It might not be climate change causing the rats
It could be the policies against climate change causing the rats:
Rat numbers are soaring in cities as global temperatures warm, research shows.
Washington DC, San Francisco, Toronto, New York City and Amsterdam had the greatest increase in these rodents, according to the study, which looked at data from 16 cities globally. Eleven of the cities showed “significant increasing trends in rat numbers”, said the paper published in the journal Science Advances, and these trends were likely to continue.
Over the past decade, rats increased by 390% in Washington DC, 300% in San Francisco, 186% in Toronto and 162% in New York according to researchers, who analysed public sightings and infestation reports.
We do tend to think that fractions of a degree - the warming of the past decade - is unlikely to affect any population this much let alone something as adaptable as rats.
On the other hand:
Residents across the city have raised alarm at the growing level of litter and fly-tipping, which they say has worsened since the Labour-run city council declared itself effectively bankrupt in 2022, and even more so since bin workers started strike action this month in a dispute over roles being scrapped to save money.
There are also fears the situation could get drastically worse when the council reduces waste bin collections to once a fortnight, instead of once a week, in a cost-cutting measure being introduced from April.
The effect of this?
‘We’ve got rats as big as your feet’: Birmingham residents despair as rubbish piles up
Oh.
One of the basic reasons we even have local governance is to manage that waste stream that comes from any concentration of humans. It doesn’t have to be direct management - tho’ there’s a fun in insisting that local councillors themselves get elected to be on the bins - but management to make sure that management happens. Climate change, or perhaps that more general and wider environmentalism, seems to be an excuse for all too many not to do that management. We might even predict what will happen here:
Bristol could become the first major city in England to collect black waste bins every four weeks, under new plans, the city council says.
Although how anyone would be able to tell if Bristol got worse is something to ponder.
It is possible to think that the rise in rats is not because of climate change - but because of what varied loons are doing as a response to their worries about climate change. Not collecting the rubbish.
Now it might be a little harsh of us to suggest that such well meaning folk are making matters worse. But we do think there’s a strong possibility that it’s true. We have other examples - like, for example, water drainage.
We’re told that climate change will move north the viable, or infectious, areas for dengue, malaria and so on. At which point the environmental movement - sadly including our own government’s department for that - insists that we stop pumping the Somerset Levels, draining The Wash and make sure that beavers produce foetid ague ridden swamps in every corner of our native fields. We can’t help but think that’s a non-optimal policy.
As is true about that whole climate change thing itself. It’s not the change that’s the dangerous problem it’s what MiliEd and others want to do about it which is so threatening.
We agree that there are all sorts of problems in this world, some to many of them amenable to solution. But bad policies, bad reactions, make the problems worse, not better.
Tim Worstall