Climate determinism

In my northeastern college, I used to subscribe to the local paper, so I would go to the dining hall to eat institutional eggs and bulk served cereal dispensed out of 20 gallon tubs and settle into a leisurely morning of the day’s news before my first class at 11:10am. Yes….by the time I was a second semester freshman, I had clued into the benefits of smart scheduling. It was not long before I realized that the paper seemed to have an inordinate amount of reportage on two kinds of stories: house fires and domestic abuse. Of course, in the frigid and long winters, the fire stories spiked, but it seemed to be that domestic abuse stories were constant through the academic year.

Sparks had a jury duty summons this past week, which reminded me of my last summons to jury duty. A residency of at least a half year in the state put you on the eligible rolls, so I happened to get called up during my senior year. And on what case was I asked to serve as a non-rural juror? A wife beating case. I don’t know if it was the constant reporting on domestic abuse, but I had to raise my hand and say that yes, I was pretty sure that the husband was guilty, yes, I was pretty sure the wife was telling the truth, even though I had not heard a peep of information about the case.

So anyway, I have now lived in 4 other major media markets since then and in none of these places have I noticed a preponderance of domestic abuse cases in the news. These places, with the exception of NYC, have all been in warm climates. So does cold weather make people crazy violent?