JoNova:
A new study uses a ‘high resolution air temperature estimation model’ to
figure out(guess) the daily air temperature pregnant women in Massachusetts might have been exposed to during their pregnancy. A whopping increase of 8.5C in the last three months was associated with a 17 gram drop in birth weight. Given that global temperatures have risen by about 1 C in the last 100 years, at the current rate, that amount of warming will arrive in 850 years. Then if this correlation has any causal role, the average 3kg baby will weigh about 0.5% less. Scared yet?Since the researchers are talking about outdoor temperatures, I’m guessing this study will especially concern pregnant women who will be homeless, or without electricity in the year 2850. Obviously the solution is cheap coal powered air conditioner.
. Why risk it?*
The Daily Mail h/t Colin
Is climate change affecting birth weights? Exposure to warmer weather during pregnancy leads to smaller babies, study claims
- Researchers uncovered a link between air temperature and birth weight
- Found exposure to high air temperature during pregnancy increases the risk of lower birth weight and can cause premature birth
- An increase of 8.5 °C (47.3°F) in the last trimester was associated with a 0.6 ounce (17g) decrease in birth weight of babies born full term, study claims
By Sarah Griffiths for MailOnline
I think it says something about the science sub editing here that conversions were done through some kind of google app: an 8.5 °C increase is not “plus 47.3°F”.
As Dailymail commenter Gregg, from Wichita, said: “The science is sketchy.. The taxes are real.”
No doubt, the global warming scam has produced some big babies, refuting the claims in the article.
This is an example of the insanity that passes for science these days, especially when dealing with the AGW cult.
Where to begin?
The ONLY way to properly connect ambient temperature increases to decreased birthweight would be to have a statistically significant number of women in two different arms (minimum), one at an arbitrarily determined “low” temp become pregnant at that temp, then maintained at that same ambient temp for their entire pregnancy, while havi g an equal number of women go through the same process at the arbitrarily decided “high” temp. Both arms would preclude women with known chromosomal or familial traits that are known to impact fetal growth. Both arms would have to be supervised by nutritionists and physical therapists to ensure equivalent diets and exercise during pregnancy, and both groups would need to be randomized regarding the physical size and age of the woman AND the sperm donor to provide equivalent initial group breakdowns. Only then could you reliably and scientifically determi e whether or not ambient temperature had any effect that was not completely random on infant birthweight.
This study is a classic example of why objective skepticism is supposed to be the hallmark of evaluating scientific reliability of any published study. Causation is not the same as correlation, and the reason why good, valid scientific studies control for potentially impacting factors. This ridiculous study is exactly as vacuous as the proclamations that SSRI use in pregnancy causes increased incidence of respiratory distress syndrome in newborns – an egregiously wrong statement based totally on retrospective reviews and thoroughly disproven by the first prospective study to actually evaluate the question. (Of which I was an investigator, published in July 2011.)
But that fact didn’t stop the ambulance chasers from trying to sue the drug makers. God forbid real science be used…..
LOL…the “researchers” used a climate estimation model, not actual temperatures during pregnancy, to estimate the temperatures to which these pregnant women were allegedly exposed. Are you kidding me? There is also no clarification in the news piece that defines the parameters of the study’s entry criteria, nor any link to the published article so it can be read in the original to determine study validity – retrospective versus prospective, controls for i herent genetic differences in physical characteristics of parents, potentially impacting genetic traits of the parents, nutritional intake of the mothers, and on and on. This appears to be an egregious piece of AGW propaganda.
My research mentors would have shredded this article to pieces….
What about the influx of illegal immigrant babies, whose prenatal care has been lacking but whose mother’s flock here (unimpeded) to drop their babies?
Yet another avenue through which the left can use the illegal immigrants they encourage to arrive here in droves in statistics as “residents” (never “citizens” or “Americans”) to demonstrate whatever the crisis de jour that requires a tax increase is.
And now the Pope has come out with this ridiculous, ultra-left, anti-science, pro-AGW enviro-encyclical, and all the anti-Catholic bigots who have railed against the Catholic Church for decades are flipping like the commies did after Hitler double-crossed Stalin.
This enviro-cyclical is scientifically worthless, and thankfully this leftist, liberation-theologist Pope at least had the ethics not to put this garbage out as an ex cathedra statement.
Thank God there are still Tridentine priests alive who hold to the true tenets of the Faith, to guide us past the vacuous idiocy of the “liberation theologists”. It saddens me that this Pope is of the deluded ilk.