In a delightful exercise of creative scientific storytelling, we have a recent article suggesting that climate change is now responsible for triggering migraines. Yes, you read that correctly—climate change, the ultimate scapegoat, is now allegedly making our heads hurt. The claim, published by Dr. Shiv Sudhakar in NBC News, offers a fantastical leap of logic that’s as amusing as it is absurd. Let’s dive into this narrative and see why it’s a textbook example of non-causative correlation.
The Comedy of Correlation
The article starts with a bold assertion: “Migraines are increasing in frequency and intensity among Americans: Could climate change be a reason?” It’s a classic case of correlation masquerading as causation. Just because two things happen at the same time doesn’t mean one causes the other. To illustrate, here are some other phenomena that have “increased” over the same period:
- The Stock Market: The Dow Jones has soared, reaching record highs over the past decades. Should we then conclude that higher stock prices cause migraines?
- Computer Speed: With processing speeds doubling every few years, perhaps faster CPUs are to blame for our pounding headaches.
- Use of Mobile Phones: The ubiquitous smartphone has taken over our lives. Clearly, this must be the real migraine culprit.
- Obesity Rates: As waistlines expand, so do the number of people complaining about migraines. Coincidence? I think not!
- Use of the Term “Racism”: The frequency of this term in public discourse has skyrocketed. Surely, social justice awareness is giving us migraines.
- Drop in Marriage Among Young People: Less matrimony, more migraines. Could the lack of wedding bells be the real issue here?
- Netflix Subscriptions: Binge-watching might be rotting our brains and causing headaches, right?
- Gluten-Free Diets: As more people cut out gluten, migraine reports have apparently increased. Is gluten the unsung hero against migraines?
More importantly according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is no evidence that severe weather events have increased in frequency, except some modest belief in increased heat waves. If the frequency of extreme weather hasn’t demonstrably changed, then how exactly is climate change worsening migraines? It’s a correlation to a fantasy.
Weather or Not
The article eagerly points to “erratic and severe weather conditions” as potential migraine triggers, courtesy of climate change. Dr. Fred Cohen from Mount Sinai says, “As extreme weather events, like hurricanes, become more frequent and intense, they could be contributing to an increase in migraine attacks and their severity.” because nothing says “headache” like a hurricane.
Dr. Cohen might as well have added, “And as more people watch reality TV, the decline in cognitive ability is surely giving them migraines.” The beauty of such assertions is that they sound plausible enough to the uncritical ear but fall apart upon closer inspection.
Moreover, there’s a glaring omission of the many other, more plausible factors contributing to migraines. For instance, lifestyle changes such as increased screen time, stress from modern living, dietary changes, and lack of sleep are well-documented migraine triggers. But these mundane, everyday factors don’t generate the same sensational headlines as blaming the ever-mystical climate change.
The Clown Car of Neurological Diseases
To add to the hilarity, the article brings in British researchers warning that “extreme weather and heat fluctuations may aggravate neurological disorders such as stroke, dementia, and schizophrenia.” They claim that worsening climate conditions are likely to lead to “heightened attack frequency in people who already have migraines.” At this point, we’re just throwing the entire medical dictionary at climate change. What’s next? Acne? Bad hair days?
This article is a classic case of what happens when sensationalism trumps science. By drawing dubious links between climate change and migraines, it distracts from legitimate research into the real causes and treatments of migraines. It’s not just a disservice to science but to every migraine sufferer looking for genuine answers.
Let’s stop the madness of attributing every conceivable problem to climate change. If we want to address migraines—or any other medical condition—let’s focus on real, evidence-based research rather than indulging in the trendy blame game. Until then, we might as well blame climate change for our dog’s bad breath and the fact that the toast always lands butter-side down.
HT/Michael M (No, not hat Michael M)
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You missed the most important correlation: Increased C02 increases value in the stock market!
Climate liars give me a headache
In this case one thing isn’t occurring at the same time – Climate Change.
The headaches might be correlated to the increase in Climate Change FUD rhetoric, because stress has forever been associated with deprecated health, including head-aches, nausea, anxiety attacks, etc. These three things have also been blamed on Climate Change, when it should be on the hectoring, nagging, and abuse heaped upon civilization by the neurotics who profit from injecting the Climate Change propaganda conflicts into society.
FUD = Fear Uncertainty & Doubt. At least
that’s what my short search comes up with.
Gotta watch out for those FUDruckers
The claims of climate activists produce more migraines. And climate change, unlike alarmists, is both necessary and incapable of being stopped.
I thought it was a man’s desire for sex that triggered migraines.
Professor John Brignell ran the Numbers Watch web page. He’s no longer among the living and I wonder if anyone is collecting/keeping “The Complete List of Things Caused by Global Warming” WayBack Machine Link
I wondered what happened to that site. I used to reference that years ago.
The List grew exponentially and caused an explosion at a server-farm in the Carpathian Mountains. Note: there is no known non-circular definition of a “server”. Nevertheless, 10,000 of them were destroyed.
NBC News is now a peer-reviewed science journal? I guess so, if this is the quality of the scientist, it matches the quality of the peers.
I never had a piece of toast
Particularly long and wide,
But fell upon the sanded floor
And always on the buttered side.
Your toast will always land, butter side down. And if you complain to the government, they will inform you, that you buttered it on the wrong side.
Climate change: is there nothing it can’t do?
My new rule: If the article does not define “Climate Change” I will not accept its hypothesis.
Writing BS pseudoscience papers correlating any increase to climate change causes climate change. It must given the amount of BS being pandered and how much climate changes. (CONSTANTLY)
Read the article and it seems like a bunch of first year med-students were well into the 4th or 5th pitcher of beer after hours of peering through microscopes at wiggly things.
I agree that blaming everything on climate change is silly, BUT
I have suffered from migraines my entire life and migraines run in my family (my mother, sisters, I and both daughters get them). I’ve observed that there are a number of different causes for migraines, not the least of which is hormonal activity in the female body.
Having said that, I can unequivocally state that an imminent change in the weather CAN produce a migraine. One of my daughters was a barometer when she was young. She’d get a migraine, and the next day it would rain.
I haven’t checked with her about this recently – she’s 35 now and we live in a different town than when I observed this phenomenon. But it happened enough times that I noticed the correlation.
Hi Mary.
Yes migraines can be debilitating, and made worse when you’re constantly stressed about what might be triggering them.
I suffered with the buggers for 8 years, going from doctor to doctor, prescription after prescription with no respite.
Then one day after moving to a new city in the early 1980s, I dropped in to register with a local family doctor.
We had a brief 5-minute intro chat, he asked me if I had any conditions.
I told him about the migraines, and described the onset circumstances.
He said hhmm, and pulled down a binder and opened a medical bulletin publication.
It was about CLUSTER MIGRAINES (later called cluster headaches).
Something to do with constriction or dilation of blood vessels located on the periphery of our brain over one of our eyes, triggered by subconscious stress / anxiety, and smoking, alcohol, chocolate, citrus.
My symptoms exactly aligned with those described in the medical bulletin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache
Anyway, a new prescription undertaken, and advice about avoiding smoking, alcohol, chocolate, citrus.
I have not experienced these awful headaches ever since.
And I was able to stop worrying about a brain tumor.
I’m sure it was very stressful for you, but there are enough people in our family suffering from migraines that we don’t worry about brain tumours when we get them – though I was completely unprepared for my first ocular migraine. Thankfully, the ER doctor recognized my description of what I was seeing and was able to show me a very accurate picture on the internet.
A certain weed, now legal in some states, is excellent for headaches, or so I’ve been told. 🙂
It is going to rain tomorrow in no way says anything about the climate unless perhaps one happens to be in the Atacama Desert. There might be a valid connection between X and Y, such as air pressure changes related to an approaching rain storm, i.e. between some personal experience and weather.
Noses run in my family.
I’ll get my coat…
My guess is that you are one of the lucky ones who never had migraines, because weather and weather pattern does affect migraines…
Sadly, the science of all different causes of migraines is lacking, for me life changes with less stress, regular meals, working out and drinking lots of water all the time helped significantly!
However, it seems that you fell for that often used tactic to throw everything out and see what sticks!
What should be discussed here is not migraines, weather, (local) weather pattern and their change over time (aka climate change), but as always….
The man-made contribution to global warming, the relevant uncertainty and the failure of climate scientists to narrow down the so called CO2 climate sensitivity in over 40 years.
Javier Vinós posted this link in the comments of his last article (part II) over at Climate Etc:
There are few fields with that ever failed so completely in their core mission!
Starting form there, with limited knowledge and no knowledge gain to hypothesize about man-made contribution to climate change patterns, their effect on weather and then on human migraines is utterly absurd!
Think that you, Charles, have been misled and all needed to be said about this is,
https://judithcurry.com/2021/08/18/the-ipccs-attribution-methodology-is-fundamentally-flawed/
Of course always considering the progression of uncertainty in our chain of evidence, as anything else would be unscientific..)
Please don’t get me wrong, I do like to see those little articles pointing to the next “political motivated push of the agenda”, but I would like to see more about my take down version.. which I keep posting here randomly.
It is always that we should not even call it “climate change discussion” as long as the scientists are still stuck and the man-made contribution to global warming.
I can see why they would like to switch the topic when it comes to that because it is just sad, but as it happens this is still the very basic issue and needs to discussed and solved BEFORE moving on!
Before discussing “climate change” everyone involved must acknowledge that extreme weather frequency, intensity and duration have not been observed in over 120 years of detailed recordkeeping. UN IPCC AR6 WGI made that very clear (see above chart). Then in WGII and WGIII they allowed politicized “scientists” to lie that extreme weather events were becoming more frequent.
Climate Change hysteria causes stress and stress causes headaches. The greater and more extended the stress the stronger the headache
Ergo, Mickey Mann has earned a great deal of bad karma.
Climatistas have given me a few headaches.
Has anyone on the CAGW side conducted and reported any real climate science? I have only seen trash like this. Admittedly I am not in the circle of people privy to what all goes on in the science community. If junk like this is all they are producing then it is time to grab them by the ears and kick them in the ass because they have nothing. Time to stop playing nice with these liars and cheats.
They are able to write stuff in peer reviewed papers that LOOK like real science but are no better. And they’ll sometimes have dozens of people co-author it so it looks even more impressive.
Ads cause migraines. Pop-up ads cause fury.
Good news is I can come here to find recommendations for my: toenail fungus, heart problems, e.d., wrinkles, dark spots on my skin, gut and foot pain, diabetes. And clogged gutters.
Mid-year resolution: spend more money for self-cures… maybe tomorrow.
A better plan…Help pay for this website instead of complaining about the ads that are necessary to carry the freeloaders.
Tell me, Mr. Davis, when you pay your money do you still see ads?
Nevermind. You’re right. I signed up.
“In a delightful exercise of creative scientific storytelling, we have a recent article suggesting that climate change is now responsible for triggering migraines. Yes, you read that correctly—climate change, the ultimate scapegoat, is now allegedly making our heads hurt.”
It used to be thought that evil spirits caused disease and death. Now it’s that evil carbon pollution!
Don’t forget that it is witches that get to control those evil spirits through their contracts with Satan. Its a complicated subject.
“The Stock Market: The Dow Jones has soared, reaching record highs over the past decades. Should we then conclude that higher stock prices cause migraines?”
uh… I think we can conclude that higher levels of CO2 has caused the stock market to rise!
What gives me migraines is climate whack jobs in Wokeachusetts talking about “the climate emergency”- and, they talk about stopping forestry so trees can do nothing but sequester carbon- hearing that almost gives a stroke.
There might be a valid correlation. What stocks are responsible for the increases? If these are public trough feeding enterprises, then there is almost certainly a high correlation and causation with CO2 increasing,
“Moreover, there’s a glaring omission of the many other, more plausible factors contributing to migraines.”
It’s most likely that there are NOT more migraines – just more people saying so. When I was a kid in the ’50s, hardly anyone had insurance. You didn’t go to a doctor with a headache. You took aspirin.
Agree. But sometimes when a low pressure system is coming, it triggers or contributes to my migraines.
But so does “Wind and solar are cheaper!” etc…
Also, other locational pains ensue.
“Things” that have increased?
The incessant barrage of climate crisis reporting is enough to give anyone a headache.
Climate change causes lefties to lose it-
Lefties losing it: Rita Panahi reacts to ‘crazy’ professor dragged away by police (msn.com)
….and waste thousands of tax dollars. (lefties don’t do irony)
Migraines are more likely in cold weather.
Weather change definitely. If you live in a chinook zone you will notice. Climate change? Get real.