Today I was lying on the beach and trying to bring some color to my academic's cadaverous complexion. It was a little muggy, and there were sand fleas hopping about, which made me think: What would it be like to live in a climate where heat and bugs weren't just summertime annoyances, but a way of life?
I've been reading The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, by historian David S. Landes, and he says some interesting things about how a tropical climate has made it much harder for countries to prosper. (This is a topic that economists such as Jeffrey Sachs have studied as well.) Climate is just one of the factors that shapes a country's development, but it is an important one. In cold weather, you can put on additional clothing or build shelter or start a fire. But hot temperatures make it much harder to work, and there's little to be done about it. This is part of the reason that some societies in tropical climates turned to slavery to solve their labor shortages, Landes says (if you don't want to work, force someone else to do it for you — and while you're at it, get a few servants to fan you with fronds). The American South achieved prosperity only after air conditioning became widespread in the period following World War II. In much of the tropics today, air conditioning is simply unaffordable for most people, who don't have sufficient electricity or consistent access to it.
Then there's the matter of bugs. Winters, for all the inconveniences they cause in temperate climates of unshoveled driveways, turtleneck sweaters, and bad poetry, also perform a crucial service by killing the resident population of critters and halting their spread. In earlier centuries, the fiercely multiplying masses of insects in winterless tropical countries made agriculture almost impossible, killing off workers or making them too sick to toil in the fields. Advances in tropical medicine have saved lives, but the toll of insect-borne diseases still handicaps many societies and their economies. Malaria kills thousands every day.
So there's another side to climate change besides rising sea levels and lands transformed into deserts. There's also the fact that rising temperatures will grow the various populations of insects, parasites, and pests that already cause so much death and illness in tropical countries. These critters will also become more common in temperate climates, too. If you hate bugs as much as I do, you might have another reason to jump on the environmental bandwagon.
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