The United States could see tens of thousands more violent crimes per year as climate change causes warmer winters, according to a new by researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
A couple of years ago, the researchers FBI crime data as well as climate data and found that warming winters correlated to big jumps in violent crime.
In their latest study, published this week in the journal Environmental Research Letters, they used that data along with climate change models to predict how global warming might affect violent crime over the next 100 years. And it鈥檚 not good.
Kris Karnauskas, a co-author of the study, said the U.S. could see between 20,000 and 50,000 more violent crimes per year.
鈥淭hat range spans scenarios where the world only warms by 1.5 degrees and where it warms by 4 degrees,鈥� Karnauskas said. 鈥淪o it鈥檚 quite a strong dependence on how much the world warms.鈥�
He acknowledged that climate is just one of many factors that affect the crime rate, but that it can influence the way trends are already going.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not predicting that violent crime in the U.S. is gonna go one way or the other. We鈥檙e saying whatever happens, climate is going to bend that trend upward,鈥� Karnauskas said.
Karnauskas said this is just one of the many ways that science shows climate change is impacting health鈥攁nd the economy. He said this crime trend could cost the U.S. about $5 billion annually.
鈥淲e are just beginning to scratch the surface on the myriad ways climate change is impacting people, especially through social systems and health,鈥� Karnauskas was quoted as saying in a about the study. 鈥淲e could see a future where results like this impact planning and resource allocation among health, law enforcement and criminal justice communities.鈥�
This story was produced by the Mountain West 暗黑爆料 Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUER in Salt Lake City, KUNR in Nevada, the O鈥機onnor Center For the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, and KRCC and KUNC in Colorado.
Copyright 2020 91.5 KRCC. To see more, visit . 9(MDAxNDQ2NDAxMDEyNzU2NzM2ODA3ZGI1ZA001))
