Canadian Study Links Climate Change to Blindness

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about regarding climate change, such as rising sea levels, increases in extreme weather events, and out-of-control wildfires, now Canadian researchers have linked the alleged human-induced warming of the Earth due to mankind’s use of fossil fuels to increased incidences of blindness.

The study was published in Ophthalmic Epidemiology, a journal specializing in optometry, visual acuity, visual impairment issues.

In studying the prevalence of vision issues among older adults, University of Toronto researchers have found that climate change — which used to be called global warming — may lead to increased blindness, especially in older individuals.

The study, published by Esme Fuller-Thomson, Zhidi Deng, and Elysia D. Fuller-Thomson of the University of Toronto, used secondary analysis of an American Community Survey (ACS) done between 2012 and 2017. It found that people in warmer states such as Florida were under increased risks for severe visual impairment.

According to the study, people in warmer climates are 44 percent more likely to have severe eye problems.

“Higher average temperature is consistently associated with increased odds of severe vision impairment across all cohorts (i.e. age, sex, race, income, and educational attainment cohorts) with the exception of Hispanic older adults,” the study stated.

The study’s author suggested we keep a close eye on such severe visual impairment as the Earth heats up due to climate change.

“With climate change, we are expecting a rise in global temperatures. It will be important to monitor if the prevalence of vision impairment among older adults increases in the future,” said Esme Fuller-Thomson, a gerontologist.

Since the study was observational in nature and used second-hand data, the researchers were reluctant to assert a causal effect between climate change and potential blindness.

But they certainly implied that such a link was probable.

“This link between vision impairment and average county temperature is very worrying, if future research determines that the association is causal,” Fuller-Thomson added.

“With global warming, the potential link between average area temperature and vision impairment becomes a cause of concern and may drive a higher-than-expected increase in vision impairment over the coming years,” the study noted.

William Briggs, a statistician who works with the Heartland Institute, pointed out the ridiculousness of the study.

“The average daily temperature in Singapore is 88 degrees,” Briggs noted in an essay, which answered the claim.

“Therefore, The Science says, everybody in Singapore is blind. Indeed, anybody who lives within, oh, plus or minus 200 miles of the equator must be blind. The heat will have, in effect, gouged out their eyes,” Briggs observed.

According to Briggs, the climate hysterics are “winning” the debate, partly due to the sheer audacity of their claims.

“I may go blind if I am forced to read any more of these ‘climate change’ papers,” Briggs joked. “For that is how the lunatics are winning. They are many, and we are few. They can push out a dozen of these papers a day, almost all funded by the Regime, whereas we can only look at maybe one a week.”

Briggs is correct in that climate hysterics only have to provide a claim in order to make news. Once that claim is made, mainstream media files it away as a “fact” about climate change, whether it’s factual or not.

With almost every climate-change propagandist declaring that the “science” is not debatable and is, therefore, “settled,” it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the other side in the climate-change debate to be heard. But despite what Al Gore and John Kerry tell us, that other side is still out there.