Rape: The Real Menace Of Climate Change?
You can't make this stuff up. Mother Jones has credulously published "Study: Global Warming Will Cause 180,000 More Rapes by 2099." The MJ article is citing a new study from the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management that purports to calculate that future man-made global warming will fuel higher crime rates in the United States over the rest of the century. The study projects:
Between 2010 and 2099, climate change will cause an additional 22,000 murders, 180,000 cases of rape, 1.2 million aggravated assaults, 2.3 million simple assaults, 260,000 robberies, 1.3 million burglaries, 2.2 million cases of larceny, and 580,000 cases of vehicle theft in the United States.
Crime and higher temperatures do correlate, but there are likely to be some mitigating factors over the next century. Maybe those seeking sexual satisfaction or indulging in violent sexual fantasies will turn to the animatronic delights of highly responsive sex robots. With regard to property crimes, perhaps every physical possession will be connected to a vastly elaborated Internet of Everything and stolen items would simply refuse to cooperate with thieves or they might alert passersby that they have been feloniously taken. And why steal vehicles when nearly everyone rents cheap self-driving automobiles on demand?
Finally, keep in mind that while average temperatures in the United States have increased since the 1970s, the crime rate (including rape) has been falling for nearly two decades.
