Given the recent spat of high-profile suicides, they have to blame it on something...

July 24, 2018

The latest global warming scare might make you want to kill yourself
By Thomas Lifson

Too many "scientists" have too much grant money and too much computer time on their hands, thanks to the tens of billions of dollars in grant money ($32.5 billion from 1989 to 2015, according to the Science and Public Policy Institute) that the federal government has been dispensing for "climate change research." Put together a proposal to find a new scary correlation, and odds are you'll be bringing in the federal cash, to the delight of your university (that gets to appropriate a third or so of the grant for "overhead"). That's why we have hundreds and hundreds of bad things that global warming (or climate change) supposedly will cause.

The San Francisco Chronicle has the latest claim, one that bears the imprimatur of Stanford University.

More people are likely to take their own lives as the planet warms, say researchers at Stanford University and UC Berkeley in a study published Monday that suggests yet another worrisome impact of climate change.

The multidisciplinary research team looked at nearly 1 million suicides in North America and found that hotter temperatures correlate with higher suicide rates. The warming projected through 2050, the group figures, could increase suicide rates by 1.4 percent in the U.S. and 2.3 percent in Mexico over that time, resulting in 21,000 additional deaths in the two nations.

The role of heat, the authors said, may be just as significant as other, more well-known drivers of suicide, like economic hardship, which also pushes rates up, and suicide prevention programs and gun control legislation, which tend to push rates down.

I certainly feel despair when it gets too hot. That's why I moved to coastal California, where it rarely gets into the nineties. But if this holds water, we ought to see that suicide rates pretty closely correlate with average temperatures. A look at suicide rates by country reveals no such relationship. Here are the top 20 countries:



And a map, with darker shades indicating a higher suicide rate, also offers no clustering around the equator.



Given the awkward “pause” in global warming that has been ongoing for the last two decades, and the uncertainty of correlation as causation claims, this sounds like a pretty far-fetched cause for worry.

https://www.americanthinker.co...o_kill_yourself.html

Yeah, they were talking about this on NPR this morning. I couldn’t believe what I was listening to. Unbelievable.

If this affects libtards first, the problem will eventually correct itself and go away.

^^^
After the San Fran leftists all commit suicide they will consume less of our fossil fuels...
Win-win!

Leftists should be proactive in this and just get their suicide out of the way now. They’re just wasting resources until then.

If I lived in Lithuania I might consider suicide, regardless of the weather.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
The multidisciplinary research team looked at nearly 1 million suicides in North America and found that hotter temperatures correlate with higher suicide rates.

Explains part of the popularity of air conditioning.

"Correlation ≠ Causation" should be drilled into everyone who decides to be a mathematician, scientist, economist and/or engineer from the earliest days of their studies. It would save lots of misplaced angst and intellectual clutter.

Those wanting power and notoriety will always seize any issue to advance their goals. Such was the cast with cotton in India.

About 10 years ago
“Thousands of Indian farmers commit suicide each year — hundreds of thousands over the past three decades. The claims linking Monsanto, GM seeds and the globalization of the food supply to suicides emerged in the mid 2000s, promoted most aggressively by GMO critic and activist philosopher Vandana Shiva. During the past decade, claims of mass suicides of Indian farmers have been repeated often enough to become almost established fact in mainstream media outlets.”
https://gmo.geneticliteracypro...-suicides-of-indian-
farmers/

At the time Bt cotton seeds was the targeted GMO. Supposedly Monsanto controlled the the seed, increased prices and prevent use of other seeds. Truth was farmers paid 15% more but realized a 50% increase in yield.

The reality was the suicide rate was increasing before GMOs were ever introduced.

“These farmers and their families are among the victims of India’s longstanding agrarian crisis. Economic reforms and the opening of Indian agriculture to the global market over the past two decades have increased costs, while reducing yields and profits for many farmers, to the point of great financial and emotional distress. As a result, smallholder farmers are often trapped in a cycle of debt. During a bad year, money from the sale of the cotton crop might not cover even the initial cost of the inputs, let alone suffice to pay the usurious interest on loans or provide adequate food or necessities for the family. Often the only way out is to take on more loans and buy more inputs, which in turn can lead to even greater debt. Indebtedness is a major and proximate cause of farmer suicides in India. Many farmers, ironically, take their lives by ingesting the very pesticide they went into debt to purchase.”
https://gmo.geneticliteracypro...s-of-indian-farmers/

So, of all the possible factors influencing suicides, higher heat somehow rose to the top here? It almost seems like there could be a hidden agenda behind this theory....I just wish I knew what it was...

Then there's the REALLY old shaggy dog from biologists about cause and effect:

A certain researcher was studying frogs and the effect of verbal commands on their mobility. The control frog was told "Jump!" and he promptly jumped off the table. The next frog had one of his back legs surgically (and humanely) removed - some frogs were slightly injured in creating this experiment. On the command "Jump!" he too leaped off the table, but at a slight angle, being one-legged. A third frog had both legs removed, and when commanded to "Jump!," he didn't appear to respond at all. Research conclusion: removing a frog's back legs makes him deaf. I rest my case.

Shouldn't Death Valley, Imperial Valley, and other parts of the American Southwest be devoid of humans due to the heat? The other great deserts on the planet?

I am having a hard time figuring out the downside...

I’m sitting here at Lagoon Amusement Park at 100° and have no thought whatsoever of kissing my butt goodbye.

Must just be me.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mcrimm,

The world has too many people already. Save the world, kill yourself.


Whatevs, brah.

Here in Texas we've had several days over 105 degrees. After August I'm expecting much less traffic on the way to work.