Cosmopolitan Magazine warns that 2016 will be a big year for shark attacks around the world and global warming is to blame. In a Cosmo essay shared with Esquire Magazine, Sarah Rense writes that last year saw “a record number of shark attacks” with a total of 98 attacks and six deaths. In comparison, she says, ten years ago there were only 58 attacks. Moreover, experts have predicted that 2016 will be “a big shark attack year,” she writes. Her foregone conclusion? The cause “is largely climate change.” Oddly, Ms. Rense does not examine statistics on numbers of swimmers, or on seal migration patterns (which account for killer sharks’ primary food source) or even a year-by-year analysis of shark attacks going back beyond ten years to see whether the trend holds up over time. Instead, she employs the single, unremarkable statistic of 98 incidents of shark attacks in 2015 to insist that global warming must be the culprit. Rense does, of course, throw in a dollop of pseudo-science, citing a “recent study” according to which warmer oceans are pushing sharks 20 miles further up the coast each decade. This slow northerly push means that sharks are crossing paths with more humans
Cosmo: Global Warming Causing Shark Attacks!
Cosmopolitan Magazine warns that 2016 will be a big year for shark attacks around the world and global warming is to blame. In a Cosmo essay shared with Esquire Magazine, Sarah Rense writes that last year saw “a record number of shark attacks” with a total of 98 attacks and six deaths. In comparison, she says, ten years ago there were only 58 attacks. Moreover, experts have predicted that 2016 will be “a big shark attack year,” she writes. Her foregone conclusion? The cause “is largely climate change.” Oddly, Ms. Rense does not examine statistics on numbers of swimmers, or on seal migration patterns (which account for killer sharks’ primary food source) or even a year-by-year analysis of shark attacks going back beyond ten years to see whether the trend holds up over time. Instead, she employs the single, unremarkable statistic of 98 incidents of shark attacks in 2015 to insist that global warming must be the culprit. Rense does, of course, throw in a dollop of pseudo-science, citing a “recent study” according to which warmer oceans are pushing sharks 20 miles further up the coast each decade. This slow northerly push means that sharks are crossing paths with more humans