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WILL THE EXTREME HEAT FROM CLIMATE CHANGE DISRUPT HUMAN BEHAVIOR?
Physiologically, Turkey people’s bodies are not built to handle heat beyond about 35 degrees Celsius . Growing evidence shows that hot weather damages performances in various tasks, as well as general coping mechanisms. Researchers link excessive heat to increased aggression, low cognitive ability and loss of productivity.
Combined with rising global temperatures and record-breaking heatwaves burning parts of the world, the effects of extreme heat on human behavior could pose a growing problem ahead, Science News reported. As climate change warms the world, low-income people and countries with limited resources to cool off will see the most harm, researchers say. Economist R of UCLA “The physiological effects of heat may be universal, but the way it manifests is quite unequal,” was said.
Is there a link between decency and aggression?
Scientists have been documenting people’s difficulties in coping with extreme heat for more than a century. A few decades ago, for example, social psychologist and his colleagues showed undergraduates four video clips of couples in dialogue. One clip was neutral in tone, while the remaining three decked out the growing tension between the duo. Each of the undergraduates who watched the clips sat in a room whose thermostat was set to one of five different temperatures ranging from decidedly cold 14C to 36C. The researchers then asked the students to rate the couples ‘ levels of hostility. Andfound that students in uncomfortably warm rooms rated all pairs, even neutral ones, more hostile than students in comfortable rooms . (Interestingly, students who stayed in uncomfortably cold rooms also rated the couples as more hostile.)
Says heat tends to make people more frustrated, and as a result, he adds, “People tend to perceive things as worse as the air temperature increases.”
So will the rising temperature increase the crime rate?
Researchers have long known that people can become more aggressive when they overheat. A new study looking at crime data in Los Angeles from 2010 to 2017 shows that violent crime also increases as temperatures rise.
For example, a study report by the National Bureau of Economic Research released in July came close to recreating the level of Control found in a lab by focusing on inmates in Mississippi prisons and air-conditioned prisons. January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2010, economists, examined violence rates in 36 prisons. Overall, there were an average of 65 acts of violence per year at each facility. But the couple found that on days above 27, which is just over 60 days a year, the likelihood of violence among prisoners increased by 18 per cent.
Although it didn’t look that hot, the average maximum temperature for most of those days was roughly 34°C; says these temperature readings don’t take into account Mississippi’s high humidity either. In addition, many of the country’s aging correctional facilities lack both air conditioning and proper ventilation, and temperatures inside the facilities often exceed those outside.
Says politicians often characterize providing air conditioning to prisoners as a matter of comfort. “When we talk about temperatures of 48 degrees and above in a prison many days a year, it becomes a moral issue.”
Based on the Mississippi data, estimate that the heat generates an 4,000 acts of violence each year in U.S. prisons.
The research also shows that violence increases with the heat outside prisons. May September through 2010 to 2017, for example, violent crime was about 5.5 percent higher in Los Angeles on days when the temperature was about 24°C to 32°C compared to other days. Even on warmer days, violent crime was almost 10 percent higher, the researchers found.
Are there other areas where heat can affect?
The relationship between heat and human decency extends far beyond violence. Think of students taking the exam in hot school buildings. Park, a UCLA economist, looked at the scores of about 1 million students and about 4.5 million exams from 1999 to 2011. The analysis, published in March 2020 in the Journal of Human Resources, reports that students who take the exam on a day of about 32C are 10 per cent less likely.
Park and her colleagues also examined how warm weather can affect students ‘ performance across the country. This time, they focused on the PSAT, a standardized test that was administered to high school students in October that measures college readiness and provides a path to scholarships. The team evaluated 21 million scores taken from about 10 million students who took the exam at least twice from 1998 to 2012. In this way, the researchers were able to compare how the students performed according to themselves. The team also linked the exam scores to daily temperature data taken from about 3,000 weather stations across the country, as well as information about each student’s access to air conditioning.
Student scores typically rise decidedly between the time they first take the exam and the time they take the second. But even when researchers accounted for the increase, students at schools without air conditioning scored lower than expected, the researchers reported in the May 2020 American Economic Journal: Economic Policy . Moreover, black and Hispanic students were more likely than their white counterparts to attend school and test in warmer buildings, and the researchers estimate that the resulting temperature differences explain 3 to 7 percent of the PSAT’s racial achievement gap .
This kind of performance decline doesn’t just happen in academic settings; it extends to the workforce. When temperatures rise above 35°C, average daily weaving production at a factory in India drops by about 2 percent and garment planting by as much as 8 percent compared to days below 30°C, researchers report in the Journal of Political Economy. The researchers ‘ calculations show that if average daily temperatures increased by 1 degree relative to current conditions, average annual output would decrease by 2.1 percent. This would reduce annual gross domestic product, or the value of goods and services produced in a year, by 3 percent.
How should building cooling designs be shaped at high temperatures?
The burden of high heat is often borne by the poorest residents of a country. For example, poor people often live in the hottest parts of a city as a legacy of discriminatory housing policies in the United States, according to a July report by Climate Central, an independent climate science research and communications organization. In these pockets of intense heat, dubbed” urban heat islands, ” afternoon temperatures can rise 8 – 11c relative to the outer regions . Of course, these effects tend to be more negative in poor neighborhoods because of overcrowding, limited green space, little shade, and a large number of greenerized roads and surfaces that absorb heat rather than reflect it.
Similarly, in this study, which linked intense heat to increases in violent crime in Los Angeles, researchers found strong geographic differences. “Beverly Hills didn’t commit a lot of violent crime in any of those days. But in the poorest communities in Los Angeles, you see a greater correlation between heat and violence,” said, an environmental economist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Compared with wealthier city dwellers, poor people in Los Angeles have less space and far fewer air-conditioning units, adds.
Says, the simplest option, given these inequalities, is to provide air conditioning to everyone. But cooling buildings is far from free. Refrigeration equipment , primarily air conditioners, accounted for about 17 percent of the world’s total electricity demand in 2018, according to a 2020 United Nations report . Estimates suggest that air conditioning use in emerging economies alone will lead to 33 times more energy consumption by 2100. And right now, most of that energy comes from non-renewable sources, especially oil, coal and gas, so it meets that demand. This leads to the growth of the climatic impasse that we fall into, as it will have an effect that will contribute to global warming rather than be a solution.
Is there an alternative to air conditioning? Research shows that better cooling options are available, including maintaining or increasing tree cover in cities and using “cool” building materials that reflect sunlight. In other words, we need to know that there are urban planning mechanisms in place where we can reduce ambient temperatures.
As a result, rising temperatures have a direct impact on human psychology, biodiversity, and ultimately on the health of Planet Earth. The researchers say the long-term solution is to accelerate efforts to greenerize energy grids, and all meaningful efforts should be made in an individual sense. Unfortunately, we are in the days when we need to be aware that we are entering a period in which we have moved from talking about what might happen in the climate crisis to examining what happened.
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Turkey's world-renowned organ transplant specialist. Dr. Demirbaş has 104 international publications and 102 national publications.
Physician's Resume:
Born on August 7, 1963 in Çorum, Prof. Dr. Alper Demirbaş has been continuing his work as the President of MedicalPark Antalya Hospital Organ Transplantation Center since 2008.
Prof. who performed the first tissue incompatible kidney transplant in Turkey, the first blood type incompatible kidney transplant, the first kidney-pancreas transplant program and the first cadaveric donor and live donor liver transplant in Antalya. Dr. As of August 2016, Alper Demirbaş has performed 4900 kidney transplants, 500 liver transplants and 95 pancreas transplants.
In addition to being the chairman of 6 national congresses, he has also been an invited speaker at 12 international and 65 national scientific congresses. Dr. Alper Demirbaş was married and the father of 1 girl and 1 boy.
Awards:
Eczacibasi Medical Award of 2002, Akdeniz University Service Award of 2005, Izder Medical Man of the Year Award of 2006, BÖHAK Medical Man of the Year Award of 2007, Sabah Mediterranean Newspaper Scientist of the Year Award of 2007, ANTIKAD Scientist of the Year Award of 2009, Social Ethics Association Award of 2010, Işık University Medical Man of the Year Award of 2015, VTV Antalya's Brand Value Award of 2015.
Certificates:
Doctor of Medicine Degree Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine Ankara, General Surgeon Ministry of Health Turkey EKFMG (0-477-343-8), University of Miami School of Medicine Member of Multiple Organ Transplant, ASTS Multiorgan Transplant Scholarship. Lecturer at Kyoto University. Lecturer at University of Essen, Research assistant at the University of Cambridge .
Professional Members:
American Society of Transplant Surgeons, American Transplantation Society Nominated, Middle East and Southern Africa Council Transplantation Society 2007, International Liver Transplantation Association, Turkish Transplantation Association, Turkish Society of Surgery, Turkish Hepatobiliary Surgery Association.
Disclaimer:
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