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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

#91

Post by angry-sw-dev »

gonzo41 wrote: post #4
skohan wrote: post #2

I have to say when I took an extended layover in Doah it gave me a different sense of urgency about climate change. It was just oppressive to be outside, even during the night and they air-condition their open air markets. It got me thinking that there are a lot of places like this which are probably on the edge, and where a few degrees of warming will make them simply uninhabitable to humans. It would be a strange t…

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

Alaska might end up seasonally uninhabitable -- they have periods of the year where the sun doesn't set, with increased greenhouse gases in the area it could become intensely hot for periods of the year. Combine that with periodic ozone holes that appear over arctic areas and it might be just as nasty as areas we worry over today...

Areas near large bodies of stable fresh water are likely going to be livable for the longest periods as the planet rapidly shifts away from what we humans need.

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

#92

Post by dirtyid »

blueblisters wrote: post #83
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…

Many parts of South Asia already have home-grown solutions to battle the heat. The rise of cheap construction without consideration for local climate conditions have made them less prevalent. For example, in Jaipur, traditional stepwells dug under houses absorb a lot of the mid-day summer heat. With some engineering, these can be scaled up to cool entire neighborhoods with energy efficient geothermal heat pumps [1].…

It really depends on if prospective climate change is something that has prior solutions that can be adapted for modern land use and urban demands. There's always been historically appropriate architectural typologies to manage regional climate, but also massive enough climate shifts that cause entire regions to be abandoned. Typically it's water shortage, which can be a zero-sum problem, India/Pakistan, Egypt/Ethiopia, China and all of Mekong etc. But yeah, I think inhospitable heat and humidity in this study is largely... technically and economically solvable with building interventions, both historic and speculative. There's already many societies that's dependent on conditioned air at scale, but very few on desalinating water at scale.

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

#93

Post by tarsinge »

humanrebar wrote: post #79
tarsinge wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Heating freezing temperatures to livable takes more energy than air conditioning. Logically, we should frown upon living in cold places with extended winter more than we frown upon living in places that require air conditioning.

Sure, I‘m not debating AC vs Heating, but that installing AC alone in the majority of the millions of European homes that don’t have it because it’s starting to get too hot in the summer is not only not a solution to the general problem but can have perverse short term effects. My point about being grateful is that I hope it’ll push more awareness and starting action now, compared to the US where prevalent AC might hide the issue longer. But that’s just a thought.

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

#94

Post by primroot »

afandian wrote: post #59
skohan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you imagine that working in practice? I mean I'm not saying the current structure is perfect, but if everyone had equal claim to land it seems like land usage disputes would just end up being resolved through violence

This is the current model. In many places the violence may be out of living memory, but it's generally all very recent.

Just a few years ago, the weekend before May Day, a lawyer was stopped by the police here in Panama. The police searched through their database and found the lawyer had been accused of "economic terrorism." The lawyer was immediately put in jail. He worked pro bono defending the rights of informal settlers who have lived for years in vast areas of land owned by a very rich family. Given the amount of time these people have lived there, some argue they should at least be allowed to pay water and electricity. Instead, the government sends riot police to pull them out of their homes. The lawyer was released a few days later. This is only the most recent case that comes to my mind here in my country. I don't think it is that different in the rest of the world. Ownership of land is tied to violence.

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

#95

Post by afandian »

catawbasam wrote: post #73
afandian wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the current model. In many places the violence may be out of living memory, but it's generally all very recent.

If it is out of living memory it isn't current.

If the model establishes a system where the people who are prepared to use the most violence end up with the land, and a couple of generations their descendants still have the land, then IMHO the model is still in play.

You could also argue that as the ownership is codified in laws and the state monopoly on violence keeps the oppressed in check, that threat of violence continues.

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

#96

Post by vwcx »

gonzo41 wrote: post #4
skohan wrote: post #2

I have to say when I took an extended layover in Doah it gave me a different sense of urgency about climate change. It was just oppressive to be outside, even during the night and they air-condition their open air markets. It got me thinking that there are a lot of places like this which are probably on the edge, and where a few degrees of warming will make them simply uninhabitable to humans. It would be a strange t…

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

Re: Alaska, beavers are already getting there first and exasperating the climate effects upon the tundra. A fascinating read: https://alaskatrekker.com/2017/11/beavers-moving-northern-al...

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

#97

Post by Intermernet »

k33n wrote: post #85
Intermernet wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-mo... Unless you believe that NASA are in on the whole conspiracy because of, um, some reason I can't even fathom...

Conspiracy? I think it’s mostly incompetence. But I get it’s a touchy subject.

If you think it's incompetence, and you want to correct it, then you need to point to specific points that validate your opinion vs the published opinion of NASA. It's only a touchy subject if you don't have the data to back it up.

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

#98

Post by KozmoNau7 »

Intermernet wrote: post #89
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't feed the low effort trolls. Downvote, flag and ignore.

The only options available for dealing with misinformed conspiracy theorists are downvoting, flagging, ignoring and rebuttal. The first three are interpreted as validation. It sucks, but that's the reality.

You forget about moderation. HN has pretty active moderators who generally come down hard on trolls and bad faith arguments.

The troll may see it as validation when their posts are struck down, but that only matters to them, and since they're struck down and banned, it doesn't matter to anyone else.

For some cases, I agree that a well-pointed rebuttal can be effective, not to convince the troll, but rather to inform the audience. You cannot convince the troll, but you can show the audience how his arguments are flawed and false.

There is a balance, because you also risk giving his posts more attention, which is counterproductive. If possible, take the arguments to a place where the people who are already sympathetic to your arguments are in the majority. Have the discussion on your home turf, don't discuss in forums where the troll has the majority.

And obviously know when to disengage. Arguing with a pure bad faith troll is utterly pointless, they'll just keeping spinning bullshit while you try to seat down their nonsense. The takes a lot of effort on your part and absolutely none on theirs. In the process, they get to air even more of their nonsense to an audience.

Facts are precise and specific, lies are random, unlimited and don't have to have any connection to truth or reality.

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

#99

Post by vwcx »

throwawaylolx wrote: post #21
perfunctory wrote: post #10

Climate related reports are getting scarier by the day. I am scared. Really scared. Everyone should be. If I may, let me make a little plea. May I remind everyone that we are not a mere spectators of the show. We are active participants. We can influence things. We as in you and I, HN crowd. It may not seem like it, but an average HN reader has a non-trivial amount of influence. And not only in financial sense. Pleas…

>I am scared. Really scared. May be from reading too many scare-mongering alarmist articles like the one in OP where the usual quantitative terms that are supposed to be present in the abstract are replaced with "much lower", "serious health and productivity impacts", "dangerously high", "serious challenge", etc.

I understand what you're saying about the hyperbole, but we're also at the point where there are multiple, overlapping problems of a very serious nature to a species with 7.8 billion beings sharing a planet. The hyperbole isn't useful, but the larger idea that the time to act IS NOW shouldn't be diminished.

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

#100

Post by afandian »

skohan wrote: post #78
afandian wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the current model. In many places the violence may be out of living memory, but it's generally all very recent.

Maybe technically there’s a threat of government violence in the background, but that’s pretty far from most people’s consciousness in developed countries. Can you propose a different model for property ownership which doesn’t require the individual to invest more resources in physical security?

I'm not sure about "most developed countries" but there is still very strong memory of past violence in Great Britain. Some of the tail end of it still bubbling.

On another tack, there are plenty of homeless people in the UK. Can you imagine what would happen to them if they broke into expensive uninhabited properties in London? There would be violence.

I have no idea of alternatives, I was just pointing out the origin of a lot of current land ownership.

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