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Let’s just put it out there– you may not be getting the action you used to get. There, I said it. Nothing to be ashamed of, because you may have the greatest excuse in the world: global warming.
Stay with me on this. I know climate change and your “sex life” are hot button issues, but this is worth discussing. According to research conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the warmer it gets, the less sex we have.
Specifically, economists studied 80 years of U.S. fertility and temperature data and found that when it’s hotter than 80 degrees F, a large decline in births follows within 10 months. Excuse the cocky Texan commentary, but is 80 degrees really that hot? Just saying.
According to Bloomberg
An extra “hot day” (the economists use quotation marks with the phrase) leads to a 0.4 percent drop in birth rates nine months later, or 1,165 fewer deliveries across the U.S. A rebound in subsequent months makes up just 32 percent of the gap.
The researchers, who hail from Tulane University, the University of California-Santa Barbara, and the University of Central Florida, believe that their findings give policymakers three major things to think about.
1. Birth rates do not bounce back completely after heat waves.
2. More autumn conceptions means more more deliveries in summer.
3. Air conditioning might prove to be an aphrodisiac.
If you happen to side with the camp that believes that the earth’s temperature will continue to rise because we’re not curbing our emissions (like the ones who conducted this study), then you won’t be surprised to read that projections show that “from 2070 to 2099, the U.S. may have 64 more days above 80F than in the baseline period from 1990 to 2002, which had 31.” That could result in a “2.6 percent decline” in the birth rate. Me? I write on the Internet, so I’ll save my hot climate takes for the water cooler.
Takeaways: That wildly sweaty love scene in A Time To Kill with McConaughey and Sandra Bullock was an anomaly. Nobody wants to touch each other when it’s hot and miserable. I get it. But the real victims here are the future mothers that will end up going through the latter portion of their pregnancies in the heat. That just sounds awful, and I stand in solidarity with you.
One positive, though. Having a catch-all excuse like global warming will do wonders for your psyche. If you’re out there swinging and missing, just pull the global warming card. You’ll sound intelligent, and you will in know way have to acknowledge the fact that you’re twenty pounds heavier than you were a year ago. Give ’em hell out there, and stay cool..
[via Bloomberg Business]
Image via Shutterstock
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Dave
Lawyer. Writer. Dude doing business. I'm the meatloaf guy from tv.
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*Turns thermostat down to 69°*
This is in direct conflict with the “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes” strategy.
I don’t know about you, but I’m still in the phase of my life where I’m specifically trying to get action without conception, so let’s crank up that thermostat.
There is a really bad Netflix and chill pun in here somewhere
Haven’t gotten a lot of action from my old lady after our 25th anniversary. I don’t think it has anything to do with ice caps melting or whatever. One of my buddies showed me this thing called “Tinder.” Might give it a try.