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The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance

advances.sciencemag.org

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Re: The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance

#61

Post by abdullahkhalids »

finolex1 wrote: post #13

Color me optimistic, but we'll learn to survive and adapt. Humans in temperate climates (Chicago, Toronto, etc.) already live in places where it's too cold to survive outside for long in winter. Just replace heaters with ACs in this case.

Having lived both in the extreme heat of South Asia and the extreme cold of the Canada, cold is technically a lot easier to deal with physically. Wearing the right clothes will let you survive indefinitely in temperatures as low as -10C. You are also not in danger of dehydration. Note that -10C is -30-35C away from comfortable temperature (20-25C).

If you just go +20C from comfortable temperature, no amount of clothing will help you survive for very long out in the open. You also have to drink copious amounts of water and salts to avoid dehydrating to death.

Secondly, heating up a closed space is a lot cheaper than cooling it down. Heating can always be done by burning fuel, but cooling greater than 5C requires heat pumps.

The economics and practicalities of heat and cold adaptions are completely different.

Re: The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance

#62

Post by polotics »

kharak wrote: post #14

Personal anectode. I already can't bear summer. I don't have AC, as most people don't have it here in Switzerland. Even offices tend to not have them. There are 1 to 2 months a year where my productivity sinks, enjoyment of life plummets and I just want it all to be over. I also barely see any snow anymore, if I don't hike in the mountains. I love snow. The change is real and I hate it. Couldn't it be global cooling…

If this helps: Switzerland being away from oceans is early with warming. What you are experiencing now is in NYC or the Bay still 5 to 10 years off. Being early does give you a better chance to adapt, and the rest of the world will catch up.

Re: The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance

#63

Post by johnchristopher »

fsloth wrote: post #58
qqssccfftt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I think about such scenarios I can't help thinking that there might not be any social constructs left to enforce ownership of land :/. I can only hope so.

State enforced private land ownership is one of the key economic fundamentals of a prosperous society. Historically societies with private land ownership have been wealthier and more inclusive than without (the alternative has been state ownership of all land). Do you have any grounds why you would want it abolished?

> Historically societies with private land ownership have been wealthier and more inclusive than without (the alternative has been state ownership of all land).

Am I correct to assume you include communist and feudal regimes ?

Re: The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance

#64

Post by polotics »

_nalply wrote: post #28
alt_f4 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You live in an extremely rich country, surely you can afford to install an AC unit if it impacts you as much as you're saying. Seems like that has a much better shot at solving your problem than waiting for the world to address global climate change.

You don't understand Switzerland. More people rent in Switzerland than elsewhere. Switzerland also has an oceanic climate and usually doesn't have hot summers. AC units aren't a thing in Switzerland, however this is changing slowly.

Oceanic climate? Not much? No hot summers? Last century, right?

Re: The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance

#65

Post by solids »

johnchristopher wrote: post #5
gonzo41 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now is the time to buy a flat-ish block of land in Alaska or Tasmania that's a little back from the waters edge. Also make sure you don't have too many tree's too close to where you want to build your doomsday cabin. :) Really you don't be between the tropics of Cancer of Capricorn. in the future

When I think about such scenarios I can't help thinking that there might not be any social constructs left to enforce ownership of land :/. When I was a teen I was sure we were headed for a bad future if we didn't act but I always thought it'd come after I am dead. Now I am scared I am going to be old and too frail to manage when life on earth will turn sour. edit: maybe it's time we put out a a Pioneer 10 plate with…

I hope private ownership will remain the same, given the fact that climate change is gradual enough to keep the status quo (which is also a huge downside that prevents humanity in taking coordinate and efficient actions against it)

Re: The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance

#66

Post by abdullahkhalids »

dirtyid wrote: post #57

>These conditions, nearing or beyond prolonged human physiological tolerance, have mostly occurred only for 1- to 2-hours’ duration (fig. S2). They are concentrated in South Asia, the coastal Middle East, and coastal southwest North America, in close proximity to extraordinarily high SSTs and intense continental heat that together favor the occurrence of extreme humid heat (2, 14). Future Indian geopolitics is certai…

Honestly, the entire urban belt from Islamabad to Delhi is one of the densest parts of the world, and further urbanizing as we speak. I think it will be the hardest hit, with the amount of concrete that is being poured and cars bought without regards to the local climate.

Re: The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance

#67

Post by overheadnoise »

kharak wrote: post #14

Personal anectode. I already can't bear summer. I don't have AC, as most people don't have it here in Switzerland. Even offices tend to not have them. There are 1 to 2 months a year where my productivity sinks, enjoyment of life plummets and I just want it all to be over. I also barely see any snow anymore, if I don't hike in the mountains. I love snow. The change is real and I hate it. Couldn't it be global cooling…

I moved to Germany in 2010 and experienced a winter for the very first time. I remember having to wear “pants under my pants” (thermal layer), I bought a thick wool coat, I wore scarves for the first time in my life. (I grew up in Southern California.) I remember one day looking out my window and seeing it start to snow and I could see the snow build up higher and higher on all the bicycle seats outside my window. I remember coming back indoors and how everyone just knew to instinctively stomp their feet outside the door and again inside on the mats, to knock out whatever bits of snow was stuck on shoes. I remember thinking how every time I walked out the door I had to suit up properly like I was gearing up for battle in a video game. This happened again the next year and I slowly got used to it and none of that routine stood out to me anymore.

What stood out though was a few years back I remember thinking one day “where’s the winter?” because the weather was just cool but not cold, and snow amounted to just a few mm if it even stuck around.

Two years ago I finally couldn’t deal with it anymore and bought a portable AC unit. It made living in my flat bearable and was something for me to look forward to at the end of the day since my office wasn’t air conditioned.

My energy bill is higher now in the summers and I feel bad for contributing to climate change, but without the AC I just can not live, merely survive.

Re: The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance

#68

Post by chewz »

kharak wrote: post #14

Personal anectode. I already can't bear summer. I don't have AC, as most people don't have it here in Switzerland. Even offices tend to not have them. There are 1 to 2 months a year where my productivity sinks, enjoyment of life plummets and I just want it all to be over. I also barely see any snow anymore, if I don't hike in the mountains. I love snow. The change is real and I hate it. Couldn't it be global cooling…

Don't you have mountains in Switzerland?

I have been living in Sumatra and Flores where you usualy get moderate climate from 1000 meters above sea level..

Re: The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance

#69

Post by pochamago »

tarsinge wrote: post #48
alt_f4 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You live in an extremely rich country, surely you can afford to install an AC unit if it impacts you as much as you're saying. Seems like that has a much better shot at solving your problem than waiting for the world to address global climate change.

I’m grateful AC are frowned upon in Europe. Putting a band-aid by consuming even more energy is insane in large scale, with the perverse effect of hiding the problem and delaying awareness.

AC literally saves lives. Calling an invention that prevents thousands of deaths a year a bandaid seems kind of callous to me.

Re: The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance

#70

Post by DanBC »

alt_f4 wrote: post #22
kharak wrote: post #14

Personal anectode. I already can't bear summer. I don't have AC, as most people don't have it here in Switzerland. Even offices tend to not have them. There are 1 to 2 months a year where my productivity sinks, enjoyment of life plummets and I just want it all to be over. I also barely see any snow anymore, if I don't hike in the mountains. I love snow. The change is real and I hate it. Couldn't it be global cooling…

You live in an extremely rich country, surely you can afford to install an AC unit if it impacts you as much as you're saying. Seems like that has a much better shot at solving your problem than waiting for the world to address global climate change.

> surely you can afford to install an AC unit

Lots of people rent and they can't install AC.

Lots of buildings in Europe are somewhat old and have controls over what you can or can't do with them (I live in England in a property that was built in 1820 and is gradeII listed, which means we're restricted on the kind of work we can do without getting permissions). The age of the buildings also means that AC is harder to install (getting ducting installed can be really difficult) and is less efficient. I have single-pane sash windows with large gaps.

In England there are 22m households. Domestic heating is a significant source of CO2. Adding aircon on top would be pretty concerning.

There's a lot of poor quality housing built in the 1970s and 1980s that should be knocked down and rebuilt, and if we did that we could have much better insulation, and shutters over windows, and so on. But this is hard to do.

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