Is climate change increasing the rat population?
A widely reported study relies on weak data, inaccurate statistics, and misleading references to support its claims.
reason.com/video
---
As the earth gets warmer, there's one species that supposedly will really benefit."Climate Change is amazing," reported National Geographic. "If you're a rat."
The horrific prospect of these pizza-dragging, toilet-bathing, plague-spreading, baby-eating, cannibalistic beasts swarming the sweltering streets of our major cities helps to explain why a recent study allegedly demonstrating a global warming-induced increase in the urban rat population received such widespread media coverage. As is often the case, journalists were not sufficiently skeptical, nor did they take the time to read the study closely.
Published in Science Advances with 19 co-authors, this paper contains nothing meaningful about either climate change or rats. It relies on weak data and inaccurate statistics, and uses misleading references to support its claims. There is no evidence to suggest that global warming is contributing to an increase in urban rat populations.
So, how did the study authors measure the growth in rat populations? By counting rat complaints reported by residents.
It uses these complaints to compare rat populations in different cities, which is the study's first major problem. The data don't allow for an apples-to-apples comparison. In San Francisco, for example, the authors examined the trend in all pest complaints, including those involving rodents and insects, from 2010 to 2022. In Boston, only actual dead rats or rat bites were included. In Dallas, the trend was estimated from 2013 to 2019. Some cities changed categorizations and added or eliminated categories over time.
The city of Cincinnati keeps a record of the entire complaint, and many of the incidents included in the study had nothing to do with rats. There were calls about roaches, bedbugs, cats, dogs, raccoons, and mice. One complaint was about a pregnant tenant. Yet these were all counted as rat complaints.
If your data mixes apples and oranges, you'll get meaningless results.
Linking rats and global warming yields sensational headlines for advocacy journalists who want to sound the alarm about climate change. But this study used shoddy data, was presented in a deeply misleading way, and the media should have paid it no attention whatsoever.
Producer: Aaron Brown
Video Editor: Cody Huff
Graphics: Adani Samat
Audio Production: Ian Keyser
reason.com/video
---
As the earth gets warmer, there's one species that supposedly will really benefit."Climate Change is amazing," reported National Geographic. "If you're a rat."
The horrific prospect of these pizza-dragging, toilet-bathing, plague-spreading, baby-eating, cannibalistic beasts swarming the sweltering streets of our major cities helps to explain why a recent study allegedly demonstrating a global warming-induced increase in the urban rat population received such widespread media coverage. As is often the case, journalists were not sufficiently skeptical, nor did they take the time to read the study closely.
Published in Science Advances with 19 co-authors, this paper contains nothing meaningful about either climate change or rats. It relies on weak data and inaccurate statistics, and uses misleading references to support its claims. There is no evidence to suggest that global warming is contributing to an increase in urban rat populations.
So, how did the study authors measure the growth in rat populations? By counting rat complaints reported by residents.
It uses these complaints to compare rat populations in different cities, which is the study's first major problem. The data don't allow for an apples-to-apples comparison. In San Francisco, for example, the authors examined the trend in all pest complaints, including those involving rodents and insects, from 2010 to 2022. In Boston, only actual dead rats or rat bites were included. In Dallas, the trend was estimated from 2013 to 2019. Some cities changed categorizations and added or eliminated categories over time.
The city of Cincinnati keeps a record of the entire complaint, and many of the incidents included in the study had nothing to do with rats. There were calls about roaches, bedbugs, cats, dogs, raccoons, and mice. One complaint was about a pregnant tenant. Yet these were all counted as rat complaints.
If your data mixes apples and oranges, you'll get meaningless results.
Linking rats and global warming yields sensational headlines for advocacy journalists who want to sound the alarm about climate change. But this study used shoddy data, was presented in a deeply misleading way, and the media should have paid it no attention whatsoever.
Producer: Aaron Brown
Video Editor: Cody Huff
Graphics: Adani Samat
Audio Production: Ian Keyser
ReasonTV
Meet the biohackers, brewers, bitcoiners, makers, growers, freaks, and visionaries exploring new ways of living in an increasingly individualistic world. Watch investigative stories about the bureaucrats and busybodies fighting for control over our lives....