Dying of Heat: The Deadly Link Between Warming and Violence

Severe heat has a negative effect on human behavior: studies show that extreme heat leads to irritability, impatience and an increase in aggression and violence.

As the globe heats up and average temperatures gradually rise, questions arise about the nature of the social and psychological changes that will be caused by this

Tali Goldstein

04/10/2022

Tuesday, October 4, 2022, 5:20 p.m

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"Benvolio: 'Please, Marcutio, let's retire. Today is hot, the Capulets are in the streets. If we meet, a quarrel will break out. This heat inflames all blood with madness'" (William Shakespeare: "Romeo and Juliet", act 3 image 1)

already in the 19th century 15 The British playwright and poet William Shakespeare knew that severe heat has negative effects on human behavior.

In the last century, scientists also began to document and study the difficulty of humans to deal with extreme heat, due to the phenomenon of global warming that threatens to make certain areas of the world unlivable.

And while the globe is heating up and the average temperatures are gradually rising, questions are emerging about the nature of the social and psychological changes that will be caused by the heat stress, as well as, how violent can the world still be?

Fires in California in the midst of a heat wave in July 2022 (Photo: GettyImages)

Our body is not able to bear extreme heat, and the physical dangers inherent in exposure to such heat are well known, but our mind is not immune to such conditions either.

Researchers today link extreme heat to an increase in aggression, to a decrease in cognitive abilities and to damage to work productivity, resulting in an increase in traffic accidents, crime, deaths, violent incidents in general, and also an increase in suicides.

As global temperatures continue to climb, and record-breaking heat waves become more frequent in various parts of the world, the effects of extreme heat on human behavior are becoming a growing problem.

All this while governments are failing to meet the targets they have set to ensure that the average global temperature does not warm more than the agreed threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era.

China's Sichuan Province has dried up (Photo: GettyImages)

The summer of 2022, which was characterized by record-breaking heat waves in several regions of the world, ranked as one of the hottest on record, according to data from NASA and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NASA data showed that June-August 2022 was the hottest in the world since 1880. NOAA data indicated that it was the world's fifth warmest summer in 143 years of records, and that the Northern Hemisphere experienced its second warmest summer on record.

Overall, the data show that last summer was abnormally warm and that the world has warmed dramatically in the last century, especially since the 1980s - the summer season has warmed by 0.26 degrees Celsius per decade since 1980.

Both agencies have already stated that 2022 will likely be one of the ten warmest years most recorded.

It is also expected to be the eighth year in a row warmer by at least 1 degree Celsius compared to the end of the 19th century.

Record-breaking heat waves

This year's summer was hotter than usual from the beginning.

According to NASA, June 2022 was the warmest on record, July was the third warmest and August ranked as the world's second warmest. In addition, the world's five warmest June-August months on record have occurred since 2015 - a warning signal about accelerating global warming.

In June, Pest A heat wave in Japan is in the middle of the rainy season and a record breaking as the most extreme heat wave in June since 1875. The Norwegian city of Tromsø above the Arctic Circle recorded a record temperature in June. July was characterized by record breaking heat waves in Europe: in London the temperature reached 40 degrees Celsius for the first time ever Record temperatures were also recorded in France, Germany, Spain and Ireland.The heat wave caused huge fires and unprecedented melting of glaciers in the Alps, which caused a deadly avalanche in Italy.

Most of the United States also recorded higher than average temperatures in July.

In places like Texas, Northern California, Portland and Seattle, heat records were broken as well as records for the longest heat waves.

The extreme heat also caused huge fires in the United States, such as the McKinney fire which became the largest and deadliest in California so far.

The temperature in Madrid this summer (Photo: Reuters)

August 2022 provided no relief.

On the contrary.

It was the warmest August on record in North America and Europe, and the second warmest worldwide.

During it, half of Europe was placed under the most severe drought warning on the continent in at least 500 years.

The month also included extreme heat waves mainly in the western United States.

China recorded its hottest August and summer ever.

The country has been battling a record-breaking heat wave that has almost completely dried up Puyang Lake, China's largest reservoir of drinking water.

The heavy heat was also felt in New Zealand, which recorded the second warmest August in its history, and in Belgium, which ranked August as the warmest ever since records began in 1833.

More than 33,000 fires raged in Brazil in August, the highest figure since 2010.

A heat wave in Britain in the summer (Photo: GettyImages)

The last summer as a whole corresponds to the trend of the entire year.

So far this year, global temperatures have been above average.

According to NOAA, the January-August 2022 period is the sixth warmest, and the global average temperature was 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than the 20th century average.

effects of heat

When it is too hot, the chances of physical aggression and violent behavior increase.

In a series of studies done under laboratory conditions by American psychology professor Craig Anderson, they put students in temperature-controlled rooms.

Some were placed in a room at a comfortable temperature of 23 degrees Celsius;

Some for an extremely cold room (14 degrees) and some for an extremely hot room (36 degrees).

In one study, the students in the cold and warm rooms defined a series of scenarios presented to them as more violent and hostile, compared to those in the room with the comfortable temperature.

In another study, the students in the cold and warm rooms were rated higher in their level of hostility, compared to those who stayed in a room with a comfortable temperature.

In a third study, the students who stayed in the cold and hot rooms responded to provocation during a game with outbursts of anger and noise.

The researchers' conclusion: a particularly high temperature increases aggression.

"Heat makes people tend to get angry faster," said Anderson, whose research findings appeared in the journal Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. As a result, they perceive reality as more hostile when they're hot," he added.

fatal consequences

Other studies have demonstrated the deadly consequences of these findings.

In a study done in the Netherlands in 1994, 38 police officers participated, who were asked to complete a shooting training workshop in a room with a comfortable temperature (21 degrees), and a room with a hot temperature (27 degrees).

The mission involved arriving at the scene in response to a report of a robbery and confronting a suspect carrying an iron bar.

The responses of the officers were recorded, as well as the impressions of the officers after the task.

From the findings it emerged that the chance that those who completed the task in the warmer room would think that the suspect was aggressive towards them was higher compared to those who stayed in the room at a comfortable temperature.

Moreover, the chance that the officers in the hot room would see the suspect as a threat and draw a weapon was much higher than those in the pleasant room - 85% versus 59%.

The findings demonstrate the role that temperatures play in escalating insignificant conflicts into significant violent incidents - and even killing.

Other studies have used actual violence and heat data and found that cities and areas where the temperature is high tend to witness a higher percentage of violent crime than cooler areas, even taking into account other factors such as age, race, poverty, culture, income, education and so on.

Studies have also measured the temperature and violence in the same area over time.

Over the course of hours, days, months and even years, similar trends emerged: when it's hotter - the violence increases, and it doesn't matter if it's Chicago in the United States, Brisbane in Australia or Vancouver in Canada.

The crime rate increases with the heat (Photo: GettyImages)

One of the more in-depth studies in the field is by Professor Anderson from 2011, in which he compared data from FBI reports in 1950-2008 regarding violent crime (the percentage of assaults or killings per 100,000 people) and non-violent crime (the percentage of robberies and vehicle thefts per 100,000). a thousand people).

The study combined the crime data with the annual average temperature data from NOAA for those years.

According to the findings, the change in the average annual temperature was correlated with the change in the percentage of violent crime, but not with the percentage of non-violent crime.

This relationship was maintained even after other explanations were introduced, such as the percentage of incarceration in prisons and so on.

The researchers estimated, based on the research findings, that an increase of 1 degree Celsius in the average temperature - a conservative estimate of global warming in the decades after 2011 - would lead to a 6% increase in violent crime, as well as an addition of 25,000 serious and fatal assault cases (excessive crime) per year in the states The covenant alone.

According to a 2020 study, the United States will see about 2.3 million more violent crimes in 2099-2020, due to warming alone.

Heat wave in China in the summer (Photo: Reuters)

Another 2019 study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), examined the relationship between high daily temperatures and violent incidents in Los Angeles in 2010-2017.

Criminologists have known for decades that homicide and violent crime tend to increase in frequency during the hot summer months, but the study's findings surprised even the researchers.

"On average, the crime rate increased by 2.2% and violent crime by 5.7% on days with temperatures higher than 29 degrees Celsius, compared to days when temperatures were lower than this threshold," they wrote.

"Furthermore, we discovered that heat affects violent crimes - but not crimes related to property, such as robbery, vehicle theft, arson, etc.

And in Finland, as part of a study that examined the years 1996-2013, it was found that every 1 degree Celsius increase was responsible for an increase of 1.7% in violent crime in the country.

How does extreme heat lead to starvation?

According to the Association for Psychological Science (APS), in addition to the direct effect extreme heat has on human behavior, there are at least two other indirect factors that may increase the likelihood of violence.

The first factor is nutritional insecurity related to the stages of development during which babies turn into adults who are prone to violent behavior.

The gradual global warming leads to more severe and prolonged droughts and frequent fires, which severely damages agricultural production in the world and causes food shortages and a global hunger crisis - hunger causes aggression and violence.

The second factor is the expansion of inequality.

Extreme weather phenomena, such as droughts, floods, reduction of precipitation or an extreme increase in precipitation, usually lead to physical, economic and mental destruction that is felt much more among the weak populations, which in turn leads to a further expansion of social inequality.

This situation may also lead to an increase in violence, hostility, rage and a sense of revenge among those at the bottom.

A 2012 study by political science professors examined the impact of extreme weather on herders in East Africa.

In the research, a model of conflict is developed that is based on game theory and takes into account the existing resources, their distribution, the ownership of the assets and the role of the state.

The researchers concluded that the forms and lack of resources due to extreme heat led to the expansion of income inequality among shepherds.

This situation aroused resentment among some of them, which manifested itself in acts of revenge and robberies.

A drought in Somalia led to a hunger crisis (Photo: Reuters, A Somali man disposes of his dead livestock in a country that has seen its worst drought in 40 years Photograph: Feisal Omar/Reuters)

Climate change and global warming may also contribute to the expansion of terrorism: uncertainty and frustration with poor living conditions, the lack of alternatives, as well as the negative impact of climate change on certain weaker populations, pave the way for many regional conflicts around the world.

A study published in 2019 in the journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, focused on terrorist attacks and also found a "significant" relationship between high temperatures and terrorist attacks in 159 countries around the world in 1970-2015.

The study revealed that terrorist attacks are more common on warmer days, and that the number of victims in an attack was higher on warmer days.

"The study provides preliminary evidence for the hypothesis of a relationship between temperature and aggression in the context of terrorism," it says.

40 degrees Celsius in London (photo: official website, Twitter)

Extreme heat has also been the cause of some of the world's biggest public health crises in recent years.

In 2003, the exceptionally hot summer caused 50-70 thousand additional deaths in 16 European countries.

According to estimates, in the last two decades, 296 thousand deaths worldwide were related to heat.

60% of Europe was under threat of drought in the summer (photo: screenshot, axios)

Not healthy for the soul

The connection between high temperatures and mental health has become a burning field in research.

Scientists have found that some of the health consequences of extreme heat, such as sleep disturbances and changes in serotonin levels (a hormone necessary to stabilize our emotions and behavior), play a role in the acceleration of various mental illnesses.

Insomnia is a phenomenon that usually occurs during hot flashes and leads to irritability, frustration, impulsive behavior and violence.

Extreme temperatures, such as those recorded last summer in the world, are also associated with various states of dementia and other problems.

Low levels of serotonin are associated with depression, impulsivity, aggression and violent behavior.

Studies from England and Wales conducted in 1993-2003 even revealed that when the temperature was higher than 18 degrees Celsius, each additional increase of one degree was associated with a 3.8% jump in suicide cases among the population, according to the "Conversation" website.

A wake-up call for governments

In the future, heat waves will be even hotter and last longer.

Temperature records will be broken again and again, as long as global warming continues unabated.

A 2018 study on climate change and flooding in Pakistan found that in northwest Asia, temperatures could rise 8.4% by 2100;

And a world 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer on average than the pre-industrial era, will see an even more extreme rise in average regional temperatures.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if the global temperature rises by more than two degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era by the middle of this century (2050), the Middle East will witness an alarming combination of climate changes that include warming, heat waves, record temperatures , an increase in droughts and dryness, a decrease in precipitation, the proliferation of fires, a decrease in snow cover and a decrease in the strength of the winds.

According to the panel, heat waves will multiply in our region and will be longer and more severe until the end of the 21st century.

"Heat waves will be the normal situation. We have emitted too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere so we can say with confidence that this trend will continue for decades. We have not been able to reduce greenhouse emissions in the world," said Petri Tallas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, in July. "I hope that the summer The latter will be a wake-up call for governments, and that this will also have an impact on voters in democratic countries."

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