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India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius

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Re: India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius

#171

Post by inflatableDodo »

jjuhl wrote: post #153
inflatableDodo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what tells you that in the grand, global, universe-scale sense, we are not? If we were deer, then Malthus would have been right by now. We are fairly uniquely placed as a species to be able to avoid being this dumb.

I'm sorry, but I just have to do this. Even with Trump as president? He takes "dumb" to a whole new level!

Look at some of the people funding him and ask yourself what their motivation is. It maybe isn't that dumb, at least if your motivation is to destroy confidence in democracy as a system and eventually balkanise the US so it can be openly ruled by princelings. He is pretty good for that.

Re: India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius

#172

Post by rini17 »

wongarsu wrote: post #102
noir_lord wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading a sci-fi story back in the 80's (damn I wish I could remember the name) where that basically happened, Europe and the US fortified their borders (massive walls/fences, automated weapon systems, usual sci-fi fare) and left the rest of the world to it's own devices. I was only a kid and I remember thinking "I can't imagine that ever happening" then I look at the refugee camps in EU states (Greece par…

If some of the worse projections become true and large stretches of land become uninhabitable or very inhospitable my money is on the US deploying semi-automated machine gun turrets along the border wall: the turrets will have automated target aquisition and tracking but a minimum-wage border patrol agent in an office in Austin will have to confirm the kill decision. It will be about as controversial as the drone pro…

Not really, thawing permafrost is unsuitable for building any modern infrastructure. It settles down very unevenly, often sinks catastrophically.

Re: India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius

#173

Post by TeMPOraL »

ycgeu wrote: post #142
CydeWeys wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are mobile. What would actually happen would be the biggest refugee crisis the world has ever seen. Imagine tens of millions of climate refugees at the border of many different countries, and the choice is to let them in and take care of them or let them die right there. It's not a good situation to be in. Realistically speaking, with that many people, good luck keeping them out.

Unless they are armed, you can simply shoot at the air and they'll scram.

Up until you run out of bullets.

Re: India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius

#174

Post by inflatableDodo »

jjuhl wrote: post #167
inflatableDodo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally do use the word bigot rather than racist. I know very few people who are only racist and not bigoted in other ways, so it tends to be more accurate. It also gives much less wiggle room and appears to cut into people's ego far more. As another observation, I have yet to meet anyone who uses the phrase 'playing the race card' , that has a considered opinion on that subject, or indeed many others. It is indi…

Well, thank you for putting people in boxes. One can have a considered opinion and still think that playing the "race card" is despicable. Try not to be so single-minded.

I think you missed the nuance. I was saying that I find that people who use that term do not generally have considered opinions. As for putting people in boxes, I thought you were the one advocating that. Wooden ones, specifically.

Re: India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius

#175

Post by wongarsu »

piyushpr134 wrote: post #155

Well before you guys start doomsday predictions, let me tell you that Churu is in Rajasthan which is in Thar desert. Temperatures like this, even though very high and uncomfortable, are not unheard of. We are in midst of a very hot summer but it is not something out of ordinary and yearly cycle (we don't love our summers). We are eagerly awaiting monsoon to arrive in India (early june is when it hits our shores). Aft…

> We are in midst of a very hot summer

That's the problem. No matter what you think about climate change, summers are undeniably getting hotter. This might not be a doomsday, but it's something that will become more common and eventually will affect more populated areas.

Re: India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius

#176

Post by CydeWeys »

ycgeu wrote: post #142
CydeWeys wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are mobile. What would actually happen would be the biggest refugee crisis the world has ever seen. Imagine tens of millions of climate refugees at the border of many different countries, and the choice is to let them in and take care of them or let them die right there. It's not a good situation to be in. Realistically speaking, with that many people, good luck keeping them out.

Unless they are armed, you can simply shoot at the air and they'll scram.

This "solution" ignores the fallout of said actions. The British lost their highly profitable Indian colony because the citizens at home could not stomach the killings of hundreds of Indians. The average American would not be OK with seeing videos of millions of refugees being mowed down at the border.

And that's ultimately what it would take. When you're dying of dehydration or starving to death, you aren't going to care too much about people shooting into the air.

Re: India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius

#177

Post by marktangotango »

hedora wrote: post #93
jessriedel wrote: post #38

The 50 C number was observed in a desert. Death Valley, California, also a desert, spend 5 consecutive days above 54 C in 1913, the year it set the temperature record of 56.7 C.

For people that don’t know, Death Valley’s name is no exaggeration, even in modern times. Going outside there even for short periods of time is extremely dangerous for some fraction of each year. They shut the park down when this happens. A few years ago, some tourists that didn’t heed the warning ended up dead after rental van overheated. I don’t see how the populated areas already hitting comparable temperatures wi…

I was at NTC (south of Death Valley in the Mohave) one summer when the temp was 125-130F for a week. We were in the box the entire time. We used ice filled camel backs, sucking water all day (and rarely urinating) First sgt would bring out pallets of bagged ice that would be half melted by the time they got to us. As a side note; 125 feels cool after spending all day in, and then climbing out if a M1A1! Really odd thing was shivering at night when the temp dropped to 85-90. And urinating all day when it was only 100, but you were still drinking like it was 130.

Re: India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius

#178

Post by lotsofpulp »

ajross wrote: post #150
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offices and shopping malls are upper-middle class things in India. They would not come close to holding the entire population. There would be millions of people dying if temperatures got that high.

I'd want to see cites for that, honestly. Obviously India's commerce centers can't come close to handling a billion shoppers , but there's enough floor space in the urban core of Bangalore to house the at-risk population for a 72 hour heat wave. The point is emergency management here. And I'd bet anything that somewhere there's a workable plan drawn up for exactly this kind of occurrence.

>The point is emergency management here. And I'd bet anything that somewhere there's a workable plan drawn up for exactly this kind of occurrence.

Aside from ACs having a limit on cooling far below “everyone packed in a building”, if you’ve ever done business in India, I don’t see how one could assume there would be a plan drawn up for this grand of a scenario, much less many smaller scale scenarios.

Re: India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius

#179

Post by noir_lord »

wongarsu wrote: post #131
noir_lord wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those automated machine guns already exist, a Korean company was developing them over a decade ago for the DMZ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGR-A1

It even comes with full automation, the operator can get up and fetch coffee without worrying about anyone slipping through. How convenient. I just hope nobody tells Trump these exist.

Oh I'm sure he already knows.

...and really how hard would it be to build one of these, the level of CV required is already solved off the shelf, the rest is sensors, servos, a gun to strap to it and programming.

I'd expect a none-trivial percentage of the HN could build one with the resources available.

Re: India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius

#180

Post by mikhailfranco »

caymanjim wrote: post #94

This sounds shocking to a lot of people, but it's not new or unexpected, and it's not even that uncomfortable if you have shade and water. I don't mean to downplay the risk to those who don't have shade or water, or who have to work exposed, but it's not as scary as you might think. I lived in Tempe, AZ for years, and summer temperatures would regularly be over 45C/113F. I walked or biked four miles to work in that.…

Agreed. Riyadh has daily maxima of >40C from May to October, and >45C June-August, peaking about 49C in a normal year. It has low humidity and a little altitude (700m), so it is rarely over 50C (shade), but is certainly over 50C in the city, on the street, in the sun.

It's relatively easy to walk or run up to 30 minutes on the commute, or after work, when temperatures are up to 43C, without carrying any water.

A few years ago, there was more danger from the religious police for wearing running shorts, than from the high temperatures.

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