It was a small group, 27 who had been near a fire in 2018, 21 who had seen smoke, and 27 in the control group. Participants had EEG brain scans taken while they engaged in behavior which could provide monetary rewards. The scholars also subjectively scored their Win-Stay behavior, basically how often they sought the highest long-term rewards.
They used their subjective score and their subjective claims about the parietal brain region of the posterior cingulate cortex — which is "associated" with deep thought by people who also think fMRI results are anything more than pretty pictures - and declared that those exposed to the fire were less likely to care about maximizing their profit and that was blamed on climate change worry.
Worrying about the climate made them unable to focus. Additional confounders are that these were all California residents on the coast, and mental issues like narcissism are far more common.
The authors recommend...wait for it...wait for it...mindfulness training, and more funding so they can study.
We can't be alarmed that Democrats were anti-vaccine from 1998 to 2021 and Republicans anti-vaccine since when the science community lets this kind of paper designed to endorse woo be called science(1) without objection.
Climate change may be creating more snowflakes, but not the kind that fall from the sky.
NOTE:
(1) Scientific Reports gets a free pass here, it's Nature's pay-to-publish imprint so does not have the kind of peer reviews physics has.
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