How Climate Change Is Ruining Your Sex Life
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Global warming is wilting the fruit of your loins.
A new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research details a study of U.S. fertility and temperature over the the past 80 years. The study suggests a correlation between temperatures hotter than 80 degrees and a “large decline” in birth numbers during the 9 to 10 months that follow. The researchers used this data to look to the future, where they projected a 2.6 reduction in overall birth rates due to high temperatures.
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In a sentence, the hotter temperatures linked to climate change are killing your libido.
"Temperature extremes could affect coital frequency," researchers said. "It could affect hormone levels and sex drives. Alternatively, high temperatures may adversely affect reproductive health or semen quality on the male side, or ovulation on the female side."
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For an overpopulated planet, this is good. For the global economy, this is pretty terrible.
According to CBS News, economists attribute “up to a third” of economic growth to more people annually joining the workforce than leaving it. So if there aren’t enough babies being born to match deaths in the world, we can expect to see a reflection of that in the economy.
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Furthermore, if more babies are conceived when things cool off, that means there will be more births in the summertime. Bloomberg notes that infants are more likely to experience poor health with summer births, "though the reasons for worse health in the summer are not well-established," the authors of the study wrote.
If you’re worried about the heat of the moment getting a little too warm, the researchers point to A/C as a possible aphrodisiac.
"Based on our analysis of historical changes in the temperature-fertility relationship, we conclude air conditioning could be used to substantially offset the fertility costs of climate change," they wrote.
