Rape: The Real Menace Of Climate Change?

You can’t make this stuff up.
Mother Jones has credulously published, “Study:
Global Warming Will Cause 180,000 More Rapes by 2099.” The MJ
article is citing a new study from the
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management that
purports to calculate that future man-made global warming will fuel
higher crime rates in the United States over the rest of the
century. The study projects:

Between 2010 and 2099, climate change will 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 in the United States.

Crime and higher temperatures do correlate, but there are likely
to be some mitigating factors over the next century. Maybe those
seeking sexual satisfaction or indulging in violent sexual
fantasies will turn to the animatronic delights of highly
responsive sex robots. With regard to property crimes, perhaps
every physical possession will be connected to a vastly elaborated
Internet of Everything and stolen items would simply refuse to
cooperate with thieves or they might alert passersby that they have
been feloniously taken. And why steal vehicles when nearly everyone
rents cheap self-driving automobiles on demand? 

Finally, keep in mind that while average temperatures in the
United States have
increased since the 1970s, the crime rate (including rape) has

been falling for nearly two decades.