Rise in Violence “Linked to Climate Change”

Shifts in temperature or rainfall are correlated with a rise in assaults, rapes, murders and events of conflict or war, suggests researcher Marshall Burke of the University of California, Berkeley, in a study published in Science. Rebecca Morelle, BBC News, reports that the researchers reviewed 60 studies with data spanning hundreds of years: “Their examples include an increase in domestic violence in India during recent droughts, and a spike in assaults, rapes and murders during heatwaves in the US,” she explains Burke cautions that no single climate event can be related to violence, but that climate events do affect economies which can trigger decisions that lead to conflicts in homes or large social rebellions. The researchers “estimate that a 2C (3.6F) rise in global temperature could see personal crimes increase by about 15%, and group conflicts rise by more than 50% in some regions,” Morelle reports. Critics suggest the evidence does not show the links are causal. – YaleGlobal