Climate change linked to 60k suicides in India 

Shedding light on how warming temperatures and crop failure is pushing Indian farmers into poverty and distress, a new research claims that climate change has already caused more than 59,000 suicides in India over the last 30 years.

According to a Study:

• The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
• It could help explain India’s evolving suicide epidemic, where suicide rates have nearly doubled since 1980 and claim more than 130,000 lives each year for a variety of causes.
• The results indicate that seven per cent of this upward trend can be attributed to warming that has been linked to human activity.

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University of California:

• Tamma Carleton, a doctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley, US.
• Said, without interventions that help families adapt to a warmer climate, it’s likely we will see a rising number of lives lost to suicide as climate change worsens in India.
• The tragedy is unfolding today.
• This is not a problem for future generations.
• This is our problem, right now, she said in a statement released by the university.
• Heat drives crop loss which can cause ripple effects throughout the Indian economy.
• As poor harvests drive up food prices, shrink agricultural jobs and draw on household savings, Carleton said.
• During these times, it appears that a staggering number of people, often male heads of household, turn to suicide.
• Carleton tested the links between climate change, crop yields and suicide.
• By pairing the numbers for India’s reported suicides in each of its 32 states between 1967 and 2013.
• Using a dataset prepared by the Indian National Crime Records Bureau, along with statistics on India’s crop yields, and high-resolution climate data.
• To isolate the types of climate shocks that damage crops.
• Carleton focused on temperature and rainfall during June through September.
• A critical period for crop productivity that is based on the average arrival and departure dates of India’s summer monsoon.
• Carleton cautioned that her estimates of temperature-linked suicides are probably too low.
• Because deaths in general are underreported in India.
• In addition, because until 2014, national law held that attempted suicide was a criminal offence, further discouraging reporting.

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