Reducing emissions is the best way to combat extreme temperatures long-term but, for the short-term, maybe getting to a place to cool off or warm up is your best bet.
Summers in New Orleans are never easy, and many locals refer to the intensity of August as a time for folks to act weirder and wilder than usual. Somehow, when the calendar changed to September, the temperatures here became more manageable. I’ve been able to comfortably run in the mornings and even relax on my steps in the early evening. Not everyone’s had such a reprieve, given the extreme heat overtaking parts of California and elsewhere. When faced with less-than-friendly temperatures, they may be taking out that anger online. That’s what a new study posits in The Lancet, linking extreme temperatures—both frigidly cold and burning hot—with online hate speech.
Researchers used machine learning to analyze more than four billion tweets posted in the U.S. between 2014 and 2020, cross-checking those tweets with a massive list of hate speech linked to the U.N.’s definition. That includes discriminatory language based on race, religion, and gender, among other factors. While hate speech increased in extreme cold and extreme heat, researchers did notice a middle ground that they dubbed the “feel-good window.” The fewest hateful tweets were sent when temperatures were between 59 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit, though the overall window of 54 to 70 degrees provides a good marker of when folks in the U.S. stayed friendly when taking to Twitter.
Comments are closed on this story.