I hate summer – and so should you

WLet me know when you’re done – summer, of course. I know, I know, you just love it: the long days, the hot nights, the trips to the beach, the afternoons at the stadium when your favorite team is playing and the race for the pennant is getting tighter and tighter – and the temperature is skyrocketing , and your skin is blistered, the beer is $6, and the ride home will be in 88°C weather, which is fine if you don’t mind turning on the air conditioning, except you’re spending US$ $4 per gallon of gas because it’s summer season and the giant oil companies couldn’t get it to be the giant oil companies not knowing the right time of year to increase their prices.

And that’s not all. Summer is the season of horrors, from higher crime rates, to increased wars, to asthma spikes, to raging fires, to swarms of insects, to increased traffic accidents – and even increased divorces, because How could a 100 year old? ° heat wave, broken air conditioning and children out of school no Does domestic happiness mean?

What’s more, it’s only getting worse. Last summer was the hottest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the 10 hottest years they were all from 2010 to 2022. So with a bad part of the year becoming even worse, here, in no particular order, are nine reasons why summer is the baddest season of all.

Traffic-accidents

There’s nothing like long days, no school, and lots of teenage drivers to make the highways a safe place to be. No. It is no coincidence that Automobile Association of America (AAA) labels the stretch between Memorial Day and Labor Day “the 100 deadliest days.” There is more than 11.7 million drivers in the US between the ages of 15 and 20, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of their way – especially when they’re in a group, driving recreationally. “We know that when teens bike instead of drive with a specific destination and time in mind, there is a greater risk,” said Diana Gugliotta, senior public relations manager at AAA Northeast, in a statement last year.

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AAA’s numbers prove this. When a teen driver has only other teens in the vehicle, the risk of fatality for the driver and all passengers increases by 51%. When at least one passenger is over 35 years old, the overall fatality risk decreases by 8%. From 2011 to 2020, there were 7,316 deaths in teen-related traffic crashes in the summer – nearly half of the total of all teen-related traffic crashes for the year.

That means war

Napoleon Bonaparte could tell you a thing or two about what it’s like to pick a fight with Russia in the dead of winter. In 1812, the French army suffered half a million victims in battles that culminated in December – a defeat that led to Napoleon’s abdication and exile in 1914. Any general worth his salt would prefer to fight in the summer, when there is plenty of light, the roads are clear and the soldiers are not bundled up against the cold. As early as 55 BC, the Roman army’s “campaign season” would end when summer ended and soldiers retreated to their winter quarters. It is probably not a coincidence that World War I began in August 1914, World War II on September 1, 1939, and Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia in June 1941. More recentlyIn August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and in August 1991, the former Soviet Union nearly erupted into civil war when communist hardliners attempted to oust President Mikhail Gorbachev. America’s 20 Year War in Afghanistan has typically seen its fiercest fighting in the summer months, and the same applies to the war in Ukraine.

Warfare in hot climates will likely only get worse. A 2009 article in PNAS found that rising temperatures exacerbated by climate change could lead to a 54% increase in the risk of civil war in Africa by 2030. 2011 study in Nature found that warmer weather during El Niño years doubled the risk of civil war in 90 tropical countries and could have been responsible for 20% of conflicts worldwide during the past half century. Meanwhile, what is the time of peace on earth and of good will toward men? Winter, baby. Winter.

Going by buggy

Summer announces itself as the season for birdsong and butterflies. Do not believe. ‘Tis the season for pests – especially ticks, mosquitoes, flies, fleas, bees and wasps. Ticks, mosquitoes and fleas in particular can spread diseases which include malaria, yellow fever, Zika, dengue, Lyme and chikungunya. Bees, wasps and yellowjackets – with their hellish stingers – are similar creatures of summer. And you think you know flies? You don’t know flies. There is 110,000 species of them—most active in hot climates—constituting a global population of 17 million flies for every living human being. Psst! They surrounded us.

see more information: Long Dismissed, Chronic Lyme Disease Is Finally Having Its Time

Hissing season

Ah, summer, it’s breathtaking. Literally. More than 25 million Americans have asthma and 4.7 million of them are children –according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If that means suffering during the temperate months, it’s much worse when the summer oven turns the dial to broil. Heat and humidity constricted and narrow airways, retain ozone and cause the air to drag in more particles from cars, trucks and chimneys. What’s more, stagnant summer air—especially in homes with poor or no air conditioning—can aggravate the presence of mold, dust and pollen. And then – and stop me if I’ve mentioned this before – climate change is making things even more punishing for people with asthma. A US Environmental Protection Agency of 2023 report found that rising temperatures could increase the incidence of childhood asthma by anywhere between 4% and 11%, due in part to worsening pollution and allergies, and the growing problem of wildfire smoke.

Speaking of forest fires…

When it comes to dust, fog and mustard-colored skies, Mars has nothing on Earth – at least during the summer fire season. Last year’s Canadian wildfirestriggered by lightning and fueled by high temperatures and drought, burned more than 71,000 square miles of land in Canada – an area the size of North Dakota – and yellow skies in the USA from the Midwest to the Northeast to the mid-Atlantic states. But the US is also playing with matches. California wildfire season it runs from April to October – peaking in summer – with megadroughts and heat waves fueling the flames. Of the state’s 20 largest fires, half occurred between 2017 and 2022. Climate change, of course, plays an unfortunate role in all of this.

Crime and punishment

Nothing puts bad guys in a bad mood like hot weather – or so it seems. A 2019 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that on days with a maximum temperature above 85°F, all crimes increase by 2.2% and violent crimes by 5.7%. A 2023 study in PLOS One attributed this to what is known as the Routine Activities Theory, which posits that for crime to occur, three factors must be present: a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of guards or surveillance. Of these, it is the second – the appropriate target – that is especially common in the summer, according to the 2023 study, with greater numbers of people on the streets.

As for the first variable, a motivated offender, well, even criminals don’t want to go out and commit a crime in a polar vortex 20° below. During a particularly deep freeze in 2015, Boston saw a 32% drop in robberies, a 35% drop in burglaries and a 46% drop in vehicle thefts. In the same period, New York City Set a Modern Recordremaining 12 days without homicide.

Summer’s contribution to violent crime, in particular, may be due, at least in part, to the common experience of hot weather leading to hot tempers, with even the most level-headed people more inclined to explode if they can’t cool down. A 2020 study found that people who played competitive video games in a hot room were more aggressive toward their gaming partners than when the room was cooler.

DST

Don’t get me started on daylight saving time. There is nothing to like about this spring inanity. To begin with, it is increases energy consumption (when it was supposed to decrease) due to greater use of air conditioning. The changes in sleep patterns it causes contribute to heart attack, stroke, inflammationIt is suicidenot to mention a 6% increase in fatal traffic accidents due to circadian agitation and general drowsiness. Small children It is teenagers They suffer particularly when changing clocks affect sleep cycles.

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Finally, the atmosphere is all wrong. Night is night, folks; the sun is the party guest who won’t go home if he’s still out at 9pm. I say send him packing no later than 8pm and then rush back to a beautiful winter sunset at cocktail hour. Health.

Problems at home

If you want to stay married, you might want to sleep through the summer. This is the discovery of a 2016 study from the University of Washington showing that August, along with March, are the two peak months for divorce in the US. The reason in both cases is more or less the same: couples tend to view the winter and summer holidays as untouchable family time, and even in highly stressful marriages will make a point of keeping the ship together during those precious stretches. . When the good times end, however, so can the marriages.

“People tend to approach the holidays with increased expectations, despite the disappointments they may have experienced in previous years,” said sociology professor and study co-author Julie Brines in an article published in 2016. statement at the time the research was published. “These are moments with a lot of symbolic charge.”

When these expectations are frustrated, a crisis is more likely to occur. And while both early spring and late summer were equally implicated in this study, other research by Stowe Family Law in the UK found that September – the end of summer – is the peak divorce month across the pond, with the time for total family immersion bringing into relief financial, interpersonal and other issues.

It kills your skin

No matter how good it feels to bake in the sun, your skin doesn’t really want a tan. In a rapidly warming world, it should come as no surprise that the sun is killing your skin – drying it out, aging it, cracking it and, most importantly, leading to cancer. A 2022 article in the diary Cureus found the highest rates of skin cancer diagnoses occurring from July to October.

Simple steps such as using sunscreen, avoiding the sun from 10am to 4pm, and wearing protective clothing can help reduce your risk. Sunlight in winter, of course, can do similar damage, but in summer you go out a lot more and use a lot less. That – like the summer as a whole – spells trouble.