It is bad enough that global warming may be slowly killing out planet, but what if the hotter it gets, the dumber we become in dealing with it? If a recent study is correct, that may be the case. According to Harvard researchers in n a PLOS Medicine article, the human brain functions 13 percent slower when it has to operate in extreme heat.
The team from Harvard’s T.H. Chan school of Public Health studied the impact of students in non-air-conditioned buildings on both math and memory tests in comparison to their classmates in air-conditioned buildings. (I assume that this was not a self-selecting group of students too stupid to move to air-conditioned areas).
Notably, the scientists actually refer climate changes in their general findings:
“Cognitive function deficits resulting from indoor thermal conditions during HWs [heat waves] extend beyond vulnerable populations. Our findings highlight the importance of incorporating sustainable adaptation measures in buildings to preserve educational attainment, economic productivity, and safety in light of a changing climate.”
Of course, at the point of the no return of climate change, ignorance might be bliss.
I never said the earths climate doesn’t change. I’m just very suspicious of some of the ideas being floated to ” save” us. That’s all.
Alotta stupid comments on this thread.
David Benson owes me nine citations (one from the OED) and the source of a quotation, after seven weeks and needs to cite all his work from now on. – and yours is one of them. BTW, your spelling is beginning to slip.
I spells ’em as I hears ’em.
David Benson owes me nine citations (one from the OED) and the source of a quotation, after two months, and needs to cite all his work from now on. – time to get your hearing checked then.
Tom, the biggest scam in the history of the human race would be if we are ” coerced” to buy and sell carbon credits.
Independent Bob — Not much can be done to cause you to give up your selfishness.
David Benson owes me nine citations (one from the OED) and the source of a quotation, after seven weeks and needs to cite all his work from now on. – We are hoping to get you to start citing sources, but that seems a closed book.
Last year Leonardo Di Caprio flew around the world in his private jet telling us of the dangers of global warming. I wonder what kind of carbon footprint that airplane leaves.
Ind.Bob,..
A very big one; he was also reported to have had some friends use his private jet for at least one of their lengthy trips.
I think he finally tapered off some with his jetting off to here and there, after he got a lot of flack for contributing so much to greenhouse gases.
The environmental preachers with the huge SUVs and 10,000-20,000 sq. foot homes also stand out for hypocrisy.
Al Gore is the biggest hypocrite of the bunch. His water and electricity usage are outrageous for an environmentalist televangelist. And he jets around the globe leaving a large carbon footprint. Plus, he bought expensive property near the ocean…the ocean he keeps proclaiming is going to rise soon and wipe out miles of waterfront. His financial investment speaks otherwise.
DiCaprio also has rented one of the biggest yachts in the world…..1500 feet long…..for gatherings/excursions.
Probably solar powered, since DiCaprio is so environmentally conscious.
His jet is probably solar powered as well😒.
He has, apparently, cut down on some of the more visible, extravagant fossil fuel binges, which were attracting a lot of attention.
Maybe if he wins another Academy Award he’ll give the rest of us peons another lecture about cutting back to protect the environment.
Several years ago Al Gore was warning us that the seas were going to rise. About the same time he spent 91/2 million $ on beach front property in California. Do as I say not as I do.
Won’t be beach front until the sea stand comes way, way, way up.
David Benson owes me nine citations (one from the OED) and the source of a quotation, after seven weeks and needs to cite all his work from now on. – I have property in Yuma that will be beachfront when California slides into the ocean. It is going to skyrocket in value.
Comments this thread appear to exemplify the point.
For a law blog JT sure knows what buttons to push for his base.
Not being part of “the base”, is Fishwings debased?😀
Before fossil fuels, humans cut down wood to burn. Entire forests were denuded for timber and fuel. That affected the moisture retention of the region, and humidity and oxygen components of our air. We burned so much wood that explorers described entire mountains shrouded in the smoke from Native American wood fires.
With the discovery of fossil fuels, we burned sooty peat, coal, and later petroleum and natural gas. At one point, people in Birmingham walked around with green hair from the chemicals in the fire. Having any white knick knacks inside a home was considered the province of the wealthy, because it was a never ending battle to clean the soot from inside the homes of London, let alone outside the walls.
The discovery of fossil fuels lifted people out of poverty and starvation. When you have to walk on foot everywhere, you have less access to education, health care, and food. A drought has more devastating consequences.
Year after year, we have made energy production cleaner and cleaner. I don’t know what extremist environmentalists want. I am a strong conservationist, myself. It’s not necessarily that saving the planet is the goal; rather, we want to preserve the conditions optimal for mammalian life, especially Homo sapiens. If the extremists get their way, we would do away with all fossil fuels before the alternatives were affordable. Sure, that would make them feel really good emotionally, but the result would be that unaffordable energy would force people to go back to cutting down trees. That would further dry out the planet, lead to erosion and drought, and further decrease the oxygenation of our atmosphere.
We obsess with energy production, and very little global concern is in the near and present danger – the pollution of our oceans, mismanagement of clean water resources, and the de-vegetation of our entire planet.
I have a tendency to get wordy, so I will split up my own pressing concerns so as not to create an absurdly long post.
POLLUTION OF OUR OCEANS:
The majority of our oxygen is produced by marine phytoplankton. In addition, many people rely on the ocean for food.
And yet, we have managed to pollute the entire ocean with mercury and other toxins. Seafood is so contaminated with mercury that pregnant women are advised against eating it. The breast milk of Native Eskimos could be classified as toxic waste due to the contamination of their food supply. Polar bears and orcas, too, have severe contamination levels.
We have discarded enough trash into the ocean to create massive floating island the size of states. Seabirds, fish, and marine mammals consume enough plastic that they die. The plastic breaks down into microscopic particles, which are consumed by plankton and enter the food chain.
Whenever you consume seafood of any kind, you are not only eating heavy metals, but also tiny particles of plastic, which persist in our own bodies.
This is a self-destructive behavior. We in the US reduce our own pollution by shipping the really dirty jobs to China and India. Then we frown down from our high horse at the miasma floating over China, and the effluent from e-waste recycling and plastics recycling, when we shipped the material and jobs there.
There is also a wide range of cultural attitudes towards trash and pollution. In Belize, it is quite common for people to simply throw their trash on the grown and walk away. That may be reinforced by the fact that the Sargasso Sea acts like a giant toilet, sweeping plastic from around the region up onto the shores and reefs of beautiful countries like Belize. Mexico and Russia are infamous for pumping millions of gallons of toxic waste, trash, raw sewage, and slaughterhouse effluent into the ocean. In fact, American Border Control Agents sometimes fall ill when they work too close to the Rio Grande. Trash and pollution making its way into the ocean is a global problem, due to the tragedy of the commons.
Two of my favorite foundations tackling the global problem of plastic waste in the oceans are:
https://earthsoceans.foundation
http://www.boyanslat.com
If we want to play the blame game in pollution and plastic waste, there are:
1. Countries like the US who ship our dirty jobs overseas. Plastics and e-waste recycling are two of those “green” initiatives that actually heavily contribute to toxic pollution. We get the feel good boost of using recycle products, while China gets the toxic waste.
2. Countries like China and India who do the dirty work of their own, and other countries, without regard to the environment, their workers, or their own people.
3. Any culture who has a high rate of social acceptable littering, or inadequate waste handling procedures that allow trash to wash into the ocean
4. Countries like Russia and Mexico that pump toxic waste, trash, raw sewage, and slaughterhouse waste directly into the ocean
5. Countries like the US who allow the homeless to encamp in dry riverbeds, where their human excrement, trash, and dirty needles wash into the ocean every rainy season.
6. The US for allowing illegal immigration to flourish. The most commonly used trails are littered with trash and human waste everywhere. This is one of the dirty secrets of illegal immigration and another reason why legal immigration is the only acceptable avenue.
MISMANAGEMENT OF CLEAN WATER RESOURCES:
Much of Western civilization is based upon the land use practices of England, a low lying, high water table, high rain island. In fact, the city of London used to be a swamp until it was drained. Draining land became one of England’s best discoveries, and they exported that practice of maximum drainage. This sharing of knowledge was so common that whenever land is cleared, drainage is of primary concern. We develop a piece of land in a rural area, dig a well where rainwater collected underground, and then we proceed to grade the plot for maximum runoff, ensuring that no rain will ever collect in that area again. And then we are at a loss when the wells run dry.
We design cities and suburbs so that rain rushes down storm drains. That rain would have been harvested and planted deep underground by the native chaparral that we cleared away over the course of a couple of hundred years. All that runoff might benefit the smelt, but it is not natural to our ecosystem. It dried out the hillsides. There was less old growth vegetation releasing moisture into the air. That led to further drying. And then we set one human-cased fire after another, further straining our water resources.
We have uninhibited population growth on the arid West coast, fueled by illegal immigration. I recall the day that illegal immigrants stayed home in protest. Those congested freeways were actually open. Commutes were so much easier. All of the people living in arid dry lands, legal, illegal, and guest, require drinking water.
The tradition in landscaping, as well, is the lush English garden, complete with green lawns and tender roses, which require vast water resources to maintain. Some communities require lawns and frown upon native landscaping or gardens, which at least produce food for the cost of the water.
The US is not alone in its water mismanagement. Saudi Arabia is infamous for its circular wheat fields and dairy farms in the desert. They tapped into thousand year aquifers and drained them dry. That was incredibly short sighted. Their deep water aquifers are so far down that the drop of water that just reached the collecting pool fell in a sky over Christ, and brought news to its fellows that the horse had been domesticated. It’s not a pond that will fill up with the next rain. It was foolish of them to use that resource to grow wheat.
The African continent, as well, has damaged its water resources. Over foresting, over grazing, and over grading all led to the loss of water resources. Severe fiscal mismanagement of the water and sanitation system has led Cape Town into a water shortage crisis. Poor farming methods and mismanagement for political ideals further strain water resources. Constant warfare between tribes in some countries further exacerbate the problem, with one drought and famine after another.
In fact, every country that imports agricultural and meat products, and dairy, are really importing all the water used to grow them. The constant tribal wars, corruption, dictators abusing their people around the world exacerbate the problem and tip beleaguered people into famine year after year.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/war-and-corruption-not-droughts-are-responsible-for-famines/article593203/
It is not just resources, but managing those resources, that is critical. Take “The Water Farmer” of Zimbabwe, Mr. Zephania Phiri Maseko. He faced the same low rainfall that his compatriots did. And yet, with ingenuity, he transformed his arid drylands into a highly productive farm, using only the scant rain that fell every year. The world would do well to sit up and take notice of his techniques.
https://cals.arizona.edu/OALS/ALN/aln46/lancaster.html
Thanks, Karen S.!
You’re welcome, Debbie. Articles about Mr. Phiri the Water Farmer are fascinating.
Thanks for the great posts Karen. It gives a little scope of the real impacts of humanity to those small-minded folks who think climate change is our biggest challenge. I’ve argued before it’s a great “smokescreen” to hide the truly egregious stresses on our environment. But “climate change” makes sexy know-all to the armchair recliner social-justice-woke crowd. Plus scientism.
DE-VEGETATION OF OUR PLANET
Our vegetative cover clean pollutants and CO2 from the air, generate oxygen, and are a living water reservoir. They respire moisture into the atmosphere, hold soils in place, and prevent water runoff.
This is the biosponge of our planet that is one of our oxygen engines driving life on Earth. However, forests are lost around the world.
The culprits are:
1. Rainforest countries that remove forests for crops, including biofuels and palm oil plantations. We lose vast acres of rainforest every day, which are one of the main producers of our planet’s oxygen. This also impacts rainfall patterns.
2. Overforesting around the world. The US has made great strides in conserving its forests. However, there is a new trend in shipping wood pellets to the UK for them to use as green renewables in an accounting sleight of hand. Sure, it removes our own domestic forests, and burning wood creates a lot of soot, but on paper it looks great. The UK gets to frown down on the rest of us from their high horse, while we lose the trees they burn to reduce their fossil fuel usage.
3. Overgrazing. The Middle East was infamous for creating and expanding deserts from over grazing and pasture mismanagement.
4. The removal of most of the old growth chaparral of CA. It is quite difficult to find any native chaparral that is not contaminated with highly flammable alien grasses. 5. Human caused fires in the West. The inevitable fires each and every spring, summer, and fall in the West are caused by human activity. Summer rain is extremely rare, so there are no dry lightening to naturally cause fire. We’ve removed much of the native chaparral, that is difficult to get started burning on its own. What’s left, we’ve stuffed with alien grasses that act like tinder. That does get the chaparral burning, denuding hillsides each and every year. In addition to pumping out soot into the air all the time, it leads to mudslides and erosion the next rainy season. The loss of California’s vegetation at this rate dries the atmosphere, leads to runoff. That prevents the recharging of underground water resources. Every time we clear land and put up more houses, that removes more of our scant oxygen generators and atmospheric cleansers. It also reduces the capacity of the land to hold water underground. More of it runs off down storm drains.
The loss of vegetation leads to the expansion of deserts, which further heats and dries the planet, as well as degrades oxygen percentages. Why in the world would we denude the planet of the very plants that we need for life to exist?
https://jornada.nmsu.edu/lter/expanding-deserts
One of my favorite efforts to combat desertification is restoring native plants, regrading areas to help water sink down deep, and planting trees appropriate to the climate.
https://www.groasis.com/en/technology/planting-trees-to-prevent-desertification-is-a-good-disaster-control
Please refer tot he Groasis website link above for the Water box tree cocoon, which allows a tree to be planted and grow utilizing only native rainfall.
One final point. The United States has been the piggy bank of the entire world, prostrating itself as guilty of causing anthropogenic climate change and polluting the world.
I beg to differ.
If we want to discuss reparations and paying their fair share, then in addition to the usual causes laid at the US’s feet, there are:
1. Lebanon owes everyone for causing decertification due to selling off its vast forests.
2. The Middle East owes everyone for ruining its water resources and causing the need to import so much water. In addition, its historic practice of over grazing increased the acreage under the desert.
3. South America owes the rest of us for clearing so much of its rainforest, denying us the medical discoveries therein and removing vast amounts of our oxygen generators. This can impact global rainfall patterns.
4. Africa owes us because all of its corruption and wars led to resource and agricultural mismanagement, led to the increase of desertification, and created a draw on global resources.
5. Major polluters like Russia, China, Mexico, the rest of Latin America, and India owe the world for all the pollutants they pump into our air and water.
6. The US owes everyone because we export our dirty jobs to China, Mexico, and India.
7. Any country that over fishes owes the rest of us
8. Any country that removes forests at such a high rate that it impacts global rainfall or air quality owes the rest of us
9. Any country guilty of overgrazing, such as with mismanagement of goats and sheep, owes the rest of us because it is one of the main causes of anthropogenic desertification
I would like to add that I have seen a marked increase in the use and marketing of wood burning pellet stoves. The advertising material typically uses the rising cost of energy as a selling point for burning wood.
I find that concerning, as deforestation and de-vegetation are pressing issues.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bjornlomborg/2017/04/20/wood-the-lethal-renewable-energy-swindle/#754a4d9d3a81
“The Drax power station in Northern England generates seven per cent of the U.K’s electricity, predominantly burning biomass, supported by government subsidies. Seventy per cent of the electricity produced – enough to power Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool – is made using compressed wood pellets felled in the US and imported by ship.”
I have learned that feeling good and actually doing good are not always the same thing. Many policies enacted to combat Climate Change do more harm than good, such as this example of felling American forests to fuel the UK’s sooty “green biomass” energy.
Climate change denial is like Holocaust Denial. Went in dumb, come out dumb too. Hustlin round Atlanta in their alligator shoes. They are keeping the Rednecks Up!