2023-11-24 12:06:09
During 40 days of walking in the Nefoud desert, in Saudi Arabia, the twenty volunteers of the Deep Climate expedition (here on May 17) observed “the adaptation of organisms accustomed to living in a temperate environment to extreme temperatures”. Human Adaptation Institute, Lucas Santucci
FIGARO DEMAIN – Ultimately, violence and social conflicts could be exacerbated by rising temperatures.
In the Nefoud desert, in Saudi Arabia, twenty volunteers trudged for 40 days pulling carts of 140 to 200 kg of food, water, scientific equipment and solar panels, from well to well, i.e. 250 kilometers in total, by 45 at 48 degrees on average. At the initiative of this expedition: Christian Clot, explorer-researcher and founder of the Human Adaptation Institute, which studies “the adaptation of an organism accustomed to living in a temperate environment to extreme temperatures”.
“We are more sensitive and less patient with heat and fatigue, this requires taking responsibility fortestifies Mathilde, who works for the NGO Terre et Humanisme, on her return last June, after being selected from 1,500 candidates for the adventure. We had wind gusts up to 110 km/hour and only two days without wind. Its noise bothered me. Even at night I dozed more than I really slept».
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“In fact, behaviors are more crude, men more macho and more animalistic, while women must protect themselves in their own way.” However, this phenomenon was not observed during the other two parts of the Deep Climate expedition, in the Amazon, where the heat was humid, nor in Lapland, at minus 35°C, during the previous months.
Withdrawal into oneself
“In conditions of extreme heat, the brain must eliminate cognitive functions to cool down. He must degrade his memory and reduce his social appeal. Hence a withdrawal into oneself, to the detriment of empathy and the collective,” explains Christian Clot. But these temperatures represent “the probable future climate in Paris in 2040 or 2050″, believes the latter. But won’t our bodies get used to it? “No, because there will always be heat peaks of over 20 to 30 degrees, which will remain very difficult to live with”.
It was constant suffering, I was incapable of making any decisions. But we lived beyond the numbers considered fatal
Christian Clot, explorer-researcher and founder of the Human Adaptation Institute
And he knows what he’s talking about, having, during one of his many solo expeditions, spent 30 days in 2017 in the desert of Dacht-e Lut (Iran), the hottest in the world, with spikes 58 degrees. “It was constant suffering, I was incapable of making any decisions. But we lived beyond the figures considered fatal”underlines the extreme adventurer, who recalls that Pakistan experienced 51°C for three weeks in 2022.
The preliminary results of this real-world experiment, which have not yet been published, corroborate other scientific studies. Rising temperatures and heatwaves increase hospital admissions for mental health disorders by 9.7%, a study from Imperial College London published in The Lancet during the summer of 2023. And lack of sleep is far from the only explanation.
Risk of violence
Heat impacts hormones such as serotonin and dopamine, which affect mood and anxiety. We also note an increase in the risk of suicide, of the order of 1% to 2% per additional degree. Since psychotropic drugs disrupt the regulation of body temperature, patients taking treatments for mental disorders are the most vulnerable.
Also read: Global warming increases the risk of extreme rain in the mountains
Hatred on social networks also increases by 22% when temperatures are the highest, noted in 2022 a study by the Potsdam Research Institute, covering 4 billion tweets posted in the United States between 2014. and 2020. From there to deducing that warming goes hand in hand with violence, there is only one step, which we should be careful not to take, especially since these studies are extrapolations. The fact remains that this is one of the little-known effects of climate change, which calls for vigilance.
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