SO FILMS TITLED BODY HEAT, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, AND SOME LIKE IT HOT ALL GOT IT WRONG? Bloomberg News: Climate Change Kills the Mood: Economists Warn of Less Sex on a Warmer Planet:

Hot weather leads to diminished “coital frequency,” according to a new working paper put out by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Three economists studied 80 years of U.S. fertility and temperature data and found that when it’s hotter than 80 degrees F, a large decline in births follows within 10 months. Would-be parents tend not to make up for lost time in subsequent, cooler months.

An extra “hot day” (the economists use quotation marks with the phrase) leads to a 0.4 percent drop in birth rates nine months later, or  1,165 fewer deliveries across the U.S. A rebound in subsequent months makes up just 32 percent of the gap.

As John Hinderaker quips at Power Line, “People in places like Brazil and India don’t have much of a sex life; it’s too hot. It explains, too, why beautiful women are referred to as ‘cold,’ and why animals in the mood for sex are described as being ‘in cold.’ And why couples looking for a romantic rendezvous schedule trips to Lapland and Siberia rather than the Caribbean.”

Heh. And just as a reminder — in the 1970s, the twin concerns of the far left were overpopulation and global cooling:

In any case, while the arguments change, as Roger Kimball writes at the New Criterion, in an essay titled “Misanthropic nostalgia,” the goal remains the same: “No matter what the crisis, massive government intervention is always the answer.”