Story Spark: Violence

The document argues that climate change increases violence by exacerbating risk factors such as extreme heat, resource scarcity, and material insecurity. It highlights specific links between rising temperatures and intimate partner violence, gun violence, and group-level conflict, while advising reporters to use granular data and center marginalized voices to illustrate these social climate impacts.

• Extreme heat increases aggression by making it more difficult for individuals to manage emotions, control impulses, and process new information.
• Climate change is linked to a rise in gender-based violence; research suggests that by the end of the century, one in 10 cases of intimate partner violence (IPV) will be connected to climate change, with an estimated 40 million additional women and girls experiencing IPV annually by 2090 in a 2-degree-Celsius warming scenario.
• In the United States, above-average daily temperatures were attributed to nearly 7% of shootings between 2015 and 2020, based on a study of 100 cities.
• Violence is not caused by a single factor but by a combination of risk factors amplified by rapid global warming, including resource scarcity, displacement, material insecurity, and hostile rhetoric toward outgroups.

APA

Miles-Novelo, A., & Selemon, H. (2026). Story Spark: Violence. Covering Climate Now. https://coveringclimatenow.org/from-us-story/covering-violence/

Chicago

Miles-Novelo, Andreas, and Helina Selemon. Story Spark: Violence. Covering Climate Now, 2026. https://coveringclimatenow.org/from-us-story/covering-violence/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Miles-Novelo |first1=Andreas |last2=Selemon |first2=Helina |title=Story Spark: Violence |publisher=Covering Climate Now |date=21 April 2026 |url=https://coveringclimatenow.org/from-us-story/covering-violence/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{milesnovelo2026story, author = {Miles-Novelo, Andreas and Selemon, Helina}, title = {{Story Spark: Violence}}, institution = {Covering Climate Now}, year = {2026}, month = apr, url = {https://coveringclimatenow.org/from-us-story/covering-violence/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }