? I need answers. Look chaps, this is why ordinary folks, as opposed to Climastrologists, are sceptical. It flies in the face of their own lying eyes.
It’s funny how human migration went south into Indonesia which is smack bang on the equator. Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago, during the last glaciation. Why didn’t they stay on the mainland countries of Burma, south China, north India, Pakistan and Afghanistan? Why go to the heat? Why?
The light suddenly dawns
Obummer will designate the tidal wave of illegal immigrants that America is now experiencing as — CLIMATE REFUGEES!
Global warming proved! And an excuse found to legalize their permanent stay here!
Eugene WR Gallun
This report is a pretty cynical piece of climate agitprop. Since the squares (conservatives & middle Americans) stereotypically “hate immigrants” or so the story goes they want to try to sell totalitarian energy/carbon controls to the squares by as AlGore would put it, ‘playing on their fears.’
Here is something to cheer you all up. Some birds flews into Germany last year in March to start their Spring. They soon left and headed back south. They do tell us that global warming is disrupting bird migrations.
They should have stayed and fought climate change.
I live in the tropics and the last couple of weeks has been a scorcher. I simply turn on the fan and have a refreshing drink. I have no intention of moving anywhere. In fact I left cold London over a decade ago to enjoy the heat, and it’s lovely. Every winter hordes of Europeans arrive and for some odd reason lie down on the hot beach. This is bizarre behaviour indeed. We must act now, and tackle the causes of people changing their climate.
…Then why in Hell are people moving down here to Texas. It is HOT during the summer, although this year not so bad…low nineties with an occasional blip to 100. One would think that NJ and NY would be gaining in population….
If the study asked people why they left certain Indonesian provinces, I doubt very much the answer would be:
“I left West Sumatra because this year it is 28C, 1C higher than normal.”
Maybe economics, high population density, and other factors are more important than 1C. If it was 5C higher then I might pay attention. Every single day I experience 10C temperature fluctuation, it’s called night and day, and I love every bit of it. A 2C rise held for 10 whole year would not make any difference to me.
Before I go, I see that one of the authors is Michael Oppenheimer.
WUWT
Another Michael Oppenheimer FAIL – 2010 claim on Mexican ‘climate refugees’ evaporates once his paper is corrected.
I commented here to show that net migration between Mexico and USA was now ZERO. I also commented here to show Mexico’s fertility rate in freefall and stands at 2.28. Ditto with many Latin American countries.
I forgot the WUWT link
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/12/another-michael-oppenheimer-fail-2010-claim-on-mexican-climate-refugees-evaporates-once-his-paper-is-corrected/
The Chicago Way and NJ Way drives a lot of people away and the Detroit Way already shows obvious results.
I remember this “researchers” precious paper on human conflict being the result of hot weather. Laughable, is the only descriptor I can use to describe this person and have it be appropriate.
The Onion should seriously start feeding off this guys research. I could imagine the fake quotes from Indonesian farmers. “We were forced to abandon our home in the country because it was just too hot. We packed up our entire family and moved 87.4 meters higher into the mountains where it is 1.2 degrees cooler and now our family is worth 14% more.”
On a more serious note, if I were associated with Princeton in any way I’d request the data used on this garbage research. The data has to be junk or entirely fabricated for this. A simple search will show that the largest cities in Indonesia all have annual average temperature of over 27 degrees, Jakarta (the largest) has an average of about 31. Since 1970 urban population has increased from 15% to 44%. The only areas with average temperatures less than 27 degrees are the rural mountain areas, where people have been moving from, not to. This research is obvious fraud and there should be consequences.
*previous* paper….not precious…though it may have been precious too.
Why don’t the AGW crowd hold their hootenannies in Nuuk, Greenland, Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Eureka, Nunavut or Murmansk, Russia? No they go to uncomfortable climes like Bali, Brazil, Doha….Hey, they number in the 10s of thousands, they might accidentally get counted as climate refugees when they return home.
Jim Brock says:
July 1, 2014 at 7:42 am
Two words: air conditioning.
Many years ago I lived in Texas and there and in other southern states it was common to see bumper stickers and such featuring the Confederate battle flag with the assertion “The South Shall Rise Again!”. My comment then an now is “yes, but only because some Damn Yankee invented air conditioning”.
The wealthy have wintered in Florida for years (see history of Winter Park for example); the average person couldn’t afford the travel and months away from a job. Permanent residents just suffered through the summer heat in exchange for getting rid of all the seasonal invaders, or because they had no choice. My uncle described what it was like before air conditioning in Austin Texas and what a huge difference the first consumer window units made (you could sleep at night).
Now as long as people can survive the walk from their air-conditioned cars to the air-conditioned mall and then back to their air-conditioned houses, they can live quite comfortably year round in Texas, Florida and other places where it can get brutally hot.
Significant advances in mosquito control and consequent malaria reduction certainly didn’t hurt.
Also public dress codes have relaxed (many would say disappeared). Look at pictures from the 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s and you will see men wearing coats, ties and hats in the summer and women wearing dresses, hats, hose and white gloves. Combine no A/C with much less comfortable dress and staying in the South through the summer was something to be avoided if possible. Now shorts, tee-shirts and flip-flops are accepted most places most of the time. I even see some people dressed that way for a regular season Symphony performance, which supports the notion that dress codes have disappeared rather than relaxed.
In a nutshell: increased wealth and the technology it promoted tamed the worst aspects of tropical locations, at which point people were more inclined to follow their preference for warmth over cold. I left Chicago a long time ago and devoutly hope I never again have to shovel a driveway. Stocking up on tonic to mix with gin to sip outside by the pool is much easier.
I didn’t read through all of the posts on this article. So this may be redundant. What’s implied here is, “did they do a study on how many people move on account of the cold?” There may be a motive for people in a warm climate to move to a slightly less warm place, but I can assure you that people definitely move from a cold climate to a warmer one, and will tell you that is their sole reason for moving. When, not when.. IF I want to see snow and ice again, I’ll take a vacation to go see it.
Any indication that they noted where the families moved TO, and what the conditions were there?
Interesting to see how many people here have moved to warmer climes, and some of those of northern European origin complaining about it. I’ve spend much of a lifetime traipsing around the Australian outback (desert and wet tropics included) and have come to the conclusion that people’s heat tolerance is extremely variable. People from Scotland move here and revel in the heat, people who grew up in sub-tropical Brisbane get sick of the humidity and move to Tasmania. Some places I’ve lived in have had hordes of tourists, mainly in winter but a few diehards come in summer (at my current location, which is coastal, it still tops 40C quite regularly) and when one asks “why on earth did you come here in summer” they say “we’re from [insert northern hemisphere country in the grip of winter] and it -10C and icy and snowy and horrible, this is so much better”. I’m convinced that northern Europeans have some weird ability to soak up sunshine for the coming winter- some of the ones I see locally get around semi-naked with their skin burned nearly black. My wife’s from SE Asia and absolutely hates hot humid weather. When she goes home she goes from a/c car to cooled house to airconned shopping malls. Airconditioning is the key to settlement in disgustingly hot places, as has been noted in many earlier posts. It may play a part in the increased wealth of places where there was already a population “used to the heat” but who did very little since lifting an arm meant breaking into a muck sweat 🙂
LOL! I had some retired relatives who had 3 cheap residences. They had a mobile home in Arizona (for them to use in the winter), a hand-built cabin in the mountains near Taos (for them to use in the summer), and another mobile home in Oklahoma (for them to use when the weather was more clement). I’m guessing they spent very little on utilities.
So, I’m thinking that if people can and will migrate (even temporarily) to find mild weather, they will. Or if they have the wherewithal to build a climate-controlled environment and stay put, they will.
It seems to me that societies will invent and invest in infrastructure because they HAVE TO, to stay alive. So, well-populated places where there is minimal infrastructure are places where conditions are livable at least most of the year. It won’t usually kill you to sit around and sweat a bit during warm weather – as long as there is plenty of water nearby. But if you can’t heat your house in the depths of winter, it could very kill you.
I think it’s myopic of us (North Americans) to assume that all undeveloped places in the world are hellholes. Maybe they’re not.
>Gary Pearse says:
>July 1, 2014 at 9:36 am
>Why don’t the AGW crowd hold their hootenannies in Nuuk, Greenland, Longyearbyen, >Svalbard, Eureka, Nunavut or Murmansk, Russia? No they go to uncomfortable climes like Bali, >Brazil, Doha….Hey, they number in the 10s of thousands, they might accidentally get counted as >climate refugees when they return home.
Heh…I find myself wondering if they’re simply scouting places to take over when the next ice age arrives.
I have grown to resist the message of the MSM so strongly that I find myself believing the opposite of the scenario they try to hard to convince you of.
Now i realize why so many people live above 60 degrees north or south , the love of six months of snow and ice .