Question: What toppled the Roman Empire, caused some grizzly bears to attack Yellowstone hikers and jacked up the price of your frappuccino? Unless you answered global warming, Do Not Pass Go – Do Not Collect $200.
In case you’re new to this, the general rule of thumb is that global warming is ultimately to blame for everything. Like that Kevin Bacon game, it’s all connected in some degree or another. The latest report, from the totally unbiased Climate Institute, suggests that climate change may be linked to anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse. From the Sydney Morning Herald:
Rates of mental illnesses including depression and post-traumatic stress will increase as a result of climate change, a report to be released today says.
The paper, prepared for the Climate Institute, says loss of social cohesion in the wake of severe weather events related to climate change could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.
As many as one in five people reported ”emotional injury, stress and despair” in the wake of these events.
The headlines and claims are getting more and more absurd and the alarmists are getting desperate. Awfully desperate. Don’t believe me? Click here for the latest Al Gore rant comparing global warming skeptics to Civil Rights-era racists.
Who knows which direction the cult leader takes next, but the movement’s future is dim. A new Rasmussen poll found that 69% of American adults say it’s likely that scientists have falsified global warming research. Game over.
But just for amusement, I’ve decided to start an ongoing list of the things that have been “linked” to global warming: Mass extinctions, extreme winter weather, ozone depletion, famine in Ethiopia, forest fires, heavy storms, floods, droughts, lost whales, expensive lattes, Spring Creep, chikungunya fever, increased allergies, food insecurity, civil unrest, food poisoning, earthquakes, drop in bee pollination, tornadoes, asthma, nuclear power plant meltdowns, decreased global plant growth, early butterfly emergence, penguin decline, Somalia famine, frog extinctions, grizzly attacks, kidney stone disease, mental illness, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and, my favorite, fall of the Roman Empire. Any others?
Neil Rosekrans is a founder and partner of StateBrief.com. He has been a guest political commentator for the Arizona Law Channel, NBC's Sunday Square Off and The Terry Gilberg Show on KFYI. Neil earned his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and earned his MBA and Masters in Public Policy, with an emphasis in International Relations, from Pepperdine University.
Neil and his wife, Beth, live in Scottsdale, Arizona. 
Over the past few years we have seen that no matter what it is and where it happens, scientists, explorers, politicians and hundreds of other people are comfortable blaming the weather. I guess there must be something deep in the human psyche that requires a cause to be identified for every effect. It is insane to believe that global warming causes mental illnesses or cancer. Statements like this need to stop somewhere.
Well said Peter!
Another variation of the ‘six degrees of separation’ happens to involve a lesser known facet of the global warming issue, the accusation that skeptic climate scientists are corrupted by fossil fuel industry funding. Look into any of the oft-repeated accusations, and you’ll see how they all ultimately trace their info source back to a small circle of enviro-activists back in 1996…. with another angle of it going back five years earlier.
A month-old magazine article repeat of it and Al Gore’s repetition back in 1992 are one-and-the-same. For more details, please see my article “The Great Global Warming Ponzi Scheme – how the mainstream media keeps it alive” http://www.redstate.com/russellc/2011/08/17/the-great-global-warming-ponzi-scheme-how-the-mainstream-media-keeps-it-alive/
The Ponzi analogy is appropriate.