Are You Lonely Or Have No Friends? Blame Climate Change!!
A couple of weeks ago we were told by the media a recent spate of hot weather drownings were caused by ‘climate change’, as if people suddenly forgot how to swim because it was hot, now we get a professor claiming loneliness is caused by ‘climate change’
Only an academic could come up with something this stupid. No bar is too low to crawl under in the quest to show ‘climate change’.
Poor Fiona Doherty, Assistant Professor of Social Work, may not have met anyone outside The Groupthink Blob to challenge her work and appears stuck at the pre-numerate stone age analysis stage.
Evidently it didn’t occur to her that if hot weather keeps people indoors and isolates them, then cold weather might do that too. (Caribbean holidays seem more sociable than Arctic ones).
Apparently she didn’t consider that a bit of global warming and shorter winters might be a net benefit for social events. Sadly, this also didn’t occur to her supervisor, grant assessor, students or the editors of The Conversion either.
Still, at least she didn’t waste computer time trying to model something as complicated as costs minus benefits. This is strictly a case of every anecdote proves the point.
The good news is that no one is adjusting the numbers — the bad news is that’s because there are no numbers.
So here we are again back at tribal sorcery: lo and behold, loneliness strikes, the climate spirits are blamed, and the villagers are told if they want more friends, they need more solar panels.
Non-stop nonsense:
Climate change may be making us lonelier
Fiona Doherty, The Conversion*
As an assistant professor of social work at the University of Tennessee, I study converging social and environmental crises, including social disconnection and extreme weather. I’ve found that one of climate change’s most overlooked impacts may be its ability to worsen the continuing loneliness epidemic.
Studies show the amount of time Americans spent interacting with friends and family in person was declining even before the COVID-19 pandemic
As usual everything is “climate change”. It’s not like we had twenty years of explosive growth in the internet and smart phones to make us lonely too is it?
Severe storms, heat waves and wildfires can shut down the social life of a community, flooding out festivals, canceling community events and keeping people indoors.
Yes, back in the good old days there were no floods, or storms, they just had the Black Death, dysentery and yellow fever to keep them away from festivals. It was so much easier then. As long as the horses didn’t go lame, and no one declared a war or anything.
They’re also evidence of how climate change isn’t just changing the environments we all live in, but also impeding our ability to connect with one another.
Evidence? What evidence?
Extreme weather keeps people apart
Extreme heat has dominated global headlines this summer. When outdoor temperatures become dangerous, people retreat indoors to stay in air conditioning or near electric fans. This can come with a social cost.
Let’s count how many days floods, fires or cyclones have left you trapped at home in the last ten years and missing out on line-dancing, bingo or birthday parties: Would that be 0.001% of the last decade or would it be less?
Humans have never had it so good in the battle against the elements.
It’s like some academics were born yesterday?
Severe storms and flooding can make travel unsafe or impossible, preventing people from leaving their homes, reaching family or attending social gatherings. These disruptions can erode the everyday interactions that help people feel connected.
And the solution is always more government spending:
One promising way forward is for cities and counties to invest in community hubs, such as public libraries, or create new gathering spaces across communities.
These spaces can bolster social connection year-round by hosting inclusive lifelong learning activities while also serving as cooling shelters and climate resilience hubs, providing resources to help residents prepare for disasters, phone-charging stations when power goes out elsewhere, and an internet connection.
Fiona Doherty received funding from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, The Women’s Place at The Ohio State University, the College of Social Work PhD Program at The Ohio State University, and Grand Challenges for Social Work for the research mentioned in this article.
To be fair, the professor did conduct a study of sorts.
Sixteen people photographed places and things connected with their social lives, then discussed how extreme weather sometimes disrupted their travel plans.
Yes. It’s that bad, and the groups mentioned paid for this “research”?
It’s time we had a hard conversation about the point of universities and whether it’s time to shut them all down and start again?
PS: *When the Conversion lets skeptical scientists speak as well as gullible ones we’ll call it “The Conversation” again.
See more here joannenova.com.au
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