With an increase in the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the intellectual abilities of humanity decrease.
More oxygen
Carbon dioxide contributes to global warming. And it is not at all excluded that it is because of him that the average temperature on Earth is now rising. And the climate deteriorates in some places, regardless of where this greenhouse gas comes from - as a result of economic activity or natural activity.
American climatologists from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Pennsylvania found that carbon dioxide also affects people directly: on each person individually and on humanity as a whole. With an increase in the level of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, intelligence decreases - primarily for children and adolescents: schoolchildren and students begin to study worse, barely master the material. And this threatens that each subsequent generation will be dumber than the previous one.
Tainted air does not bode well for an abundance of geniuses in the future.
Scientists unveiled their findings, briefly presented by Phys.org, at a recent American Geophysical Union meeting. And they emphasized in the report sounded there that the concentration of carbon dioxide is important, and not where people inhale it - in a stuffy room or in the fresh air.
The authors of the report assure that the concentration of carbon dioxide is already high enough to continue to influence the cognitive abilities of people. Simulations have shown that even if emissions are reduced, then by 2100 the intellectual level of humanity will decrease by 25 percent. And if you do nothing - that is, leave carbon dioxide emissions at the current level, then the drop in intelligence will be as much as 50 percent.
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The outlook is bleak. In any case, the Earth will become the planet of fools. The most stupid, it must be understood, will live in large and very stuffy cities. And in the most industrialized countries.
Carbon dioxide is the source of global dope.
Dumb, dumber
The dullness also affected Europe. At least there he was already noticed. Brent Bratsberg and Ole Rogeberg - Norwegian scientists at the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research - somehow got the results of 730 thousand IQ tests conducted over several decades, which show: the intelligence of the subjects decreases from year to year. They are gaining less and less points.
The researchers reported their discovery in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in an article entitled Flynn effect and its reversal are both environmentally caused, recalling the effect that psychologist James Flynn from New Zealand discovered at one time. And he found that in the first half of the twentieth century, IQ indicators grew steadily. They grew up all over the world. The Flynn effect is the name given to this phenomenon. By the name of the discoverer.
Flynn believed that people grew smarter from the fact that they began to live better - eat normally, get sick less, enjoy nature. At the same time, they studied more willingly and more diligently.
Now the trend has been reversed. People began to become stupid at the same rate that they became smarter before. According to the Norwegians, who "looked around" the period from 1970 to 2009, each subsequent generation lost an average of 7 points.
By the way, a few years ago, Richard Lynn, a psychologist at the University of Ulster, who analyzed the results of intellectual tests of Americans, Europeans and Australians, and calculated average indicators - a kind of world IQ levels by years. But according to him, by 2014, the results were down by only 3 points compared to 1950.
The scientist figured: if the rate of dullness continues, then by 2110 the average IQ of humanity will not exceed 84 points. This is the level of the mentally mediocre.
Richard Lynn's forecast for declining intelligence is more favorable than that of researchers from Pennsylvania and Colorado.
The predictions of the authors of the report about the harmful effect of carbon dioxide - a decrease in intelligence to about 50 points. This is the level of the mentally retarded.
Lynn never looked for reasons for intellectual failure. And Bratsberg and Rogeberg, without too much sophistication, suggested that the "inverse Flynn effect" and the reasons are opposite. That is, the environment is degrading, food, health care and education are deteriorating. That, in the end, does not stimulate the desire to gain mind-reason. And as a result, it leads to a decrease in the intellectual level.
But maybe it's all the same in carbon dioxide? The specific culprit, proposed by climate scientists from Colorado and Pennsylvania, fits well with the general "theory" proposed by their colleagues.
REFERENCE
Shall we measure the points?
Intelligence tests were invented by the British psychologist Hans Jurgen Eysenck. In tests, you need to solve logic puzzles, skillfully manipulate letters. Use numbers and solve abstract charades in a set time. For correct answers, points are awarded, which together give the intelligence quotient - IQ.
People with a mediocre intelligence score below 80 points, with an average - from 90 to 115. An IQ of 120 is considered high.
For a long time, women consistently lagged behind men in terms of intelligence by about 5 points. But recently there was a "fracture" - the weaker sex, on average, began to outstrip the strong by about 1 point.
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY