Climate Change: Bad News for Baby Boys?

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rjnphoto/4491854557/sizes/z/in/photostream/">Ryan Neuls</a>/Flickr

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Ask the vicitms of horrific flooding in Pakistan or raging wildfires in the Southwest what the consequences of climate change are, and they’re likely to mention something personal, like a lost family member or damaged property. But a University of California-Berkeley study out this month shows that the impacts of climate change could be biological, too.

Using 150-year-old Swedish family records and temperature data, public health professor Ralph Catalano and his colleagues suggest that rapid and wide temperature fluctuations (one of the expected effects of climate change) could lead to shorter lifespans for some men.

Generally, mothers are less likely to automatically miscarry male fetuses very early in gestation when it’s warm, and more likely to do so when it’s cold, because baby boys are more “frail” in early life than baby girls. But according to the study, warm temperatures could trick more newly-pregnant mothers—or rather, their bodies—into keeping male fetuses they might otherwise have rejected for genetic weakness. Although that would mean an increase in the total number of births, it would also lead to an increase in the number who die young if those baby boys then experience cold temperatures early on, thus driving down average life expectancy.

In essence, Catalano said, those are boys who never should have been born in the first place. But climate change makes it harder for mothers to, biologically speaking, determine whether a fetus will be resilient as a child.

Depressing, huh? Well, there’s good news, too, Catalano said. Over time, evolution will allow us to adapt to these fluctuations, as the males who do survive pass their stronger genes along. In the long-term evolutionary sense, we’ll become better able to deal with the wacky climate we’re responsible for creating.

“You’re shifting, in a small way, the characteristics of the population,” Catalano said.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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