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

bbc.com

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

#71

Post by kortilla »

PorterDuff wrote: post #54
prolepunk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

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

The same as the power going off in Minneapolis in the middle of January. It’s treated as a crisis by the utility.

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

#72

Post by smallnamespace »

sieabahlpark wrote: post #64
throwaway5752 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My perspective is I'm much more concerned that France has to take US Gulf Coast level climate management steps in the first place. I think all the advice is good, but I don't think the problem is lack of knowledge but rather denial that the climate crisis is as bad as it is. I am not offended, sorry to both of you if it came off that way.

Ah so it's the fault of the US for France's heatwave?

If it's related to climate change, then definitely yes.

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis...

US responsible for about a quarter of cumulative CO2 emissions, and has been #1 since about 1911.

China is emitting more now, but cumulative emissions are only half as much.

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

#73

Post by skohan »

Nasrudith wrote: post #23
leftyted wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you include cases like that, and you should if you're trying to figure out how important it is to avoid global heating, the death toll goes way up. Should you? If we take this approach, I wonder how many people rain kills. Or how many people El Nino kills. My sense is that there are good reasons we don't speak about these kinds of things in the same terms as we speak about, say, an epidemic.

Yet if an individual person caused it by spraying water over the road they would be responsible under "eggshell patient" rules no matter how infirm the victim. I would lean towards yes for all such considerations. If a flood plain will kill more/fewer people than desert silicosis we should keep them all in mind.

Yeah I would think if you could tease out a correlation between degrees-above-average and all-case mortality it would be an interesting and valuable statistic.

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

#74

Post by Scoundreller »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #68
joachim4 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There will probably be a period of adjustment here in San Francisco, CA, too. My apartment does not have an air conditioner, and neither do many (most?) other SF apartments. If people start dropping dead because of the heat here, I have no idea what the city could/would do to address that situation.

Being on the Pacific will moderate the chances of that; and give you somewhere to chill.

More EU major cities are in-land than US (something about war after war), so there’s less ability to cool off.

And less moderating circulating waters.

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

#75

Post by jrjdjdhhedh »

sieabahlpark wrote: post #64
throwaway5752 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My perspective is I'm much more concerned that France has to take US Gulf Coast level climate management steps in the first place. I think all the advice is good, but I don't think the problem is lack of knowledge but rather denial that the climate crisis is as bad as it is. I am not offended, sorry to both of you if it came off that way.

Ah so it's the fault of the US for France's heatwave?

Clearly not what he meant. One shit comment doesn't need to beget another.

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

#76

Post by Symmetry »

boomlinde wrote: post #60
thedaemon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nick Lane's book on mitochondria[1] has a section on adaptations to hot or cold places related to them. The topic is a bit more complicated than you might think and I'm pretty sure that people of any race can adapt to colder climates though the brown fat response[2].

[1]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39001.Power_Sex_Suicide?...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_adipose_tissue

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

#77

Post by skohan »

dv_dt wrote: post #57
dalore wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Shell and EXON buying everyone in France an AC unit so everyone can keep driving cars around is one of the most dystopian ideas I have considered in some time.

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

#78

Post by skohan »

paulsutter wrote: post #31

France population is 67 million and life expectancy is 82 years, so about 2000 people die every day. Over the 20 days of high heat, that’s about 70 extra people per day, or about 3 percent, just to put it in perspective. What percent of ordinary deaths would we expect to get attributed to high heat? Especially among the elderly? Disappointed in the 0% effort journalists make to put things in perspective.

I would consider a 3% increase in mortality rate to be quite alarming.

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

#80

Post by Scoundreller »

smallnamespace wrote: post #72
sieabahlpark wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah so it's the fault of the US for France's heatwave?

If it's related to climate change, then definitely yes. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis... US responsible for about a quarter of cumulative CO2 emissions, and has been #1 since about 1911. China is emitting more now , but cumulative emissions are only half as much.

And France has done its best to invest in nuclear power.
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