When my boys and I seize power and I become emperor, the very first thing I do (after having the mess hosed clean) is to place a strict two-year moratorium on all new research.
All would-be scientists and researchers will be marched to a mandatory Reeducation Camp. Those who reach the end will one-by-one be forced to stand up and expose their wee Ps to the crowd. Thereafter forever shamed they will never again even be tempted to conduct a hypothesis test.
Our peer-reviewed paper of the day is “The association between temperature and alcohol- and substance-related disorder hospital visits in New York State” by Robbie M. Parks and a bunch of others in Nature’s Communications Medicine. Which, to give credit where it’s due, we learned of through the comical site Study Finds, and their article “Global warming could turn many people into drunks and drug users, study claims“.
This is surely true, in a way. For every time I see an idiotic headline like this I’m tempted to hit the bottle. But that’s self destructive. So like the sailors of yore who chipped their shot round to tighten accuracy, I work off my energy by polishing another box of ammunition.
So. People have indeed been getting drunker and more drugged up these days. As we all know, and as these researchers have discovered.
Over recent decades, there has been a growing trend in episodic drinking and alcohol-related deaths in the United States, especially among middle-aged and older adults. Drug overdose deaths have also surged, increasing more than five-fold since the beginning of the 21st century.
Has this uptick occurred because of a slight increase in globally averaged temperature, which cannot be felt and you have to be an Expert to see? Or is it because of other, woke reasons emanating from a corrupt and growing worse Regime?
The former, say researchers.
To be fair, the researchers do recognize that when it’s warmer, as in summer, people go outside more than in winter. I mean, who knew? And that when it’s hotter people drink outside more. Or forget to drink water. This is breaking news, folks.
By comparing high-temperature days with nearby cooler days, the team hoped to see the influence of short-term climatic events like heat waves. They found that alcohol-related hospital visits do increase with rising temperatures. Potential reasons for this could include more outdoor activities, risky behavior, increased dehydration due to sweating, increased consumption during pleasant weather, and even instances of drunk driving.
That’s for drinking. What about drugs? Hold on to something solid before reading more:
When it comes to drug-related disorders, a similar pattern emerged, but only up to temperatures of 18.8°C (65.8°F). The researchers believe that after reaching a certain temperature threshold, individuals might be more inclined to go outdoors.
All we have to do to solve the fentanyl crisis is to get the temperature up to 65.9°F. Like, say, in Florida, where because of the heat nobody could be croaking of overdoses.
Or maybe not: “New data from Florida’s Medical Examiners Commission shows deaths caused by fentanyl analogs went up by 38% from January to June 2022 compared to the previous year.”
Ah, well. So much for that theory.
Here’s the researcher’s words:
Here we show that, for alcohol-related disorders, a daily increase in temperature from the daily minimum (?30.1?°C (?22.2?°F)) to the 75th percentile (18.8?°C (65.8?°F)) across 0–6 lag days is associated with a cumulative 24.6% (95%CI,14.6%–34.6%) increase in hospital visit rates, largely driven by increases on the day of and day before hospital visit,
When it’s subzero few have enough warm socks to walk to the hospital, but once it gets warm they can wear their Crocs?
From this, and a similar discovery with drugs, they conclude:
Our findings suggest that rising temperatures, including those caused by climate change, may influence hospital visits for alcohol and other drugs, emphasizing the need for appropriate and proportionate social and health interventions, as well as highlighting potential hidden burdens of climate change.
The important thing about “climate change” is, “climate changingly” speaking, is “climate change” can be “climate change” and also “climate change”. Of course, “climate change” “climate change” “climate change”, please fund me, “climate change”.
Real quotes: “mitigating the worst impacts of climate change”, ” public health practitioners preparing for climate change”, “serving as crucial catalysts for the implementation of adaptation strategies to combat climate change”, ” the broader implications of global climate change”.
Enough.
Take “climate change” seriously as these results warrant.
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It must be tough to write a column every day or just Monday-Friday and make it readable.
There is a lot of nonsense in the world so that is one way of doing it even if it’s limited to science.
Cargo cult science as Feynman called it
More evidence that there are far too many scientists (“scientists”) and not enough important things for all of them to study. The world needs more good mechanics, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and farmers, but instead we get hordes of nincompoops writing pointless, idiotic research papers.
But to be fair, this would have been a fun and interesting study if only they didn’t mention “climate change”. I mean, did you ever ask yourself “hmm, I wonder how the weather affects hospital entries”? I didn’t, and now do. Does temperature affect dialysis patients’ visits? Can you demonstrate the difference in orthopedics procedures depending on the weather? Does rain improve the mental state of depression patients? Do sunny days lead to more STD patients?
But then you can start drilling in for details. It’s been known in medicine that changes in air pressure due to weather cause heart attacks. Nobody knows why, but it’s known to be the case. Can you, the scientist, find some subsection of the population where this effect is more or less pronounced? Does this give you ideas about the causal mechanism that starts with “weather/air pressure” and ends with “more/less heart attacks”? I’d love to see such studies!
Will we have to feed them in the camps?
When I am King there will be no scientists. They will all be converted to Soylent Green and used as food for pigs. Short on pork bellies.
Bad science. They didn’t account for moon phases.
As Kojak said, “It’s a full moon, every creep in town is turned on!”
An EPD: extraordinary popular delusion.
–>”highlighting potential hidden burdens of climate change.”
Priceless! Is this anything like double-secret probation from Animal House??