For several decades, climate scientists dependent on government grants for a living have been warning us of all the dire consequences of anthropogenic global warming (AGW; recently rechristened climate change, presumably based on focus group research). It appears to me that they’re doing this to justify massive global wealth redistribution and greatly increased government control of the economy, which is what the people controlling the flow of money to those climate scientists want.

Those climate experts, along with people like Al Gore (whose only expertise is in hucksterism), have argued that AGW will melt the ice caps and raise sea levels, drown Manhattan, Florida, and countless islands, cause droughts, cause flooding, increase the number and intensity of hurricanes, destroy the ski industry, create horrific winter storms (“snowmageddon”), threaten coffee production, bring forth plagues of locusts, and countless other harms.

The odd thing is that they (or their predecessors) have been sounding the alarm since the late 70s, and virtually every time with an ominous warning of the dire consequences of inaction within ten years. And yet, each decade has passed without those dire consequences coming to pass. Makes you wonder about the accuracy of those computer models on which all their predictions are based, doesn’t it?

But the scientists who feed at the public trough (and that’s a lot of them) aren’t going to give up trying to please their statist masters. So we’ll keep seeing new studies like the one showing that milder winters (brought about, of course, by AGW … oops, climate change) cause increased crime.

What a revelation! The scumbags who can’t bring themselves to do an honest day’s work are more likely to break into your car or home when it’s mild outside than when it’s friggin’ cold and snowing to beat the band. Criminals spend more time out and about when it’s comfortable outside than when it’s miserable. Just like the rest of us.

During certain seasons, namely winter, milder weather conditions increase the likelihood … that violent and property crimes will take place, according to the new study. Unexpectedly, warmer summer temperatures were not linked with higher crime rates.

The new research abates existing theories that hot temperatures drive aggressive motivation and behavior, according to the study’s authors. Instead, the new research suggests crime is related to the way climate alters people’s daily activities.

“We were expecting to find a more consistent relationship between temperature and crime, but we weren’t really expecting that relationship to be changing over the course of the year,” said Ryan Harp, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. “That ended up being a pretty big revelation for us.”

Understanding how climate affects crime rates could expand the boundaries of what scientists would consider to be a climate and health connection, Harp said.

Health connection? Yep, that’s what he said. Crime is now a public health issue. We’re way past the days when “public health” had to do with communicable diseases, where the government used its power to prevent innocent people from being exposed against their will to those diseases. Now, “public health” is anything that “will have an impact on people’s wellbeing.” So drug use became a public health issue, smoking became a public health issue, obesity became a public health issue. Why not crime?

At least this study throws cold water on the idea that hotter summers increase crime. But what about the possibility that beyond a certain point, hotter temperatures reduce crime? Sure, the average worthless slimeball who breaks into cars, homes, and stores, or who mugs pedestrians or rapes women, is just as likely to be out and about whether it’s 70°. 80°. or 90°. But what about when it’s 100°, or 110°? I’m guessing that there’s a point where the criminal element would rather stay in their air-conditioned domicile doing some TV binge-watching. Just like the rest of us.

I suspect that if the globe is actually in a long-term warming trend for whatever reason (and keep in mind that it hasn’t even come close to what the computer models predicted, and we’re overdue for an ice age), the effect on crime may be a wash, with more in the winter and less in the summer.

It’s getting harder and harder to distinguish real news stories from stories you might see in The Onion. Global warming has already been blamed for droughts, floods, record heat, record cold, more hurricanes, fewer hurricanes, and earthquakes. Now an environmental economist has released a study, with support from Harvard, purporting to prove that global warming will lead to more murders and rapes between now and 2099:

Should global warming (or climate change, or whatever they decide to call it by then) continue, crime will increase — specifically, violent crime. By how much?

“[A]n 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 in the U.S.,” the study said.

The mind boggles.

HT: Steven Hayward (who noted “I love the precision of this forecast, which matches the faux-precision of temperature forecasts 100 years out”)