Matthew Ranson, an environmental economist at Cambridge-based Abt Associates, a public policy research and consulting firm, predicts that over the remainder of this century, rising temperatures in the United States will lead to an additional 22,000 murders, 180,000 cases of rape, and 1.3 million burglaries, among other crimes, the Boston Globe reports.
These numbers may sound dramatic, but they’re based on existing crime data and broadly accepted projections for temperature change. Ranson also projects future costs, and estimates that a 5-degree rise in global temperatures over the next century—a middle-of-the-road climate change scenario from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC—will end up costing society $38 billion to $115 billion across the country. He concludes that climate change could have a noticeable impact on how we deploy police and other resources to combat crime.
Expert: Climate Change to Cause Crime Increase
Matthew Ranson, an environmental economist at Cambridge-based Abt Associates, a public policy research and consulting firm, predicts that over the remainder of this century, rising temperatures in the United States will lead to an additional 22,000 murders.
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