Pirate's Cove

It’s kinda ironic, because all this is first caused by you, yes, you, driving your fossil fueled vehicle and eating farm animals

Unexpected effects of climate change: worse food safety, more car wrecks

On excessively hot days, there are more likely to be fatal car accidents and food safety problems, and police officers and government food inspectors tend to do less of their duties, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists, who analyzed data from across the United States, suggest that if the climate continues to change, by 2050 — and in another 50 or so years beyond that — our world may be less safe than it is today. (snip)

So, do hot temperatures harm government workers’ ability to do their jobs?

Obradovich and his colleagues analyzed data from more than 70 million police stops between 2000 and 2017 and more than 500,000 fatal motor vehicle crashes between 2001 and 2015. They also looked at nearly 13 million food safety violations (for restaurants and food production facilities) recorded across more than 4 million inspections between 2012 and 2016.

The researchers established the usual range of temperatures for cities and states and then examined “what happens if you have, all else equal, just an unusually warm day in that range?” Obradovich explained.

Unsurprisingly, they found that things were worse when it’s warm, and things are going to be doomy by 2050.

“For decades many social scientists have been locked in a polarizing battle over whether the environment or political institutions matter more for determining people’s wellbeing, as if it could only be one or the other,” added Hsiang, who was not involved in the new research. “What this study shows is that the environment directly affects the functioning of political institutions themselves, which in turn then matter to society.