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Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

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Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#51
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why worry when according to alarmist politicians in the U.S. we only have “12 years left”. I find these claims, and those similar from “activists” like Greta Thunberg, wholly unproductive both to steps taken to actually curb climate change and legitimate science. Society isn’t going to cease growing and moving forward just because of climate change. It is unfortunately a reality that must be dealt with by creation an…

Society isn’t going to cease growing and moving forward just because of climate change. I don't think that's really what anyone is suggesting, but if the change impacts enough people society as a whole will focus on fixing the problem rather than doing other things.

> I don't think that's really what anyone is suggesting

The sibling comment to yours suggesting exactly that wasn't the first, not by a long shot. US politicians have suggested everything from ending entire industries to massive increases in abortion to stop population growth. Others have suggested massive taxes to pay for health insurance and UBI so that people who don't feel like working don't have to.

"Stop moving forward" might not a common phrase, but only because their version of "forward" is fundamentally different from the current one. Stopping growth is certainly a goal of many far-left thinkers out there.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#52
post #34

I live in Texas. The heat wave that France is experienced this summer is like maybe 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a normal summer for us. Preparedness for summer is deeply ingrained in everyone's minds here. Many Apartment complexes treat issues with AC units as emergency situations, reach out to on-call handymen and give high priority to their fix. In the city of Dallas, city code requires that property owne…

Maybe more appropriate topic of discussion should be how climate change affects the people of France and what can be done about it, instead of chastising them for not having Dallas housing codes.

[deleted]

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#53
Note that according to https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150520193831.h... , which describes a study in The Lancet, "cold weather kills more than 20 times as many people as hot weather". So it kind of makes you wonder if this is something like the trolley problem - if raising the temperature sacrifices 1,500 lives to save 30,000, is it worth it?

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#54
post #34

I live in Texas. The heat wave that France is experienced this summer is like maybe 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a normal summer for us. Preparedness for summer is deeply ingrained in everyone's minds here. Many Apartment complexes treat issues with AC units as emergency situations, reach out to on-call handymen and give high priority to their fix. In the city of Dallas, city code requires that property owne…

Maybe more appropriate topic of discussion should be how climate change affects the people of France and what can be done about it, instead of chastising them for not having Dallas housing codes.

Heck, cut right to the chase and ask how occasional high peak summer temperatures kill people and what to do about it. An old lady keeling over in an apartment isn't helped a bit by internet climate change wars.

Given the super low price of smaller window A/C units, you'd think they'd install a few more of those, maybe it's impractical for some reason. Looking at a chart showing summer highs in Paris since 1900, it would be interesting to look at a newspaper from 1948 and see what happened (the chart shows a roughly 1 C upwards change since 1900 on average, but the last couple of years are outliers similar to a few earlier heatwaves).

I've always wondered what would happen if the power went off for a day or two in Phoenix in August.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#55
post #34

I live in Texas. The heat wave that France is experienced this summer is like maybe 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a normal summer for us. Preparedness for summer is deeply ingrained in everyone's minds here. Many Apartment complexes treat issues with AC units as emergency situations, reach out to on-call handymen and give high priority to their fix. In the city of Dallas, city code requires that property owne…

And all Texas cities basically shut down with any amount of snow or ice. Imagine if there was a blizzard in Houston and some yank was like, “where are their snow plows, snow chains, heavy jackets, insulated pipes, etc?”

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#56
post #34

I live in Texas. The heat wave that France is experienced this summer is like maybe 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a normal summer for us. Preparedness for summer is deeply ingrained in everyone's minds here. Many Apartment complexes treat issues with AC units as emergency situations, reach out to on-call handymen and give high priority to their fix. In the city of Dallas, city code requires that property owne…

The people of France aren't ignorant. They have just acclimated to a climate that is rapidly getting hotter. It would be patronizing if French people offered basic advice on not building on floodplains and storm preparation after Harvey. People just plan based on their prior experiences.

The use of AC in France is also quite foreign. None person in my family use one, despite them living all over the country. But go to the states or to India, and there is AC everywhere.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#57
post #46
post #34

I live in Texas. The heat wave that France is experienced this summer is like maybe 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a normal summer for us. Preparedness for summer is deeply ingrained in everyone's minds here. Many Apartment complexes treat issues with AC units as emergency situations, reach out to on-call handymen and give high priority to their fix. In the city of Dallas, city code requires that property owne…

It doesn't make sense to have AC preparedness when it's only used for 1 week out of a year. Also the environmental impact of everyone having an AC, that's not good. In France and the UK hardly any has an AC because it's not really needed. Your suggestion is that they spend billions of dollars for this? Who buys everyone the AC? I lived in PNG which is near the equator and hot. It's not the temperature that's the true…

It seems increasingly needed now, and is one of many profit externalities to the fossil fuel companies costing everybody else money. The fairest, and market leveraging way would be to make them pay for this.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why worry when according to alarmist politicians in the U.S. we only have “12 years left”. I find these claims, and those similar from “activists” like Greta Thunberg, wholly unproductive both to steps taken to actually curb climate change and legitimate science. Society isn’t going to cease growing and moving forward just because of climate change. It is unfortunately a reality that must be dealt with by creation an…

Society grew because we made laws to protect people from killing and stealing from each other. Now for society to keep growing we have to make new laws that do not allow people to kill others with pollution and its effects.

Just imagine the hilarity when a society made up of 20 billion people living efficient, highrise-dwelling, car-pooling, vegetarian, recycling kind of lives breaks down.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#59
post #34

I live in Texas. The heat wave that France is experienced this summer is like maybe 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a normal summer for us. Preparedness for summer is deeply ingrained in everyone's minds here. Many Apartment complexes treat issues with AC units as emergency situations, reach out to on-call handymen and give high priority to their fix. In the city of Dallas, city code requires that property owne…

The people of France aren't ignorant. They have just acclimated to a climate that is rapidly getting hotter. It would be patronizing if French people offered basic advice on not building on floodplains and storm preparation after Harvey. People just plan based on their prior experiences.

Im from Belgium and like France we are completely unprepared when it comes to these summers.

The Texas model offers some good ideas to think about. Why must you get so offended, I didn’t.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#60
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would people be able to physically adapt to longer periods of higer temperatures? I mean, it is around 40 degrees every day for most of the two months of hot season where I live. And a lot of people don't have air conditioning. On the hottest days they sit around in the village in the shade, drinking a lot and not moving much. Lots of complaining but we don't hear much about heat related deaths.

We have already physically adapted to different environments. People in Africa can stand higher temperatures. People in Scandinavia can withstand lower temperatures. This is what "races" are, humans adapted to their environments.

Where can I read more on this? I live in Sweden but there are plenty of African immigrants that cope with the cold just fine. I've also not had trouble in much warmer climates, but I haven't been abroad for more than three weeks at a time.
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