From Princeton University (with help from Berkeley)
Cool heads likely won’t prevail in a hotter, wetter world
Should climate change trigger the upsurge in heat and rainfall that scientists predict, people may face a threat just as perilous and volatile as extreme weather — each other.
Researchers from Princeton University and the University of California-Berkeley report in the journal Science that even slight spikes in temperature and precipitation have greatly increased the risk of personal violence and social upheaval throughout human history. Projected onto an Earth that is expected to warm by 2 degrees Celsius by 2050, the authors suggest that more human conflict is a likely outcome of climate change.
The researchers analyzed 60 studies from a number of disciplines — including archaeology, criminology, economics and psychology — that have explored the connection between weather and violence in various parts of the world from about 10,000 BCE to the present day. During an 18-month period, the Princeton-Berkeley researchers reviewed those studies’ data — and often re-crunched raw numbers — to calculate the risk that violence would rise under hotter and wetter conditions.
They found that while climate is not the sole or primary cause of violence, it undeniably exacerbates existing social and interpersonal tension in all societies, regardless of wealth or stability. They found that 1 standard-deviation shift — the amount of change from the local norm — in heat or rainfall boosts the risk of a riot, civil war or ethnic conflict by an average of 14 percent. There is a 4 percent chance of a similarly sized upward creep in heat or rain sparking person-on-person violence such as rape, murder and assault. The researchers report that climate-change models predict an average of 2 to 4 standard-deviation shifts in global climate conditions by 2050.
Establishing a correlation between violence and climate change now allows policymakers and researchers to examine what causes it and how to intervene, said lead author Solomon Hsiang, who conducted the work as a postdoctoral research associate in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
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  IMAGE: The researchers analyzed 60 studies from a number of disciplines that have explored the connection between weather and violence in various parts of the world, and throughout human history. A…
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“We think that by collecting all the research together now, we’re pretty clearly establishing that there is a causal relationship between the climate and human conflict,” Hsiang said. “People have been skeptical up to now of an individual study here or there. But considering the body of work together, we can now show that these patterns are extremely general. It’s more of the rule than the exception.
“Whether there is a relationship between climate and conflict is not the question anymore. We now want to understand what’s causing it,” Hsiang said. “Once we understand what causes this correlation we can think about designing effective policies or institutions to manage or interrupt the link between climate and conflict.”
The existing research had essentially shown an overall link between climate conditions and these conflicts, but that link needed to be extracted from reams of figures from various disciplines in order for the research to reach general conclusions, Hsiang said. Hsiang, who is now an assistant professor at Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, worked with co-first author Marshall Burke, a doctoral candidate in Berkeley’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and Edward Miguel, the Oxfam Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics at Berkeley.
“We attained a huge amount of the data that was available and we used the same method on all of the data so that we could directly compare studies,” Hsiang said. “Once we did that, we saw that all of the results were actually highly consistent — previously they just weren’t being analyzed in a consistent way.”
The researchers examined three categories of conflict: “personal violence and crime,” which includes murder, assault, rape and domestic violence; “intergroup violence and political instability,” such as civil wars, riots, ethnic violence and land invasions; and “institutional breakdowns,” which are abrupt and major changes in governing institutions or, in extreme cases, the collapse of entire civilizations.
Extreme climatic conditions amplified violence in all three categories, regardless of geography, societal wealth or the time in history. An aberrant climate coincided with incidents including spikes in domestic violence in India and Australia; increased assaults and murders in the United States and Tanzania; ethnic violence in Europe and South Asia; land invasions in Brazil; police using force in the Netherlands; civil conflicts throughout the tropics; the collapse of ancient empires; and wars and displacement in Middle-Ages Europe.
“We find the same pattern over and over again, regardless of whether we look at data from Brazil, Somalia, China or the United States,” Miguel said. “We often think of modern society as largely independent of the environment, due to technological advances, but our findings challenge that notion. The climate appears to be a critical factor sustaining peace and wellbeing across human societies.”
And the climate does not have to deviate much to upset that peace and wellbeing, Burke said. The 1 standard-deviation shift he and his co-authors uncovered equates to a seemingly paltry change in weather: it’s roughly equal to warming an African country by 0.35°C, or by 0.63°F, for an entire year, or warming a county in the United States by 2.9°C, or by 5.2°F, for a given month.
“These are pretty moderate changes, but they have a sizable impact on those societies,” Burke said. Many global climate models project global temperature increases of at least 2 degrees Celsius over the next several decades, which, when combined with the Princeton-Berkeley findings, suggest that warming at that level could increase the risk of civil war in many countries by more than 50 percent, the researchers said.
The factors that interact with climate to produce chaos and discord are varied. A popular theory is that drought and flooding cripple an economy, especially one based on agriculture or that is already weak. When people look for someone to blame, governmental leaders have a target on their backs, as do any people with whom there is existing tension, such as an ethnic minority or a migrant group from stricken hinterlands.
But sometimes heat just makes people more aggressive. The researchers found that personal violence was far more influenced by a leap in temperature. Hsiang and his colleagues cite studies that equate excessive heat with spikes of violence in the United States and other stable, wealthy countries. For example, a 1994 study found that two groups of police officers undergoing the exact same simulation training were more likely to draw their weapons if the room was uncomfortably warm.
“There’s a large amount of evidence that environmental conditions actually change a person’s perception of their own condition, or they also can change the likelihood of people using violence or aggressive action to accomplish some goal,” Hsiang said.
“Our study is not saying that climate is the only cause of conflict, and there’s no conflict that we think should be wholly attributed to some specific climatic event,” he said. “Every conflict has roots in interpersonal and intergroup relations. What we’re trying to point out is that climate is one of the critical factors the affect how things escalate, and if they escalate to the point of violence.”
The paper, “Quantifying the influence of climate on human conflict,” was published in Science Aug. 1. The study was funded by a Princeton University postdoctoral fellowship in science, technology and environmental policy, a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation, and the Oxfam Faculty Chair in Environmental and Resource Economics at Berkeley.
Well, I’m feeling angry just reading that… :0
I guess those people who live in the Florida Keys are just one angry bunch!
Walking along the warm Ocean every morning will just want them to get angry
and down a couple of cocktails.
CACCA has apparently already made certain “scientists” & “journalists” cuckoo.
Did they factor in the difference in cultures now? With air conditioning prevalent in many cultures many people no longer experience hot weather directly. In fact, by driving people inside it works more like colder weather from a historic perspective. But hey, what kind of grant are you going to get for making that claim?
In my experience, it is increases from a base that make people grumpy.
If global warming merely raises the base, there won’t be much an increase in global grumpiness.
You know what a 2deg temperature drop will make people? Hungry!
Readers digest version:
“We found a correlation. Correlation does not imply causation but … we found a correlation so there MUST be causation. QED”
So, would someone emigrating from Temperate Britain to much hotter Australia suddenly become a much more violent and criminal person?
tony
,Omitted variable fraud. Unfortunately I cannot tell you the omitted variable; it is illegal for EU citizens to do so. Hint: Rape.
So that explains New Orleans.
Does anyone know how much of climate science is impacts and mitigation compared to cause?
tonyb says: August 1, 2013 at 1:03 pm
“….So, would someone emigrating from Temperate Britain to much hotter Australia suddenly become a much more violent and criminal person?…”
Yeah! Them Aussies are violent, win at all cost b*******s!!!
(Unless they are playing cricket in the current Ashes series, of course).
And before long cats will be living with dogs. In the claim they make they should replace angry with mad. Mad is a better description of this “work.”
How do they explain that people go to the tropics to relax. In my experience people in the tropics, where it is hot and humid, are not as belligerent as the people in the colder climates.
There is an up side to it being too darn hot
According to the Kinsey Report
Ev’ry average man you know
Much prefers to play his favorite sport
When the temperature is low,
But when the thermometer goes ‘way up
And the weather is sizzling hot,
Mister Adam
For his madam.
Is not,
‘Cause it’s too, too
Too darn hot,
It’s too darn hot,
It’s too darn hot.
I am sure that interventionist environmentalists and Paul Ehrlich will see their population control theme fulfilled.
Credit Cole Porter and “Kiss Me, Kate.” (1948).
People fight over resources. Changes in climate change the quantity and distribution of resources. That’s what causes conflict.
What would make me very angry indeed is if they received a grant to produce this piece of fluff.
http://youtu.be/Bm96CrO0CBs
Well, if it does go up by 2*C people will be pis… angry because they can’t afford to run their AC because the price of energy will have skyrocketed in a vain attempt to stop the Earth from doing what it would have done naturally anyway.
What do they say will happen when it doesn’t go up by 2*C and people realize they’ve been duped (and they still can’t afford to run their AC)?
Many of us who live in the northeastern US are well acquainted with the “Florida Brain Melt” syndrome. It is experienced by temperate climate folks who move to Florida. This should be worthy of another study.
If this study is right, isn’t it strange that the worst conflicts, WWI and WWII, happend before we had any AGW?
Well no, not exactly; what wILL make me angry; excuse me, that’s very angry, is watching my tax dollars getting wasted on these deadbeats, who figure it’s ok, to ask other people to fund their fooling around with stuff and nonsense, that does just fine, left to itself.
A pushy restaurant server, the other day, told me I was “cheap” because I only tipped her 10%.
Well since she had inflated my bill, by 35%, by adding on to it, the meals consumed by some people at another table she was serving, I thought she was darn lucky to get anything.
So I explained to her, the reality. As a self employed person, living in California, I now pay at least 75 cents on every dollar in taxes. (Federal business taxes on single proprietor small business income is 39.6%).
So I have to earn $4 for every dollar I spend, including on food, or sales tax on food, or tips for servers, who can’t keep a bill straight.
But I did tip her, because she at least is not asking for a lifetime pension to watch the grass grow, and see if it turns brown.
Wait a moment. Wasn’t it just a couple of years ago when the planet’s fevah was supposed to cause permanent droughts? Now its to cause permanent rainfall? How many times am I supposed to groupthink pivot?
Hitler wasn’t evil and delusional he was just hot. Maybe Napoleon was just tired of the rain. Or is it that during a drop in temperatures of a single deviation the general populace is too worried about fulfilling their hierarchy of needs to become unpleasant with each other? Or even more likely, this study belongs in the fiction section.
The paper is a meta-analysis, that is, statistical results from previous papers were combined to obtain a joint estimate. There are three major problems:
First, the authors were rather exclusive in their paper selection. Many studies that do not find a relationship between climate/weather and violence were omitted.
Second, the authors confuse weather and climate. It is true that people are more irritable during unusually hot weather. It is not true that people in hot climates are more irritable. Impacts of weather variability cannot be extrapolated to climate change.
Third, the authors average apples and oranges. They add rape/kelvin to war/kelvin. The result is meaningless.
Whenever I drive my car through a large city and then out into the surrounding countryside, I always look at the digital readout on my car’s thermometer, and often it is 2 degrees cooler in country side — and yes, most country folk are cooler headed than the city folk — so nothing new here, let’s move along.
This will come as a major surprise to the citizens of Singapore.
Did they eliminate all the social factors at play or just ignore them? This type of study is another example of someone forming a hypothesis and then gathering the data which supports their hypothesis while ignoring the data which doesn’t support it. Conflict between people is bound to occur as long as you have two people in one location – the temperature may reduce the time for it to occur but it will still happen. ie. Have you ever seen a hockey game which didn’t have some violence in it?
Wasn’t a good chunk of the Battle of Stalingrad fought at 40 below zero?
Napoleon set the French campaign against Russia in motion on 24 June 1812. That turned out well. As is said, the rest is history. Since then Europeans have had good reason to head to the beaches and cool off when it gets hot.
When populations grow in warmer climates they need to compete for food and other resources and that causes conflict. Take for example the Australian Aborigines – very peaceful race until resources dwindled and they then became warlike and started killing each other. Anyway that’s what scientists tell us from their interpretation of rock drawings.
Were they cherry picking people in a moderate state of inebriation for this survey?
You want an instant insufferable arsehole, just add sufficient alcohol (the only relevant temperature variable being the temperature of the beverage as served).
Gunga Din says:
August 1, 2013 at 1:20 pm
“Well, if it does go up by 2*C . . . ”
* Try using Alt0176 to get the degree sign °
That is on a MS-Windows keyboard; hold Alt down, type the four digits.
I wonder if publication bias contributed to the results ( a lot of “my results led me to conclude my paper AGW will have no effects, let me see if I can get it into Sceince”-research never got published and consequently never made it to Hsiangs paper either). Have someone read the paper and seen if the Authors discuss this?
I feel very skeptic about these conclutions and Im not sure if its common scense or paranoia that prevents me from trusting an article in a reputable journal.
Mann and McKibben are so smart, they live in the 2C world already. That’s why they’re always so angry
“such as civil wars, riots, ethnic violence and land invasions; and “institutional breakdowns,” which are abrupt and major changes in governing institutions or, in extreme cases, the collapse of entire civilizations.”
Katrina hurricane already caused a major change in our institution.
Institutional breakdown.
Send 7200 National Guard who are fighting overseas. Woops, forgot, we don’t have ’em got them over there $$$ for Carlysle Group. Scores of police and firefighters who had volunteered to help rescue people were sent to Atlanta for 2 days of training classes on topics including sexual harassment and the history of FEMA. Dick Cheney pretty much forces the manager of the Southern Pines Electric Power Association to divert power crews from working on getting power for two hospitals, moved them to electrical substations to Collins, Mississippi for the operation of the Colonial Pipeline, which carries fuel from Texas to the Northeast.
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Thanks for the tip. I can’t guarantee I’ll remember the next time I want to make a “°” sign.
This is a kooky take-off on what we do know for sure. Density of population makes animals, and people, crazier. But there is no benefit is promoting facts; everything defaults to the great non-problem of warming. Warm temperature is something everyone gets used to.
People dying and starving is much more stressful than learning to take siestas or work during cooler hours.
I want them to study the possible anger and violence when people armed with axes and saws argue over the last remaining trees in a forest, that they desperately need to keep their families from freezing in winter, because all coal use is effectively banned, electricity is rationed and expensive when available at all, and they can’t afford the “carbon credits” sold by the well-connected licensed brokers to use any other fossil fuels they might come across, if they could ever pay the permit fees to merely apply to be “carbon releasers”.
Of course the conclusions will be anger and violence will decrease once the regulations are once again “administratively re-interpreted” to cover any “vigorously exothermic” release of carbon from long-term storage to the atmosphere, thus wood burning is also effectively banned, thus axes and large wood saws may be legally confiscated as having no non-governmental purpose, thus there will be nothing to fight over and less to fight with.
Also on the plus side, this will result in more cows and goats being adopted as pets, as during the day they can be fed useless gathered grass and leaves, then snuggled up to for warmth at night. Morning joke: “Wow, did you get awake horny or… Oh, that is a horn.”
And here I thought cold would cause food shortages which would cause famine, disease and pestilence; at least that’s what my history books tell me.
That would be why Australia has such a high crime rate, and Australians are so pushy and violent, then?
Living here in the tropics as well, I guess that is why everybody here is so uptight and tense.
/sarc
Just think it through for two seconds…
Looks like the Editors at Bloomberg thought this was such a good solid piece of research that they posted it on their Home page…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-01/our-hotter-wetter-more-violent-future.html
Lets all have a go at them shall we…?
Only in the fantasy world of the Left could such an idea even occur to anyone.
This is so stupid but so dangerous. Policy makers will lap up this nonsense in order to further their progressive social engineering agendas.
This same 2 degrees is the new perpetual motion machine for the publication mill.
Pitiful, nonsensical, mutterings of a drunken fool.
Hsiang: [paraphrased] More human conflict [hic] is a likely outcome of climate change. [2nd paragraph] Now, the government can determine what causes it.
WUWT: “What causes it” ?!!! You big dope, you just said climate change causes violence.
H: [robotically] The government can now intervene.
WUWT: Intervene to do what?
H: [monotone, glazed stare] To determine [SNAP! — WUWT snaps fingers in H’s face] …. [eyes brighten, sane look on face of H] to determine how to “control the people” by pretending human CO2 makes people super-mad….. [monotone returns, eyes glazed]…. people …. made………….. things…………………………[eyelids drooping, slumping over in chair]………… ninety…. [yawn, eyes close]…….. seven…. . [CLUNK — falls off chair, snoring on floor]
WUWT: H! H?? H!!! [shakes him, won’t wake up] You’re DRUNK! I KNEW it.
We KNOW it. Condemned out of their own prevaricating mouths, they are either drunk, or……………. lying (again).
Where did all the Prop 30 money go? Wasn’t that money supposed to solve all problems? The problem is that this money was given to administrators to do with as they wish. We’re seeing the results of where the money went right now. The approach taken by administrators is to moan about not having enough money so that the taxpayer will give them more; there is no incentive to actually fix problems.
Here in Wichita, people always fight during a thunderstorm.
/sarc
Hot and bothered in Chicago…wait… what ?
—–
http://blog.chicagoweathercenter.com/2013/07/29/abnormally-cool-temps-move-into-day-8-past-7-days-set-new-record-for-the-coolest-july-23-29-on-the-books-here/
“Never in 142 years of official weather observations in Chicago has a July 23-29 period been as cool as the one just completed. Temperatures during that time frame averaged 65.6-degrees—well below the long-term average of 74.5.”
===
Now I’m out of excuses to be angry…., which is an excuse in itself !!
I have read that any event they may occur in any population of anything will tend to increase in direct proportion to the square of the number in the population. I suppose that is because random contacts will increase according to that ratio. The population of the earth was 2 billion in the twenties and 7 billion now,
Was the treatment of populations within a confined area treated uniformly in all studies?
Well at least it goes with the Australian ‘angry weather’ narrative that we are supposed to be experiencing.
The East Coast has had some delightful winter weather, warmer than average, but people don’t seem to be fighting.
I am a bit worried though.People from the Southern states will be migrating to Queensland in the sub tropical to tropical zone at Christmas.
That’s well over a 2 degree centigrade jump.
If they read this study they should all be going for a fight, not to relax.
But then,what would they know?
When I’m working out in the freezing cold, which I did in December 2011, I was called out to replace about 40 out side light bulbs and electronic parts around an old peoples home, at 8:30 in the morning I was up a freezing cold ladder trying to use a freezing cold set of Allen-keys to open poorly designed light fittings, when I’d nip my fingers (which I did a lot that morning) I was made incredibly angry. I was angry with the designers of such a badly designed product and getting a cold nip is the worst, the local temperature was about 1C that morning, a 2C rise in global temperature would not have made any difference.
If the local temperature for that day was between 20C to 27C I would have been fine, getting the odd finger nip is expected but in colder conditions it is more painful.
BTW. I didn’t select or install the florescent so-called “Eco-light bulbs”, electronic parts and badly designed fittings which were not suitable for the freezing outdoor temperatures, which was why I was called out.
Gunga Din says:
August 1, 2013 at 1:48 pm
John F. Hultquist says:
August 1, 2013 at 1:41 pm
Gunga Din says:
August 1, 2013 at 1:20 pm
“Well, if it does go up by 2*C . . . ”
* Try using Alt0176 to get the degree sign °
That is on a MS-Windows keyboard; hold Alt down, type the four digits.
======================================================================
Thanks for the tip. I can’t guarantee I’ll remember the next time I want to make a “°” sign.
__________________________
Alternatively on a Windows keyboard… using numeric keypad- hold Alt, type on pad- 248, like so; 32°
[Reply: As usual, it’s even easier on a Mac: Option + zero gives you “º” ~mod]
Let’s see:
Warmer temps,
More rain,
More CO2,
More plant growth
Kind of like the Garden of Eden, huh?
Oops, sorry, wrong belief system….
I can establish a correlation between the frequency of Leif Svalgaard’s posts and the intensity of my laughter, with high degree of confidence. Why don’t I receive a federal grant for a study of this phenomenon, “for the greater good of the greater number of people”?
It makes me angry already:
“Bacon fries on pavement as heat wave grips China”
“It’s been so hot in China that folks are grilling shrimp on manhole covers, eggs are hatching without incubators and a highway billboard has mysteriously caught fire by itself.”
http://www.newsdaily.com/article/bcc05991456f494b4a6487ff9f51e606/bacon-fries-on-pavement-as-heat-wave-grips-china
Grrrrrrr. I HATE ALL OF YOU! Grrrrr.
LOL. Another one for the Warmlist
This must explain the wars during the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods. Oh wait, jai mitchell informs me that it’s warmer today, so get ready for the Third World War. European powers are gearing up to fight Napoleon. Adolf is raging, the US are ready and so is Churchill. /sarc.
Once again, The Weathermen (Bill Ayers et. al.’s 1970’s terrorists whose stated strategy was to: bomb the U.S. into a police state which The Weathermen would then run (having shoved the real police out of the way via murder or infiltration and by having their own “police” force ready to go).
tactics raise their ugly head.
D’oh!bama and the Saul Alinsky Gang of Community Organizers (S.E.I.U. and the like providing the personnel and signs) have the EXACT same basic formula except they use proxies to stir up the violence that would, they would assert, justify a police state:
Examples of proxies being used (most opportunistically, some by design):
— Ji-ha-dists
— Racial anger (say, over a trial outcome, even though it was just)
— Bums and Angry Youth (“Occupy”)
[Note: A FAILED attempt at proxy = trying to incite the Tea Party patriots to get into fist- i – cuffs with the S.E.I.U. thugs slithering amongst the crowd slinging insults and sometimes worse — we freedom-loving Americans have been too level-headed and self-controlled for them. LOL, they forget that we are not like they are; they are motivated by hate and greed and we are motivated by love and truth.]
and, now,
weather.
Well, HA! The weather isn’t cooperating.
Ahh, but according to the activists, the solution to this all is “Agenda 21”, where we all get piled on top of each other in a few megalopoli and have only a few square meters apiece.
There have been several real sociology studies that have shown that episodes of violence increase with increased population densities. This would indicate that the true solution to the violence indicated in this report (if any of us believe its veracity) is to spread the population out as much as possible so our heat shortened tempers won’t be triggered to commit mayhem. So much for the lofty goals of “Agenda 21”.
I guess a certain UN/Club of Rome agenda item gets one placed in the moderation bin. I keep finding those things…
They showed that warm WEATHER was correlated with more crimes. Warm weather will always exist.
Oh, wow. Modern science has rediscovered Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates’ theory of personality – part of his humoral theory.
According to Hippocrates – around 2,300 years ago – people who live in hot, wet climates are irritable, excitable and easily angered: the term he used was choleric. This was due to an excess of the hot humors – yellow bile or blood – in their personal constitutions. By contrast, those in cold climates were despondent and hard to get excited about anything – if cold and wet, as in England, they were phlegmatic due to an excess of phlegm, or cold humor; If they lived in a cold and dry climate they were melancholic due to an excess of the cold, dry humor (ie constipation).
Hard to tell where Canada is on the cold dry or wet scale, but certainly it is hard to get Canadians angered about the manifest political corruption that occurs – we have yet to throw politicians in jail for anything but murder! A bit more heat might make Canadians more interested in having an accountable political class. I notice Canada did not figure in the studies.
I also wonder how all these social scientists controlled for specific historical contingencies. I.e. how hot was the weather during the French Revolution? (a blood-thirsty and destabilizing event if ever there was one.)
If this study is taken seriously, science has definitely regressed to the point that scientists are using the teleological approaches of the Ancient Greeks – i.e. pre-Galilean science.
tonyb says:
August 1, 2013 at 1:03 pm
So, would someone emigrating from Temperate Britain to much hotter Australia suddenly become a much more violent and criminal person?
tony
========================
I had always thought that from a British “historcal perspective” arriving in OZ didn’t MAKE someone a criminal, violent person……
Never mind.
“The researchers analyzed 60 studies from a number of disciplines…”
###
Oh, for crying out load! This is a study?
In Australia there is a term “Gone Troppo”.
What unadulterated BS. The Little Ice Age was the Poster Child of War and people moving about trying to survive. The Medieval Warm Period was relatively calm compared to people displaced by cold climate.
Somebody needs to send them a history book that has not been rewritten by the liberals to pretend that warming is bad and deifying Islam.
Actually, the current neutral to cold ENSO condition is really stressing me out. El Nino would really mellow me out. Even better yet would be a generally warmer and wetter climate but I know that ain’t gonna happen.
LOL. Thanks you WUWT for the great comedy and belly laugh. This is really good. They have out done themselves, really.
I don’t get this. When I lived in the UK people’s mood positively IMPROVED during hot summer days (and in the run-up to Christmas). They were more grumpy and testy during the cold months. Anyone who has lived there must have noticed this.
Did these researchers start with a conclusion? Did bias creep in? I don’t know but please note that author, Sol Hsiang, has a PhD in Sustainable Development from Columbia University (2011). He seems to have found his niche in the great global warming money trough: heat and conflict.
I thought that war around the world was generally on the decline. I’ll look deeper later, I have to go out on an errand.
http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/war/current-war.pdf
This is a bunch of %&*#@! I could just ripe the *#%@$ heads off all the %*&@# people who think they are smarter than the rest of us $%#$@#$! BTW, i spent the day outside and it was %^$#&# hot!
faboutlaws says (August 1, 2013 at 1:32 pm): “Wasn’t a good chunk of the Battle of Stalingrad fought at 40 below zero?”
Well, yeah, but they didn’t really have their hearts in it. 🙂
Ah am I correct in taking it that Princeton University is seriously proposing that Arizona and New Mexico are seething cauldrons of crime?
Perhaps Sweden is much warmer than I gave it credit for: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19592372
A spike *downwards* in temperature certainly leads to violence – The French Revolution might have been sparked by the crop failures following the Year Without a Summer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
and that is why the Eskimos invented the siesta……..
I don’t post here often because I’m not qualified. However, I have made dozens of trips from winter climates (Ohio and PA in winter) to tropical climates (Florida and SE Asia) and never once did it make me angry. In fact, I was happy to get away from the cold and snow. These are not scientists, they are BS artists looking for money to continue their ridiculous studies.
By 2050, we are more likely to cool 2C than warm 2C….
Annie says: August 1, 2013 at 2:46 pm
“In Australia there is a term “Gone Troppo””
Yep. I use it for a nym. troppo19. The 19 is for 19 degrees south. [numlock on, alt-0176 doesn’t work for me on WP. I’ll cut/paste – °°°]. My sons thought it was naff so I kept it.
If these authors got a grant for this, I guess we have to be reasonable and accept that it was a disability support payment?
If airflow is less than 1m/s, 29°C 90RH is more uncomfortable than 36°C 50RH.
People in hot/humid climates walk slowly, are less likely to congregate in tight groups.
My dog doesn’t want to play football / tug of war when T/RH/A[irflow] is unfavourable.
That is genuinely funny!
IF you take it as read that there will be a 2C average rise, and IF you take it as read that people get all Marvin The Martian when it’s hot, it still doesn’t matter.
Tropical and summer temperatures will hardly change, according to the models predicting 2C change – it’s winter temperatures in temperate and polar areas that will really rise, apparently.
So where does that leave this ‘report’ from two eminent universities? In the cylindrical filing cabinet…
Jesse G. says:
August 1, 2013 at 3:28 pm
I don’t post here often because I’m not qualified….
>>>>>
You just got qualified, Jesse!
higley7 says:
August 1, 2013 at 2:47 pm
What you said goes double for the Dark Ages or Migrations Cold Period. Also for the CP between the Minoan & Roman Warm Periods.
Tom in hot hot hot Florida, LAUGH – OUT – LOUD. #[:)]
Some people can get angry on purpose…
Look at how violent the Mediterranean and tropical parts of the world are. Siestas are surely only for cooling off one’s violent rages resulting from the warm, balmy temperatures, and Poly/Micronesians are well-known for flying off the handle at a mere insult.
I’d write more but it’s too warm, I’m going to take a nap.
Jimbo says:
………, jai mitchell informs ……………..
sorry , but … roflmao !!
Jesse, I second Geran. If I can find threads to post on (where I am not completely ignorant of the subject matter), YOU certainly can. Glad you piped up, today. KEEP ON POSTING!
Latitude says:
“and that is why the Eskimos invented the siesta……..”
A classic.. thank you, L ! :-))))
I’ve changed my mind – I want to be a climate seantist.
Look at the advantages – governments shower money on you, sometimes without you even asking (Several climate seantists got showered with money from Obama’s stimulus fund). You get to hang out in college bars drinking and picking up pretty, enthusiastic hippy chicks. Every so often you get to fly off to an exotic holiday destination, tax deductible, expenses paid. And when someone actually demands you produce the report you were allegedly paid to create, you spend a few days making stuff up – or more likely, getting one of your graduate students to make stuff up.
No wonder they don’t want to let this nonsense go.
And lets not forget that when you speak, governments feel the need to make statements apologising for their climate crimes, and promising to do better in future.
Its like being dictator of the world, without all the paperwork.
It is amazing the fortune telling Climate Scientist and their clams. Angry people now, what is next Angry Cats and Dog?
Princeton University, Hmmm that is https://twitter.com/HeidiCullen neck of the woods and so is her site, COULD and IF one http://www.climatecentral.org/
I encountered a long term study in criminology that during winter when the day is short, the weather is cold and dreary there are more suicides, self harm and violent crimes than in warm and sunny days. Cold, dreary and short days could tip the balance in what would be sound mind.( what is in the mind of a criminal is one of the main issue to analyze in criminal law or intent) Does anybody have by chance encountered that study ? Maybe this could be a new field of crimatology. Is the researcher and adviser criminologists or are they railway engineers cum novelists?
Liberals migrate from cold to warm states
U.S. Population Shift Accelerates to South, West States, 2010 Census Shows
Average Mean Temperature . . .by state based on climate division data: 1971-2000
New York 45.35 deg F
Texas 64.83 deg F
Texas is 19.48 deg F or 10.82 deg C. warmer than New York.
Compare 0.7 deg C global warming over 1900 to 2000.
By such empirical evidence, cold northeast liberals pragmatically prefer moving to conservative southern States even though they are 10 C warmer, compared to the IPCC’s alarmist warnings of 2 C warming by 2050 (compared to 0.7C warming from 1900 to 2000).
Compare Einstein’s Razor: Compare Einstein’s Razor: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
The researcher’s model is “simple”, but it may be TOO simple, by not accounting for preferences to move to warmer climates, and thus violate Einstein’s Razor.
Is science not wonderful? Murder rate must be one of the best proxies for average temperature. Even the deleterious effect of mid 1990s warming can be seen clearly. Oh, wait, is it upside down? Needs adjustment, obviously.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/images/murderrate.png
Latitude said on August 1, 2013 at 3:16 pm:
It is important to rest and conserve your energy when running from polar bears.
PETA objects to feeding them meat tainted with unnecessary fatigue poisons.
===
From JamesS on August 1, 2013 at 3:38 pm:
Strange, Willis Eschenbach has a long and sordid history of hanging out in warmer parts of the world such as Pacific tropics, and has been known to have a powerful erupting temper.
Is this another case of mistaking correlation for causation, those warmer climes merely attract unstable undesirables? Miami Vice convinced me long ago that area attracts explosive sociopaths, and CSI: Miami has done nothing but confirm it.
It’s just a rehash of the old theory that folks in the northern hemisphere are racially superior.
So the solution to climate change is anger management?
Politicians who increase the price of electricity to make us conserve make me mad; Politicians who tax us more to stop global warming make me madder and people like this %$& above who write &#% for grant money make me homicidal. But that is because I am in Canada for the summer (Brrr). I will be better when I am back am the Bahamas.
“… what is next… ?” [New Jersey Snow Fan]
Whatever happens!
Old building falls over — HCCC (Human CO2 Climate Change)
Teen-agers throw toilets off bridge — HCCC
Dog runs into water to fetch stick — HCCC
Cat eats lettuce — HCCC
Popsicles melt — HCCC
Turtles take a long time to get anywhere (.04 seconds longer, mm, hm) — HCCC
Kind of pathetic, journalism, these days, really. Used to be “Dog Bites Man,” is not news, “Man Bites Dog” is. Now (per the party line), any old boring ordinary happening has to be spun and twisted and whirled and twirled into SOMETHING. Hence, the screaming, “Climate Change is REAL!!!!!!!
LOL
Hey, K.D.!! GOOD to see you are back. Hope all is well. You were missed.
And we’ll stay angry forever, even after we’ve got used to the heat. We couldn’t possibly adapt, could we. Every summer I get used to 40 degrees C and every winter I get used to 12 degrees C. So does everyone else around me. We don’t get angry with each other – as a matter of fact in winter we hibernate a bit and in summer we get out and get sociable. Statistically I guess there is more chance we will get angry with each other when it it is warm just because of exposure time.
Robert Wille says:
People fight over resources. Changes in climate change the quantity and distribution of resources. That’s what causes conflict.
———————————————-
That’s what we’re told… How is that global mean average temperature increasing by a purported 2 degrees C (We have less than 40 years to achieve this incredible change) result in less “resources.” Believing this garbage takes a couple of big leaps of faith.
Txomin said on August 1, 2013 at 4:08 pm:
Because the “whiter, colder” North Hemisphere will be less violent than the “darker, warmer” South Hemisphere?
“Global Warming” has pretty much been concentrated in the North Hemisphere, which is more dominated with land, larger diurnal temperature swings, and greater chances for UHI and other contamination/manipulation of the thermometer temperature record. The South Hemisphere, far more dominated by ocean temperatures, practically speaking hasn’t seen the “Global” warming.
Which blows away what I think was your comment. Feel free to elucidate what you really meant.
Puhleez my American friends, vote this dangerous nuttiness out next time. Working with the Geological Survey of Nigeria in the 1960s, I had two clinical thermometers blow up in my luggage on a field trip to Yelwa on the Niger River in Sokoto Province (a day’s boat trip north to Timbuktu). The thermometers had already survived 40 plus on several occasions. I remember it made me want to do battle with a Fulani warrior:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Framed-masked-character-warrior-ArcticPhoto/dp/B002OO4KJM
I am an historian, and from my studies of climate change throughout history, the exact opposite is what I have found. During times of cooling (stadials), migrations commence which has caused great conflicts, wars and destruction, even to the extent of the fall of empires. However, when it is warmer (interstadials), there is great prosperity, growth and innovation. But what do I know, eh? I am just an historian.
Dear Gary Pearce,
Millions of us TRIED. Sigh. CO2 poisoning swayed the rest.
BTW — tried to catch you on another thread and missed — I DO understand why nuclear power, which is an EXCELLENT power source (where properly constructed/maintained) with a nearly prefect safety record, is, for now, often not cost effective: fantasy science and anti-truth forces. You sounded pretty annoyed with me, so, I wanted to be sure you realize that I actually AGREE WITH YOU. (I just didn’t want to return to that disgusting (as it became) thread to tell you). I sure hope you read this second attempt at this message. Janice
‘Establishing a correlation between violence and climate change … allows policymakers … to examine … it and how to intervene, said lead author Solomon Hsiang, who conducted the work as a postdoctoral research associate in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.’
Wow, how appropriate. You mean, referring to research (a much too distinguished word) establishing a link between climate change and violence you ask? Nope. I mean conducting this kind of research (again, too dignified a description) at an institute appropriately titled for this kind of research (again, too dig… ok, I’ll stop): the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Our dear Woodrow is, unarguably, the lodestar for the Progressive movement, yet he remains its blushing wallflower. Why is that? Could it be the federal income tax amendment? Now, I know that’s unfair. The income tax amendment was in the works before Woody tap danced into the White House. Nonetheless, it was Woodrow Wilson who signed that legislation that proved to be the goose that laid the golden egg for, what is now, the insatiable appetite of a virtually monolithic federal government. Oh, and by the way, that tax was only going to apply to the rich (Obama supporters, you listening?).
Or, could it be the more humble XVII Amendment, also passed in 1913. That amendment changed the selection of Senators from being Statehouse decisions to being decided at the ballot boxes in public elections. Ahh, but that was done for democracy, eh? Sure, that’s why Hillary, who spent her political life in Arkansas decided the people of New York needed her ambition…er, services. Let’s not even discuss Barack other than to say that if it wasn’t for the XVII Amendment he wouldn’t be president today. Argue with that.
Speaking of democracy, well Woody Wilson tainted alla that too. Didn’t he coin the term, ‘keeping the world save for democracy?’ Forever after people believed the US was a great democracy. Sorry, the founders never wanted a democracy. A democracy’s nothing other than mob rule. But it infuses the elected official with power. Obama anyone? And let us not forget our dear Woody’s famous line following the end of a war that was elective for the US, but in which he engaged us; World War 1; where he called it, “The war to end all wars.” Well, maybe all wars for maybe 20 years. And let us not forget, that with one exception, all the major wars the US fought during the 20th Century were initiated by Progressive Democrats. Also let us remember that Woodrow Wilson initiated the League of Nations, the forerunner to the UN that we all enjoy so much today. And the UN got the ball rolling on climate change.
Did I say Woodrow had little use for the Constitution? All good progressives do. Unlike our POTUS, however, who expresses a false fealty to it, Woody came right out and called it outdated. But one thing that wasn’t outdated in Wilson’s book was racism. When he was in that White House he intended to keep it as white as white could be. Blacks in government employ were segregated in his administration. And Woodrow Willy expressed a fondness for the KKK.
But I’ve saved the best for last. Perhaps it was the reason (although I think I’ve shown quite a few) that Progressives co-opted the term Liberal with which to describe themselves. Since liberal meant someone who favored liberty it was, how does one say this, jf&@zydxu inaccurate. But, for a time it was a sufficient bamboozler. With memories short, it’s back to the name they dared not use for almost 70 years. You see, during the Progressive administration of Woodrow Wilson the XVIII Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1919. Just like this bogus climate research that shows policy makers how to deal with violence by stopping global warming by shutting down electrical generating capacity (since dark streets and hot apartments are conducive to civility) that XVIII Amendment promised to diminish something else besides 2 degree warmer temperatures that induced violence as well. And how did the XVIII Amendment claim to reduce violence? By prohibiting alcohol. Yep, the XVIII Amendment was otherwise known as Prohibition.
Maybe I’ve been babbling, and maybe it’s just me, but I think all the foregoing illustrates why an institution named, Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, seems so very appropriate for being engaged in this global warming progressive experimental nonsense.
Who knew? I am apparently a road rage risk for driving around in an un-airconditioned car.
For whoever was talking about the cold being a higher risk of self-harm and pushing people over the edge, it has a name – Seasonal Affective Disorder.
As for the quality of the “science” being done here, I just recently watched Idiocracy again, and all I can say about their reasoning is “Brawndo. It’s got what plants crave.”
This is rubbish, they are talking about a deviation in conditions causing violence, if the earth was 2C hotter it would be the norm and people would be adapted to it.
What are the trends in conflict, warfare, murder rates since the end of the Little Ice Age? Are the people of Death Valley a murderous bunch? Were the Minoans a happy people? Did they sweat? So many questions, I don’t know how to keep a cool head. Grrrrrrr. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I hate you ALLLLLL.
PS, as I do actually live in the tropics I have noticed that I have been particularly mild mannered in nature. I was a very angry chap when I stood at freezing bus stops waiting to go to work in London. I was totally stressed being cramped up in the subway. Today, I can choose to sit on the beach sipping cocktails and watch the golden sunsets. This is stressing me out badly. I think I am going to go out and commit a bad crime. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
The rutabagas who came up with this argument obviously haven’t read their history. Historically, before the twentieth century, the worst strife and violence has mostly occurred during colder periods, especially the Dark Ages (5th-9th centuries) and the Little Ice Age (1400-1850). The difference in the twentieth century is due primarily to the rise of socialism, the most murderous and destructive force in history – not climate change. And of course the mass murder portended by CAGW is consistent with an otherwise socialist-kleptocrat mindset.
Angry is the wrong word…….
Everything you ever wanted to know about Genghis Khan (first of a 5 part audio history).
http://www.dancarlin.com//disp.php/hharchive/Show-43—Wrath-of-the-Khans-I/Mongols-Genghis-Chingis
—————
I’d go with ……ravenous.
(not sure if it would pass the pc police).
Always need to put the best face on human nature, then storm the beaches of Normandy.
“Aberrant climate”? Pfft. I noticed they said nothing about how cold affects crop yields, leaving people hungry and leading to intergroup violence and political instability, as well as institutional breakdowns, including the collapse of entire civilizations. French Revolution, anyone?
It’s the phlogiston. Breathing in all that phlogiston (combined with extra CO2, forsooth!) makes people uncontrollably hot-headed. Tempers flare constantly.
I can prove it, too. Just give me a grant.
What about suicides? Surely, angry people should come from hot countries? Or is that depressed? Does poverty make you depressed? Greece has the lowest suicide rate of the OECD countries while South Korea has the highest. According to Wiki Greenland, Lithuania and South Korea have the highest suicide rates, while the Maldives, Jamaica, Syria, Egypt, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Haiti and Nepal have the lowest. Could it turn around? Might we see Antiquan’s turning to tropical island savagery? Kenya is doomed. Australia is angry. It’s all over.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/suiciderate.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Thought being stuck indoors in blustery -15C winter storm conditions, especially with rambunctious kids was called getting “cabin fever”?
Napoleonic wars = cool world
World War 1 = cool world
World War 2 = warmer world
Modern day relative peace = we came out of the ‘hottest decade on the record’ and it’s still hot.
Europe is in general peace. Russia and the USA have reduced their proxy wars. The world has NEVER had it so good. These changes took place during the modern warm period – as hot as the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period (according to jai mitchell). I sometimes wonder why I am sceptical. Good night.
Janice Moore says:
August 1, 2013 at 4:34 pm
“Dear Gary Pearce,”
Hello Janice, I want you to know that I was not in the least angry about your remarks on the cost of Nuke Energy. My occasional gruff is only for emphasis and decoration. Like my Fulani warrior above, he’s probably a very sweet guy under that menacing outfit. I have been greatly annoyed and thrown my shoes in the fireplace on other subjects such as drowning islands, flooding deltas and 2C causing WWIII (or World War one hundred and eleven if my old friend Charlie Farquarson was still around – he always referred to WWII as WW eleven). He would have had a ball with ‘Yer Castratistrophic Artherosclermorphic Globular Warmongering’ or some such. He screwed up words something awful.
tonyb says:
August 1, 2013 at 1:03 pm
So, would someone emigrating from Temperate Britain to much hotter Australia suddenly become a much more violent and criminal person?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>…
Or someone moving from chilly New Hampshire/Taxachusetts to North Carolina?
Avg. Temperature Annual Raleigh NC 59.3F (15.2C) link
Avg. Temperature Annual Worcester MA 46.7F (8.2C) link
WOW! A WHOLE 8 degrees C, I must be REALLY REALLY angry…. or happy I don’t have to shovel snow anymore…
Based on this logic, environmentalists should agree that on super hot days, lowering the AC temperature is better for everyone. ;-))
Bob Diaz,
They don’t mind a low thermostat, if the building has 10,000 residents crammed into a half acre high rise. Cause that’s “sustainable” doncha know. You see the thermal mass of the building will insulate and allow more efficient use of electricity. (do I need /sarc?)
Their dream to me is a dystopian future not worth living. To them “Logan’s Run” was a road map to the future.
Seems its aggregate, correlate and conflate day? Nobody told me.
Using exactly the same logic we can see that hot temperatures cause Islam. Is there a hint of a mechanism here perhaps?
Dr. R.J. Rummel has spent his career assembling data on collective violence and war. He has found another cause. The real killer is GOVERNMENT – especially totalitarian government.
Some how I found Dr Rummel much more believable.
Tom J says:
August 1, 2013 at 4:37 pm
What a fine essay on Woodrow Wilson – perhaps that’s where WWI came from and of course WWII. So this progressive stuff and all its fruits can be traced back to old DubbiaDubbia? Prohibition was a boon to Canada – probably launched our little economy and apparently launched the Kennedys as well.
Churchill said, when he chose Dwight Eisenhower to command the joint forces to invade the continent instead of Field Marshal Montgomery, that he didn’t trust a man who didn’t take a drink. I think Monty sealed the deal when he expressed distaste over Churchill’s cigar smoke.
So are you all going to keep voting in progressives until progress finally stops?
Cynical Scientst says:
August 1, 2013 at 6:02 pm
Using exactly the same logic we can see that hot temperatures cause Islam. Is there a hint of a mechanism here perhaps?
—————–
You lost me when you said “logic”, not to mention “mechanism”, then your handle includes “Scientst “.
The bait remains hanging, maybe another website ?
During the Little Ice Age, the Belgians started a little revolution at the end of August, 1830. Belgium was formed as a result and the revolution ended early in July, 1831. The new king was installed … an emission from the house of Saxe-Coburg … the original European Union. 😉
I don’t believe you warm earth not warm it sun cycle coming global cool. I’m sick globalwarming not true.
these are just some of the English MSM headlines:
Christian Science Monitor: Global warming, more wars? Climate could spark more conflict, study says.
National Geographic: Wars, Murders to Rise Due to Global Warming?
Bloomberg: Global Warming Sparks Fistfights and War, Researchers Say
UK Register: Study: As climate change surges, more people will TRY TO KILL YOU
UK Independent: Climate change linked to conflict among people and societies
The Weather Channel: Heat, Drought Linked to Violence Worldwide
Thanks so much for responding, Gary Pearse. Much appreciated. LOL, in real life, I LOVE to be, (cough) “dramatic.” My German Shepherd HATES it. You enjoy putting that flair for drama into your WRITING. I’ll try to remember that. #[:)]
****************
Well, well, Mr. I-do-not-talk-to-strange-women Jimbo — so glad to see your power (or battery, at least) is on enough to allow posting. Glad to know all those power outages you have told us of before didn’t put you in danger of hypothermia.
*********************
Ms. Combs — I sure hope you DID get that pick-up unstuck from the mud (use literal horse power?). We seem to be always contre temps re: my asking after your well-being. Par for the course for me.
So…….if AGW increases violence, the conclusion is that Man is responsible for an increase in violence. You don’t say…
@ Phil Jourdan — neglected to thank you before…. THANK YOU for so eloquently backing up my proper use of quotations in answer to that JERK who shall remain nameless. Much appreciated.
=========================================================================
But, of course, we all know that a tree ring is the easiest way to make an ( ° ).
(Sorry, Mods. Go ahead and snip.)
Bloomberg EDITORS feel the need to weigh in:
2 Aug: Bloomberg Editorial: Our Hotter, Wetter, More Violent Future
Earth’s atmosphere seems to have found a way to get back at the human race…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-01/our-hotter-wetter-more-violent-future.html
I feel much better now knowing that the increase in temperature from this morning is what is making me angry, not the incompetence that I read from the CAGW standard bearers.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/preliminary-annual-uniform-crime-report-january-december-2012/tables/table_3_percent_change_for_consecutive_years_2012.xls
FBI crime stats for CONUS are pretty low compared to when the little ice age was around….
This seems more like a prime lesson in correlation is not causation.
So this morning when I got up it was about 6 degrees. An hour later it was 8 degrees. Was I angry? Uhmm nope. Even now it is 19 degrees and I am still not angry. Headline falsified, science cr@p. I can go back to sleep now.
Wow. I guess if we just carve off giant blocks of the Arctic Ice before it melts in the summer and export it to the Middle East then it will ease tensions…who knew it could be that simple? /sarc
Being an asshole has nothing to do with temperature. It’s just being an asshole.
Once again, garbage in, garbage out.
pat says:
August 1, 2013 at 7:31 pm
Bloomberg EDITORS feel the need to weigh in:
2 Aug: Bloomberg Editorial: Our Hotter, Wetter, More Violent Future
Earth’s atmosphere seems to have found a way to get back at the human race…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-01/our-hotter-wetter-more-violent-future.html
——————
Wow, just wow !!
If it doesn’t get a post of its own, Anthony might include it in his WUWT Hot Sheet.
Not that it had any chance of avoiding his radar 🙂
@Tom J –
In re “progressives” and “liberals” – the meaning of these terms today is the diametrical opposite of their classical meaning. The left, which calls itself by these names, is neither – it is patently reactionary. It is not liberal because of its authoritarian impulses, and not progressive because it looks backward to failed socioeconomic systems. The CAGW meme demonstrates this, with its totalitarian agenda and its nostalgia for “getting back to nature.”
Chad Wozniak! I finally have (I think) a little chance to say “Hello” and “How’s the music? How’s the writing/publishing?” Hope all is well. [drops voice to whisper: still p-r-a-y-i-n-g] Nice explanation of “liberal.” I think that terms like “liberal” and “socialist” have different meanings or, at least connotations, to people of British Commonwealth nations and or to Scandinavians or to Europeans (and other Western Civ. countries like Japan and Israel) than to Americans. Then, of course, the non-Americans seem to have a much higher tolerance generally for socialistic, government-control, policies, so, they don’t abhor socialism as much anyway.
Glad we can all join in for Truth in Science on WUWT and, as to many other issues, agree to disagree.
There is a whole body of scientific literature on how cold periods lead to conflict – warm periods are times of abundance and are largely peaceful.
My wife has hot flashes and she’s not angry (ouch!) Never mind.
I guess this explains why so many revolutions and migrations happened during cold periods (sarc/off).
Again – I want to see the course lists of these PhD’s, going back to their undergraduate days.
“… course lists… .” [Page 488] GOOD point.
Say, is “page 488” like that great 40’s swing tune “Seven-twenty in the Book”? (It was actually #720 in their songbook). What is on page 488, if I may ask?
“This heat wave is making me crave some violence. How bouts we go down to the park and beat up some homeless bums?”
“That sounds fun, Tony, but it sure is hot outside. What if we wait until after sundown and let things cool down a bit first?”
“I guess so, but I’m not so sure I’ll still feel like going once the temperature drops a few degrees.”
We have this already in Chicago. Old news.
If that 2C makes them angry, then this must mean that one early morning here this week, I should have been absolutely seething with anger, when from midnight to 6 am the temperature dropped about 7c, then rose 7C, all before daylight. http://pindanpost.com/2013/07/31/hot-and-cold/
Louis (10:16PM) — LOL.
Anyway, where are the idiot trolls these days. I want to see them defend this piece of stupid.
In the past 100 years the temps of such big cities as New York, Moscow, Tokyo, Sydney, Seoul etc have risen by 2-3 degC (or more). Yes there are very angry people in these cities, but not all. ………
Absolute rubbish, the CET July is 2.8C above the 20 year average, the nation is overjoyed
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-Dmax.htm
I’m seething already, and that’s just reading about it!
This appears to me to be another case of Bicycles.
Bicycles move by pedaling and global Warming. Of course it takes a lot of Global Warming to get them to the top of a hill, but once you do there’s so much global warming stored in them that they practically come down by themselves.
Recently I saw a report the Iberian lynx is threatened by the collapse of its food supply and Global Warming. I’m pretty sure that’s the bicycle-powering Global Warming too.
I acknowledge that I’ve adapted the observation from a distinctly similar one by Larry Niven and David Gerrold.
There is a climactic gradient across the face of the earth. There are a range of people who move from one climate to another. The reviewers should have required them to assess whether these data sets support or disprove the paper’s thesis before approving it for publication.
It’s bicycles, I tell you.
tokyoboy says:
August 1, 2013 at 11:03 pm
In the past 100 years the temps of such big cities as New York, Moscow, Tokyo, Sydney, Seoul etc have risen by 2-3 degC (or more). Yes there are very angry people in these cities, but not all. ………
*****************************************************************************************************
Hate to tell you but the daily temps change by far more than 2-3 deg C.
Hate to tell you more but GISS doesn’t support your assertion.
Funny how these studies always assume a change (in temp) is in the upwards direction! What about the downward.
As a friend has commented…
“If my history serves me correctly, it was just a tad violent during the Dark Ages (cooling after the Roman Warm Period) and the Hundred Years War which accompanied the start of the Little Ice Age after the Medieval Warm period. Cooling reduces harvests and causes misery, disease and violence as people raid others’ food etc. The latter part of the LIA was only redeemed by the introduction of crop rotation and a more organised use of agriculture.”
These are temperatures from down-under on 2nd August 2013 in celsius. There are more than 2 degree variations on a daily basis. Those in Darwin, Singapore & Port Moresby most be mighty angry already. Willis Eschenbach has spent some time in the Pacific (as I have). He will know how hot it can be all year round, both hot & humid with verdant growth. It is very lush. in these places & by & large people are friendly. If the modelling is correct, in 2050 Sydney will only be as hot as Brisbane is today. I doubt if that would be the cause of an aggressive outbreak.
Temp Celsius 2 Aug 2013 2050
City Min Max Min Max
Sydney 9 18 11 20
Melbourne6 15 8 17
Brisbane 11 23 13 25
Perth 7 23 9 25
Adelaide 10 16 12 18
Canberra 1 11 3 13
Hobart 3 12 5 14
Darwin 17 33 19 35
Port Moresby 25 27 27 29
Singapore 17 29 19 31
Interesting study but you can’t help but wonder about their selection criteria. For example, the English Civil War happened during the little ice age, as did both of the Jacobite uprisings. All of these had significant social impacts, to say the least. From that point of view therefore cold must cause societal dislocation as well.
Also, it’s probably worth noting the growth of learning and education which occurred across Europe between the 9th and 12th centuries, or the MWP as it’s also known. This might mean that warmer temperatures bring benefiAlso, it’s probably worth noting the growth of learning and education which occurrAlso, it’s probably worth noting the growth of learning and education which occurred across Europe between the 9th and 12th centuries, or the MWP as it’s also known. This might mean that warmer temperatures bring benefiAlso, it’s probably worth noting the growth of learning and education which occurred
Apologies for my previous post. I’m in an area with a very weak mobile signal and it got corrupted.
The point I was trying to make is that since the growth of learning ocurred during the MWP and that there were several near collapses in social order during the LIA it does make me wonder what criteria were required for inclusion in the study.
As a long time student of medieval and middle age Scotland I’ve no doubt that the changing climate over the last 2,000 years has had massive impacts on society and the level of violence and war.
However, from my perspective there was more good stuff happening when the climate was warmer and more bad stuff happening when it got colder.
Having said all that I’ve got serious doubts about any of the conclusions of this study and I’d love to see what Wilis would make of it.
Just some statistics from the Chicago police blotters and NOAA temperature records:
Five day July 4 Weekend 2012: Record temperature of 102 degrees F. 11 homicides
Four day July 4 Weekend 2013: Temperature: 83 degrees F. 11 homicides.
Four day July 4 Weekend 2009: Temperature: 82 degrees F. Record 17 homicides.
If climate is a factor, then we should expect more homicides as global cooling sets in.
Gary Pearse says: @ August 1, 2013 at 6:20 pm
….So are you all going to keep voting in progressives until progress finally stops?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Unfortunately 1/2 the population has an IQ below 100 and as co-founder (Fabian) George Bernard Shaw said:
“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
Of course Paul has no idea of what good old George and his buddies has planned for him once in control. The intent is shown in the Fabian stained-glass window designed by Shaw in 1910. Prime minister Tony Blair officially unveiled and installed the window at the London School Of Economics on Thursday 20 April 2006. It shows Sidney Webb and Shaw striking the Earth with sledge hammers. Across the top of the window is printed:
Dear love, couldst thou and I with fate conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits, and then
Remould it nearer to the heart’s desire!
Above the Earth is the Fabian shield with the Fabian Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Announcement by LSE: http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2006/FabianWindow.aspx
As if the window is not bad enough you have Shaw’s words too.
This is not isolated statement. This statement and many others were made over decades consistently and repetitively by Shaw and others. Think of the Eugenics Movement and John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar who says: Forced abortions and mass sterilization [are] needed to save the planet and who wants to Use ‘Free Market’ to ‘De-Develop the United States’ So that is what Clinton’s World Trade Organization “Free Market” was about and what the current negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership is about. Even Huff’nPuff is having problems with it.
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is potentially the biggest so-called “free trade” agreement in the world. And you’ve probably never heard about it.
TPP negotiations are being held in secret. Right now. Behind closed doors. Even the U.S. Congress, which is granted sole authority under the Constitution to debate and approve trade deals, has been cut out. But big business has a giant seat at the negotiating table….
VERIFICATION:
The Guardian: Eugenics: the skeleton that rattles loudest in the left’s closet
The eugenics movement Britain wants to forget
How eugenics poisoned the welfare state: A century ago many leading leftists subscribed to the vile pseudo-science of eugenics, writes Dennis Sewell, and the influence of that thinking can still be seen today
And yes you can still see it happening today:
Newborn DNA Banking (USA)
DNA from millions of newborn babies is secretly stored on NHS database (UK)
BBC News – UK government backs three-person IVF (Creating Babies With DNA From 3 Parents)
Sick children are being placed on a controversial end-of-life “pathway” previously only thought to have been used for elderly and terminally-ill adult patients
Why is Royal Society hosting a pro-eugenics conference? (2004)
March 25, 2013: Challenging West Virginia’s Forced Sterilization Law
24,000 die in winter as fuel poverty climbs: New figures show more pensioners have to choose between heating and eating
Of course the UK is doing something about Fuel Poverty…
Government takes 1m out of fuel poverty – by changing the rules” Campaigners criticised the Government after ministers took 1m people out of fuel poverty – by changing the way the measure is calculated.
The UK is following in Clinton’s foot steps. In dealing with the unemployment statistics that would show his ‘Free Trade’ policies and his wooing of China, worsened conditions employment conditions in the USA. [t]he Clinton administration dismissed to the non-reporting netherworld about five million discouraged workers who had been so categorized for more than a year…. The Clinton administration also reduced monthly household sampling from 60,000 to about 50,000, eliminating significant surveying in the inner cities. Despite claims of corrective statistical adjustments, reported unemployment among people of color declined sharply, and the piggybacked poverty survey showed a remarkable reversal in decades of worsening poverty trends.
The more I learn the sicker at heart I get.
Gail COmbs says:
August 1, 2013 at 6:14 pm
“Dr. R.J. Rummel has spent his career assembling data on collective violence and war. He has found another cause. The real killer is GOVERNMENT –”
I was a civil servant in Nigeria in the 60s (Geological Survey of Nigeria) and was witness to tribal riots, bodies in the street and all that led up to a civil war that killed over 3 million people, many of whom died of starvation because of the conflict. It was basically Sandhurst-trained colonels who engineered a few military coups (killing each other) and then doing battle with their own – a Christian military government killing Muslim northerners (where I was stationed). The US Navy (7th fleet?) appeared offshore and chartered Transworld Airlines planes flew in a scooped up US citizens, technical aid folks, teachers, etc. Canada’s response? The Canadian High Commissioner came up to Jos, invited the handful of Canadians there for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres and told us to stick by our posts (very British you know) and don’t interfere in anything – gee and I wanted to go out and wave a protest placard at the army and fire shots in the air! Two weeks before this, I (as a senior civil servant and along with other civil servants) was commanded by the then General Ironsi, Head of State and Chief of Staff of the Nigerian Armed Forces (he decorated himself with all these titles) for attendance upon his arrival at the airport followed by cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at the same establishment – thanks but I had already filled up on fingernails. Two weeks later, he was beheaded at another such gathering in Ibadan. A year later, I got out there with my wife and two children on one of the first BOAC flights to land at Kano during a lull in the war. I’ve reflected a great deal over the years on the purpose of a military in African countries – they seldom fight anyone other than their own citizens.
Re “thanks but I had already filled up on fingernails” – I did of course attend but wasnt too hungry.
Leave it to an economist to think he is a criminologist, let alone a climate scientist. Studies like this have been going on for 50 years. While in graduate school we looked at studies trying to correlate heat waves and violence, know what we found? When it gets warm people commit crime, up to a point and then it tapers off. Why? Cold weather is not conducive to the hassle of leaving shelter to commit said crime. When it warms up, people come out of their “caves” and commit crimes. If it gets really really hot, like soome of the NY heatwaves of the 70’s crime goes down as people become lethargic and don’t want the hassle.
let me guess: this paper was peer-reviewed?
Well this report explains the Vikings.
I’ve tested this hypothesis countless times in my life. In the winter when I walk into my warmer house I don’t get angry. In summer when I walk from my house into a warmer outside i don’t get angry. They hypothesis has failed.
Gary Pearse says: ….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thanks for an eyewitness view.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Perhaps since the Luddites want to wipe out Modern Western Civilization we should revert to the ancient Celtic traditions.
So maybe we do need to return to worship of GAIA along with the sacrifice of out political leaders if they screw up. It might actually keep them a bit more honest.
…. Now what was that you said about rethinking your position on Modern Western Civilization Mr. Lamy? /sarc
That’s just weather.
{ OldWeirdHarold says:
August 1, 2013 at 4:08 pm
So the solution to climate change is anger management? }
I don’t know if that’s the solution, but it’s the only way to cope with the loonies.
{ David L. Hagen says:
August 1, 2013 at 3:58 pm
Liberals migrate from cold to warm states
U.S. Population Shift Accelerates to South, West States, 2010 Census Shows
The Northeast grew 3.2 percent and the Midwest 3.9 percent; that was far outstripped by a 13.8 percent gain in the West and 14.3 percent in the South. By such empirical evidence, cold northeast liberals pragmatically prefer moving to conservative southern States even though they are 10 C warmer, compared to the IPCC’s alarmist warnings of 2 C warming by 2050 (compared to 0.7C warming from 1900 to 2000). }
Excellent. Your hypothesis is cold northeast liberals cause crime when warmed.
I concur.
Doing a small amount of internet research we find that when comparing Dallas and Chicago
Dallas violent crime per 100000 6.82
Chicago ” ” ” ” 10.33
August average temperature for Dallas 96 F
Chicago 81 F.
The report is highly suspect.
mkelly says:
August 2, 2013 at 10:09 am
“Doing a small amount of internet research we find that when comparing Dallas and Chicago
Dallas violent crime per 100000 6.82
Chicago ” ” ” ” 10.33
August average temperature for Dallas 96 F
Chicago 81 F.
The report is highly suspect.”
Yeah, BUT
Chicago has the strictest gun laws in the Country so when you consider that………. oops.
New Scientist took that story and came up with the headline
Climate change may make civil wars much more common
see http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23975-climate-change-may-make-civil-wars-much-more-common.html which says in part:
Luther Wu et al say:
August 1, 2013 at 2:18 pm
Or, just use “°” or cut and paste from my Guide to WUWT.
~mod – my editor is showing what looks like an underlined degree sign. That’s a completely different symbol, the masculine ordinal indicator, but displays as a degree sign in some fonts. We had a big discussion at work about it when someone with a Mac sent Email with that in it. I think Apple got it wrong.
http://info.moravia.com/blog/bid/257228/Always-beware-the-small-and-good-masculine-ordinal-indicator-Why-automatic-checks-matter
Note that says the degree sign is Alt+0176 I don’t know what that 248 thing is about, my Linux system doesn’t use those for the most part. Hmm, xterm displays something that looks good for Alt+0, “°”. Yep, real degree sign. Doesn’t work in emacs though.
“””””……JimS says:
August 1, 2013 at 4:34 pm
I am an historian, and from my studies of climate change throughout history, the exact opposite is what I have found…….”””””
Izzat also ESL status ? I’m trying to determine, if you are an istorian, or a Historian; or perhaps just a typologist ??
I’m going to get angrier if the temperature gets two degrees warmer? well, when I went on that trip to the tropics, I was pretty relaxed – not angry.
Okay, so we have the lead author being “…Solomon Hsiang, who conducted the work as a postdoctoral research associate in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.”
Okay, a POSTDOC in the Woody Woo school (as those who went to Princeton refer
to it) is the lead author? No full professor wanting to grab the credit? That, all
by itself, shows this study is the brain child of this postdoc. If they had real
confidence in it, the full professors listed as co-authors would have been lining up
to grab the credit, not as co-authors, but as the principal
author. This way, when this study is discredited, they can just shrug their
shoulders and say, “Oh, well, Dr. Hsiang made all the errors…you know how
postdocs are.”
Lewis P Buckingham says:
August 1, 2013 at 2:17 pm
And you are more than welcome (bring dollars!)
Heck, I’ll even invite a limited number to a pool party (bring beer!)
Optional punch-up in the top paddock for those too hot and aggressive (bring … dunno for that one …)
Tom in Florida says:
August 2, 2013 at 10:25 am
I’ll never forget a wonderful sign I saw at Chicago airport. It read:
“All handguns must be unloaded before passing through the scanner”
I could not stop laughing, but foolishly forgot to photograph it, and it has since been removed. I assume it was for Air Marshalls (a valuable deterrent IMO), but it was hilarious to see, especially in Chicago.
“Top L.A. Legends #7: Santa Ana Winds Jack Up the Murder Rate”
http://blogging.la/2007/03/08/top-la-legends-7-santa-ana-winds-jack-up-the-murder-rate/