Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new study claims that people who live in tropical climates can’t be as productive as people who live in temperate climates – that 13c (55F) is the optimum temperature for human productivity. In the press release, the researchers further claim that warmer temperatures lead to poorer school results and more violence.
The abstract of the study;
Growing evidence demonstrates that climatic conditions can have a profound impact on the functioning of modern human societies, but effects on economic activity appear inconsistent. Fundamental productive elements of modern economies, such as workers and crops, exhibit highly non-linear responses to local temperature even in wealthy countries. In contrast, aggregate macroeconomic productivity of entire wealthy countries is reported not to respond to temperature, while poor countries respond only linearly. Resolving this conflict between micro and macro observations is critical to understanding the role of wealth in coupled human–natural systems and to anticipating the global impact of climate change. Here we unify these seemingly contradictory results by accounting for non-linearity at the macro scale. We show that overall economic productivity is non-linear in temperature for all countries, with productivity peaking at an annual average temperature of 13 °C and declining strongly at higher temperatures. The relationship is globally generalizable, unchanged since 1960, and apparent for agricultural and non-agricultural activity in both rich and poor countries. These results provide the first evidence that economic activity in all regions is coupled to the global climate and establish a new empirical foundation for modelling economic loss in response to climate change, with important implications. If future adaptation mimics past adaptation, unmitigated warming is expected to reshape the global economy by reducing average global incomes roughly 23% by 2100 and widening global income inequality, relative to scenarios without climate change. In contrast to prior estimates, expected global losses are approximately linear in global mean temperature, with median losses many times larger than leading models indicate.
Read more: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15725.html
According to the Washington Post;
Culling together economic and temperature data for over 100 wealthy and poorer countries alike over 50 years, the researchers assert that the optimum temperature for human productivity is seems to be around 13 degrees Celsius or roughly 55 degrees Fahrenheit, as an annual average for a particular place. Once things get a lot hotter than that, the researchers add, economic productivity declines “strongly.”
“The relationship is globally generalizable, unchanged since 1960, and apparent for agricultural and non-agricultural activity in both rich and poor countries,” write the authors, led by Marshall Burke of Stanford’s Department of Earth System Science, who call their study “the first evidence that economic activity in all regions is coupled to the global climate.” Burke published the study with Solomon Hsiang and Edward Miguel, economists at the University of California, Berkeley.
…
Assuming this relationship between temperature and productivity is correct, that naturally leads to deep questions about its cause. The researchers locate them in two chief places: agriculture and people. In relation to rising temperature, Burke says, “We see that agricultural productivity declines, labor productivity declines, kids do worse on tests, and we see more violence.”
…
However, the new work has already drawn criticism — University of Sussex economist Richard Tol called it “hugely problematic” in an email to the Post — so it remains to be seen what other researchers make of the work.
Even if we accept the study at face value, according to the abstract, unmitigated warming is expected to reshape the global economy by reducing average global incomes roughly 23% by 2100 and widening global income inequality, relative to scenarios without climate change.
Given that the global economy is growing at around 1% per annum per capita, a simple projection still yields a 130% increase in per capita income by 2100 under BAU. A 23% reduction to a 130% gain doesn’t seem such a big deal, in the scheme of things.
(1 + 0.01)85 years = 2.3
2.3 (230%) – the original 100% = 130% gain
I’m concerned that this study may be ignoring a lot of political and historical context. If an equivalent study was performed in the age of the Roman Empire, when much of the world’s economic activity centred on warm countries like Italy and Egypt, it seems likely that the calculated “optimum economic temperature” would have been significantly higher than 13c (55F)
However the simplest criticism of the study is the irrefutable fact that humans are physiologically optimised to extreme tropical conditions.
How would you feel, right now, if you took all your clothes off outdoors? You might feel embarrassed – but that is a cultural response. What you would most likely feel is cold, unless it was a hot day.
We all wear clothes, for comfort, style, and most importantly, to protect ourselves from the cold. Even in my home town on the edge of the tropics, certainly in winter, and for at least part of the Summer, people have to wear clothes, otherwise they get uncomfortably cold.
If you become too hot, such as when performing outdoor physical labour on a hot day, you can adjust your clothing to optimise your body temperature, say by swapping a long sleeve shirt for a t-shirt, wearing shorts, or in extreme cases by peeling down to not much clothing at all. I’ve mowed a large hilly multi-acre lawn with a petrol push mower, on days when the temperature exceeded 110F (45c). I’ll spare you the image of what I was wearing on those days.
My point is, humans are physiologically well adjusted to handling very hot weather, without adverse effects, providing we are acclimatised, providing we stay hydrated, and providing we dress appropriately for the weather. In any climate cooler than the extreme tropics where humans evolved, we have to wear clothes pretty much continuously, to protect ourselves from the cold.
Suggesting that productivity inevitably drops off, as we approach our physiological optimum environmental temperature, in my opinion is just plain silly.
As for the productivity of other plants and animals on which we depend, tropical countries are characterised by their superabundance of natural life, including food plants and animals. Some staple crops such as oats might like it cold – but there is plenty of edible farm produce which thrives in the heat.
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The optimal IQ for a global warming believer is 55.
It’s not too cold and its not too hot.
The climate must be perfect all year!
What temperature do Marshall Burke Solomon Hsiang and Edward Miguel have their air conditioners set to at work?
Are these people imbeciles… or do they think we are?
Obvious warmista tripe trotted out just in time for the Paris climate-ogasm.
Hive
Evidently, it’s not enough for England to drive up it’s energy prices. Here comes ‘Amurica’.
The house will pass a bill to block new regs. The Senate will likely pass it too. Obama will veto it. They won’t overturn it.
Half the States will sue, they will almost all prepare fall back compliance plans.
The trial attorneys will get their disparate impact cottage industry.
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
We’ll stop short of a ‘carbon tax’ and increase cost to da peoples of ____%.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/us/politics/survey-of-republican-voters-shows-a-majority-believe-in-climate-change.html
The optimal human temperature is around 21 c 70 f, not many prefer it cooler, but most would probably prefer it a bit warmer.
In winter most places around Earth away from the Tropics, are far too cold without keeping warm.
The ideal optimum climate for humans would be somewhere like Tenerife. Maximum day temperatures between 18 c and 26 c all year round in Playa de las Americas. The temperature of 13 c would probably be closer to a preferred minimum, never-mind a mean. A mean of 13 c is far too cold for humans to live in without keeping warm.
http://www.weather2travel.com/climate-guides/spain/canary-islands/tenerife/
The ideal temperature for humans is secondary to the ideal temperature of our food source. We will/have adapted to our food source as do all critters. Whatever increases our food supply is optimized by humans NOT the other way around. GK
The largest biomass source from plants were during the warmest periods of Earth’s history hundreds of millions of years ago, with global temperatures close to the optimal human temperature of 21 c 70 f now.
“The optimal human temperature is around 21 c 70 f, not many prefer it cooler, but most would probably prefer it a bit warmer.”
Correct. people set their AC and heating systems for their comfort and productivity indoors and it tends to be 68F-74F, more or less.
This junk science is one big fat dollop of the logical fallacy of ‘causation from correlation’.
So why did civilization spring and get more productive in colder climates? It may be simply that we developed heating technology at the dawn of civilization, and air conditioning only in recent times, making it easier for people in colder climates to ‘compete’, but not those in extra hot ones.
But it’s more than that of course. The levers of economic growth are related to law, culture, economy and technology.
The hot areas of the mid-east, north Africa and south Asia were plagued with the historic legacy of Islam, whereas much of the rest of the world outside of Europe, India and China were primitive societies.
The one succeeding dominant culture was Western Civilization, and all of global civilization today is now tied to an engine based on western European civilization and the era of colonialism, the rise of market economies, industrialization (that began in England and was advanced most of Western European and USA). I would argue that most of this is merely the correlation of the success of Western Civilization, rooted in temperate European nations, in particular Britain (but also Germany, etc.). That success was due to Christianity, the heritage of Greece and Rome, the development of western-based trade due to European discoveries and explorations, and the rise of industrialism and capitalism in places like England, and its adoption in the US.
As for how former colonies evolved, the least populated areas were the ones that were the coldest (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, USA) and they adopted laws and cultures closest to the most successful nation prior to 1900, ie, Great Britain. Other colonies, ie, in Americas most adopted less successful Spanish heritage/laws/economy, Africa had indigenous populations who were colonized but ratained their culture, etc. So the world has evolved in such a way that the most successful economic and cultural models were adopted by an ‘Anglosphere’ of nations that for the most part have temperate climates, although you could live in Bermuda or the British Virgin Islands and enjoy British law and tropical weather.
What if you took out the ‘exceptional nations’ of the Anglosphere? I would suspect the advantage of colder climate would still be there – Scandinavia vs Greece, Korea vs Laos, Argentina vs Guatemala- But it would be much less. if you further control for other factors, climate becomes less important.
But here is the disproof of their thesis. There is one great nation, India, with a long history, that was colonized by Britain and adopted some of its laws while retaining much of its own culture. Now independent, India suffered under socialist delusions adopted from their colonizer Britain when it became independent in 1947. But in the late 1980s and since, India reformed their economy. They are now he IT back office for much of America’s high-tech industries. They are advancing in manufacturing, and growing at a pace rivalling China.
India is growing faster than any European nation. It may well be in a generation, India’s per capita GDP will rival some poorer European nations, and its total economic output will challenge the EU itself. Indeed, for nations overall, it is the warmer nations near the equator THAT ARE GROWING FASTER and the 21st century will likely be the century when the warm nations ‘catch up’.
We see the effect on a smaller scale in recent decades in the US. “Sunbelt” has beaten the ‘rust belt’. In jobs and growth since the 1970s. But there is a real explanation that has nothing to do with temperature. The northern industrialized states became ‘union shop’ states due to the influence of union voting blocs and union power, while the formerly less developed states in the south and west in the mid-20th century adopted ‘right to work’ rules that limit union monopoly power. The end result? ALMOST ALL US NET JOB CREATION SINCE 1980 HAS BEEN IN RIGHT-TO-WORK STATES.
Does warmer weather create jobs? of course not, that’s just the happenstance of correlations of climate and cultural and legal factors.
I smell a big dose of C O N T R O L coming. Open mouths, serfs.
Hazel said:
“Open mouths, serfs.”
May I? Thank you:
Open wallets, serfs.
☭ = ☹
Are we living one big lie ? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1213171/Men-lie-times-day-twice-women-study-finds.html The worst lies are the ones we tell to ourselves .
It takes only a moments thought to belie the lack of logic in this paper.
Is Santa Claus not the most productive elf on Earth? And where on Earth does he dwell, and carry out his mammoth task? Would the North Pole not be one of the coldest places on the planet?
What? You don’t believe in Santa? That’s ludicrous, if you “believe” in global warming.
Mean annual temperatures in the regions of the most advanced cultures, wherever such cultures have existed for centuries, has varied a great deal, but these same cultures continue to advance despite the temperature, although climate does, naturally, have an impact, but is NOT the absolute determinant of the outcome of a culture.
Human beings are not pond-scum that merely react to their environment; they are active, intelligent beings capable of reason and logical deduction beyond the influence of emotive and physiological factors.
I think that these “academic” pea-brains have completely ignored the fact that the most advanced cultures are also the the most free, in terms of human rights and liberties, land rights, private property rights and so forth, and owe their existence to the Judeo-Christian (no, not Catholic, which is just paganism badged with christian sounding names and verbiage!!!!) religion upon which their laws that brought about such freedoms are based. Sadly, however, the roots of these cultures are dying and with that, so also the cultures that grew out of them. A quick survey of the locations of Judeo-Christian based cultures will likely correlate much more strongly with advanced societies (and not just technologically advanced) than does an annual temperature mean of 13 degrees Celsius.
A good part of Africa, for example, meets the 13C annual average give or take a few degrees, but it is a basket case, and yes, lacks geographically extensive long time roots in Christianity. A large part of South America also fits the temperature requirements of these “academic” dingbats but there is a great deal of superstitious pagan nonsense there, and much of what is passed off as “Christianity” in the mass media is really Catholicism and pagan rituals and superstitions, and we can see that to the degree that real Christ-believing Christianity has impacted the region, a similar degree of economic, technological, social and personal advancement and freedom also exists.
Anybody with the clangers to investigate this honestly and without prejudice will find that what I am alluding to here is, by and large, generally true.