Should we cool the whole Earth first or just homes and offices?
By Jo Nova
It’s as if they’re trying to guilt trip people into installing some solar panels and catching the bus.
Climate Change, it seems, is linked to brain damage in children. Specifically poor children. It leaves them with lasting effects on brain development and particularly “white matter”. (And what kind of evil sod are you if you won’t buy an EV to save the brain of a kid in Barking & Dagenham? “Do it for the children!”)
The editors of the British Medical Journal review many recent papers talking about the dire situation:
Climate change has serious implications for children’s brain health
British Medical Journal
Emerging evidence suggests that factors related to climate change, such as ambient heat exposure, can affect the brain.5 Heat stress has been linked to disruptions in neurodevelopment, slow cognitive and emotional functioning, long term learning loss and memory deficits, worsening of neurological and mental disorders, and increased permeability of the blood-brain barrier.6 Early exposure to extreme weather events, including antenatal exposure, has also been associated with an increased risk of anxiety, depression, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, educational underperformance, diminished self-regulation, and psychiatric disorders in later life.78
They call for “Evidence Based Policy” and talk about “interventions” and screening, and public health campaigns, but what they don’t say are the words “fossil fuel” or “cheap electricity”. If the worst effects are found in children in poor socioeconomic groups, the answer surely is that the poor need access to air conditioning. Making the world a tenth of a degree cooler in 100 years (if that were even possible) isn’t going to be much use to them.
What if reckless experiments with electricity grids are causing brain damage and mental health issues with children? Would anybody care if pushing the price of electricity up was hurting reading scores and neurodevelopment now?
Oh. It’s not just heat, it’s cold too:
Weird connection found between temperature and brain development
by Eric W. Dolan, PsyPost, July 1, 2024
The study [by Granes et al] found that exposure to both cold and heat during early life was associated with significant changes in the microstructure of white matter. Specifically, cold exposure from the third month of pregnancy to the fifteenth month of life and heat exposure from the ninth month of life to 2.6 years of age were linked to higher global MD values at ages 9 to 12 years. Higher MD values indicate poorer white matter microstructure, which can affect neural connectivity and cognitive function.
Let’s give them air conditioning and heating too.
“It was interesting to see that there were some differences in the effects when we compared children living in neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status vs those who were living in neighborhoods with a higher socioeconomic status, as we could see more effects in the first group,” Granés said. “Our hypothesis/interpretation of these findings is that these differences could be explained by poorer housing conditions or energy poverty (but this should be further investigated).”
While this study provides valuable insights, it has some limitations. One key limitation is the lack of indoor temperature data. Since children, especially infants, spend significant time indoors, indoor temperatures could differ significantly from outdoor estimates, potentially affecting the accuracy of the findings.
Call me a skeptic that temperature could have such a detrimental effect on mammals that evolved in far harsher and more variable climates than anything we deal with today. Indeed, both cold and heat exposure are beneficial in short doses — almost like we evolved to deal with exercise in the heat and fishing in the cold. I make the point about air conditioning because it’s Kyrptonite to a pack of toady fashion-queens pretending to care about poor children. If they did care, they’d campaign for cheap electricity.
Airconditioners already save 20,000 lives in USA each year. And they reduce indoor air pollution too. Burn oil, and save the children!
REFERENCES
Climate change has serious implications for children’s brain health, BMJ 2024;386:q1588, doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q1588 (Published 22 July 2024)
Granés, L., Essers, E., Ballester, J. et al. Early life cold and heat exposure impacts white matter development in children Nat. Clim. Chang. 14, 760–766 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02027-w
Not too hot, not too cold, Just Right, said Goldilocks.
Clearly the BMJ editors are heat and/or cold affected.
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At first I thought the people most effected by this low IQ problem would be the editors who published the article … then I thought it would probably be the researchers who did the work.
But then I realized that all those people got paid … thus, the really, really low-IQ people would be whoever pays for all this junk research to get produced and then published … but finally I thought … holy crap that’s me! I’m the stupid numpty paying for this rubbish.
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Has anyone measured the mental harm done to children by telling them there is no hope for the future?
Do a search for ‘children crying over climate change’.
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A friend’s daughter who was at one of Melbournistan’s top private schools once came home crying because a government “educator” visited her school to lecture the students about “climate change” and how “global warming” was going to cause all the animals and plants to die.
It was horrific mental torture for a young girl. I was called in to properly re-educate her and explain to her that she has been lied to by a very evil person and none of that was going to happen, at least not for about 5 billion years when the sun becomes a red giant.
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A case in the UK a 8 year old hung him self in his parents wardrobe over this exact issue
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Your mention of the Red Giant reminded me of my very early childhood when I experienced incredible trauma and foreboding when my Dad, who was a scientist and the gentlest of men, told me that one day the sun would explode and swallow the whole solar system including Earth. I was terrified for days until my poor Dad, realising that he had not given me a time line, explained that it would take millions of years for that to happen.
So I can fully understand how today’s young generation are being traumatised by misinformation on the end of life on this planet due to “climate change”.
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The “ British Medical Journal“ is quite correct in the observance of these mental disorders.
For proof of this one simply needs to observe the the behaviour of the likes of
our esteemed Prime Minister & his moron that identifies as an energy minister.
It’s time to hold the holders of Public Sector employment, which includes from the PM down,
Legally accountable for damage caused by policy lies, broken promises, policy failures etc.
Who was it that used quotes like “ never before in human ( political) history has…….
You fill in the appropriate charges……
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If the climate change continues unabated, Canada, Alaska, and Siberia might become habitable. There is no way to recover from such a catastrophe.
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This is utterly absurd, and could hardly be classified as what used to be called science, back in the day.
Humans can withstand a large variation in temperature, even more so with the use of technology such as clothes, campfires or modern energy sources for heating and cooling. And even greater when there are anatomical adaptations for cold climate (e.g. Eskimos) or hot climate (e.g. Dinka).
There are no significant outdoor temperature variations outside what humans have already experienced during natural warming events such as the Minoan, Egyptian, Roman and Medieval climate optima when Civilisation thrived.
Uncomfortable indoor temperatures, too hot or too cold are caused by energy poverty due to expensive solar and wind electricity. Return to coal, gas, nuclear or real hydro for inexpensive electricity that all people including the poor can afford.
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I suffered some Roman Warming a few weeks back on a visit to Rome. On each of the four days we were there it reached 39 degrees. Hot. Yet the Romans managed to build many of their lasting monuments during such warm days. The slaves endured and the wealthy took to the hills. Some probably drank those nice Tuscan reds.
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There were even vineyards in Roman Britain.
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Roman pruning hooks found at Hadrian’s Wall.
And in Medieval Britain the Bishop of Durham made good money from his vineyards – got 3 times the price of imported French wines.
Also in the Medieval Warm period grapes were grown in (what is now) Belgium, Holland, Denmark, southern Sweden and southern Norway. Also along the southern coast of the Baltic in northern Germany and Estonia, Latvia and parts of Poland. In Germany current vineyards are lower in altitude than known heights before (approx.) 1400 A.D.
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Plenty of vineyards in Britain today.
My local one – Iron Railway – appears to have closed recently. But there s one a little further north than York, doing okay I gather.
Auto
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This is why children who live in the tropics are all dain bramaged.
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And of course there is no possibility that other factors may influence the development of children’s brains. Various additives in food to make it last longer or maybe the lack of nutrition education in schools that might help poor families select healthier options when they shop. Of course it is more important to teach poor people about the slavers who built the university rather than the anti slavers that made the society great. This story reinforces the fact that science generally and medical science in particular has been thoroughly corrupted and risks losing any credibility when it is most needed. Already there is resistance to vaccines, even those that have been shown to be effective and safe in the past. The medical profession has lost it’s mojo all because a few main chancers have put profits and popularity before truth and facts.
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Early exposure to extreme weather events
Finally – the answer! – to all my burning questions.
I was born in a heatwave (NZ had those back in 1960s summers), our house wasn’t insulated, air conditioners hadn’t been invented, we had a fireplace, winters were near freezing, all my clothes were hand-me-downs, mum grew our own vegetables and dad made us play outside, barefoot, in the mud. Then we visited grandparents in the South Island where, after a roaring hot nor’wester, it snowed, then froze. Extreme enough?
Seven decades later, here I am, having passed my medical and police checks for my Passenger License renewal, yet that long, long list of American Psychological Association mental illnesses appear to have passed me by. OK, maybe I’m a little anxious at all the crock being passed off as ‘science’, but hey, we are living in the future after all. Good luck!
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Blessed be the obdurate. We started in a one teacher school in NW NSW in the early 60’s – baking hot in summer with its tin roof buckling and freezing in winter, so cold that we could not grasp our red government issue ink pens. Of course all of these political activists posing as concerned scientists shows once again how bad things have become.
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And apart from the baking and freezing and leaking roofs and skinned knees on parched fields… we had to dodge flying blackboard dusters and pieces of chalk teachers would throw at us (not the little pieces of chalk, the big fat chunky ones) some whose aim was better than others: quick reactions and peripheral vision are the lasting legacies of my high-school education. And photosynthesis.
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Here’s an idea for the totalitarians:
Financial “penalties” for NOT having panels.
I would suspect that some scabrous degenerate on the public tit has already drafted the legislation.
Follow the spillage from the financial “arrangements” involving Chinese-made panels and bird-shredders.
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Crocodiles know
How many crocs go to uni? Coincidence?
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No, but there are plenty of Crocks. (I think that I the right spelling)
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But think about the lack of role models!
If you don’t show little crocs pictures [or video nowadays] of crocs in uni, they don’t aspire!
I’m pretty sure that’s right, isn’t it?
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Fully evolved Humans have been around for at least 300 K years and the last 0.1 % of that time has seen record flourishing since 1770 and 1900 and 1950 and 2000 and it continues on even in the poorest continent on Earth.
In fact the poorest continent has seen super flourishing from 1950 to 2024.
1950 population 227 million, life expectancy 36.5 years.
2024 population 1495 million and life expectancy today 64 years.
And over that period Africa has suffered 90% of HIV Aids deaths and 90% of malaria deaths.
We need to think about the very recent data of super flourishing and wake up. See OWI Data i’ve linked to many times and Macrotrends.
Can anyone honestly find a problem with our climate since 1950 or since 2000 or ……?
Again check out Eschenbach’s regularly updated scientific data fom WUWT.
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Overall Human IQ tests have shown about 3 points more per decade over the last 50 + years and the USA has measured much higher IQs today than measured in 1900.
But are we getting smarter? Who knows but we can still be very easily conned by con merchants and liars.
Why is it so, when the data and evidence can be so clear?
https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-test-scores-are-getting-higher-but-are-humans-actually-getting-smarter
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Neville,
IQ as an estimator of illness is the cornerstone of claims that Pb lead is highly toxic and as claimed by the World Health Organisation, there is no safe lead level, it is toxic down to the last atom.
It is easy to show that this IQ derived toxicity has uncertainty so large that it must be questioned. I have drafted a paper to this effect. I am reluctant to float it because everyone knows how deadly lead is and I’ll be seen as just another crank scientist. My problem is that I have not done original measurements, but rely on others of unknown ability and honesty.
Geoff S
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I think the deliberate dumbing-down of the education system by the Left and the failure to teach history, general knowledge, science, maths, English and critical thinking skills etc., has the most deleterious effect on brain development, much more than imagined global warming.
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“One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people’s motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans– anything except reason.” – Thomas Sowell
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One factor that is not being looked at is how many children are being given phones at ridiculously young ages as a “babysitter” similar to what the TV was . They have been trained to depend on it for amusement rather than exploring their surroundings and interacting with others . This could lead to a complete break with reality…..
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As exemplified in this excellent three minutes cartoon:
https://youtu.be/FwzmQf44hMo
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David, that little cartoon is quite incredible, not just in the succinct message it portrays of the problem in our modern societies, but in the excellence of the cartooning itself. Amazing – thank you.
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Again why are only a few people aware that deaths from extreme weather events have dropped by 98% since 1900?
Over 6 billion more people at risk today but very few people die from extreme weather disasters.
Here’s Lomborg’s graph using the latest data and note the very low numbers in the 2020s so far.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7KNHVaXsBIfqcm.jpg
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Neville, if you rotate Lomborg’s graph 90 degrees anti-clockwise, ie. that’s to the left for the digital generation, that blue line of death rises upward – skywards – we’re doomed! Science™️.
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So did Human IQs suffer during the much hotter Eemian and even our warmer early Holocene?
And what about the much longer extreme cold or full glacial periods Humans had to endure during the last 500,000 years?
Here’s the Co2 Coalition’s link to the 8 C hotter Eemian 130 K to 115 K years ago.
https://co2coalition.org/facts/the-last-interglacial-was-8c-14f-warmer-than-today/
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The premise appears to be that a 0.1 degree Celsius increase in ambient temperature over a person’s childhood impairs their brain development.
Sounds more like an excuse for all those underperforming climate scientists.
I had thought it natural that brain development slows with age.
I wonder how seasonality affects intelligence. Do our kids get smarter faster into winter than into summer?
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During lockdowns … just a few years ago … none of these guys gave a toss about children’s brain development, nor any sort of physical development, social development, economic development.
Remember? Only grandma mattered in 2021.
Now in 2024 … for no particular reason … we are supposed to run and panic in a whole different direction.
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Fortunately you don’t need to have a high IQ to do well in the Coalition’s Climate quiz.
But you do need to understand the proper scientific data and even I scored 100% at my first try a few years ago.
It takes a while to complete but we can all learn something from some of the best Scientists and even Nobel prize winners.
I have a very poor education but I read a lot and it usually gets me through.
https://co2coalition.org/quiz/us-air-quality-is-becoming-less-and-less-healthy/
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Heres good advice on how to protect yourself from climate propaganda:
https://youtu.be/R69gs4tUT7s
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You’re a skeptic. ( you asked )
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“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. …. science has taken a turn towards darkness. As one participant put it, “poor methods get results”
Richard Horton @TheLancet editor. 2015
.. let’s add BMJ to the list.
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Getting to the truth in scientific literature is rather like the tortoise chasing Achilles.
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According to the climate hucksters and other leftists, a little extra heat is bad for you, but a little extra cold is also bad for you.
“Heads I win, tails you lose!” they say.
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Hot tea or cold beer will solve these problems, unless you reverse them.
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BTW this shouldn’t require more than a very average IQ to understand, but alas that doesn’t seem to count for much these days.
In 1970 300,000 people died in extreme weather events in Bangladesh and in 1991 another 138,900 hundred died. BTW the population of Bangladesh in 1970 was about 69.3 million and today about 174.7 million. Since 1991 very few people have died although one of the strongest cyclones hit the area in 2020 and only 26 people died. Here’s the OWI Data link to the graph of Bangladeshi deaths since 1970 and their quote.
https://ourworldindata.org/the-world-has-become-more-resilient-to-disasters-but-investment-is-needed-to-save-more-lives
“In 1970, more than 300,000 people died when a strong cyclone hit the coast of Bangladesh.1 In 1985, another storm caused 15,000 deaths. Just six years later, another killed 140,000”.
“Fast-forward to 2020. Bangladesh was hit by cyclone Amphan, one of the strongest storms on record in the Bay of Bengal. The death toll was 26 — barely visible on the chart below, compared to these very deadly disasters”.
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I’m sure some one else has said it above but …
It appears that what they are saying is that people from hot countries (India Africa?) will have lower IQs than people from average countries (Britain?) Do they really want to go down that particular rabbit hole?
I’m sure David Evans would have a field day on that little one?
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So do kids in the higher average temperature countries have a disadvantage compared to the IQs of the 39 million Canadians?
Say Aussies with an average temp of + 22 C or Canada at minus -4 C?
Plenty of extremes from + 28 C to minus -4 C or + 10 C or…. ?
Here’s all the countries average temperatures. Take your pick.
Anyway nearly all Canadians live very close to the USA border and 50% live in a V shaped pocket on the east side of the Great Lakes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_yearly_temperature
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It seems if you are too hot survival is paramount and similarly with being too cold. The most progressive ( using the term meaning inventive and entrepreneurial) nations seem to hover around 10 degrees. Maybe for Australia to meet it’s full potential we should move Southward rather than our current Northward migration.
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If this was an American paper it would black kids affected.
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Allow me to translate: Give us a (or another) research grant ‘cos we need the money.
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[…] From JoNova […]
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As a 60s child I grew up in house that had an open coal fire to begin with and then gas fires – no central heating. There was ice on the inside of the windows on winter mornings. I spent many hours at school in temporary wooden hut classrooms that had been in place for years which roasted in the summer but were OK if it was not too cold. And yet somehow I survived, went to university, had a good career and have a functioning brain that can see this is total bollocks.
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The only damage to little children’s brains is hateful hideous zealots in our schools telling them and their parents are soon going to die unless they save the planet.
My little granddaughter came home from kindergarten singing “switch the light off, switch the light off save the world”
I said to her we can’t eat dinner in the dark and she said but the world will go away and you and Nonna will be dead and then started to cry.
These Marxist useful idiots are dispicible people who see children as collateral damage on their way to a global dictatorship.
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Yes,I agree with Jo and most of the above sentiments; no left wing greeny study will convince me that ‘temperatures’ are a cause of low cognitive/intellectual development during childhood. The human brain has a way of keeping itself warm. And remember all those cold classrooms. And what about all those long, dark, cold European winters?
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Good grief. It’s even sillier than I thought.
I was expecting another of those “15 degrees C is the optimal temperature” things which come out of cold places, but even that was too warm.
According to the link,
They seem to have forgotten that the lower bound of the thermal neutral zone for adult humans is 21 degrees C. It will be higher for infants and young children.
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How inherently racist is that finding? It would imply that children born in hot countries, say, Africa or the Middle East, have poorer mental development, and hence IQ, than children born in cool countries, say Europe. How did this work pass the “where on the intersectionality grievance ladder does this study lie, and how strongly does it vilify those not deemed to be on it” test?
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Board The Ark Atheism, with no promise of Afterlife, how dreary.
[Needs an interpretive dance video to help explain what this comment is about.]AD
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