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Climate Change Will Get 20,000 Americans Murdered By 2100, Study Says

Rising temperatures cause a rise in crime, and global warming is poised to become a killer.
Clmate change did it. Image: Colton Cotton/Wikimedia

As the temperature rises, so does the crime rate. Studies have found that extreme heat and prolonged droughts lead to more violence. Not only are people spending more time outdoors, but they're also increasingly likely to be desperate for shelter and water. More opportunities, more incentives—more crime. So, as climate change continues to cook the globe, you can expect to see more of it.

A lot more. According to a new study published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Managementthe rising mercury will lead to a considerable uptick in crime. The LA Times tallies the numbers in the report: "Between 2010 and 2099, climate change can be expected to cause an additional 22,000 murders, 180,000 cases of rape, 1.2 million aggravated assaults, 2.3 million simple assaults, 260,000 robberies, 1.3 million burglaries, 2.2 million cases of larceny and 580,000 cases of vehicle theft."

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The social cost of all that crime is likely to amount to around $115 billion, the study finds. The numbers sound big, but the spikes aren't that incredible—it marks a 1-3 percent rise in each category.

“A 1 percent to 3 percent increase in a particular crime may seem modest,” Matthew Ranson, the study's author, told the Times. “But for victims, survivors and law enforcement, the burden of those numbers can be very substantial.” That's true. Hundreds of additional murders per year and the thousands of rapes, assaults, and burglaries will strain already strapped police forces.

Ranson got the numbers by merging FBI crime statistics with 3,000 counties' weather data. His results are consistent with previous studies that compared weather and crime data, too. A UC Berkeley study published in Science that looked at the correlation between temperature and human conflict found that a rise in temperatures of 5.4 ˚F would cause the likelihood of violent crime to increase by between 2 and 4 percent.

That, of course, is on the lower end of how accepted high climate models predict temperatures to rise by the end of the century. Scientists believe temps could wind up anywhere between 4˚ and 11˚F higher than they are today, thanks to human-caused climate change. So really, the rising crime rates projected here are on the lower end of the estimates. It could be even worse.

That extra heat is going to pose a spate of civilization-threatening problems: Melting ice caps, rising sea levels, epic droughts, and deadly heat waves. But if these projections from this crime and weather data are any indication, climate change going to get thousands of people murdered, too.