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Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

severe-weather.eu

71–80 of 304 posts

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#71

I feel like extreme weather is right up there with super moons and other astronomical events when it comes to generating headlines, so I did a time constrained Google search for "heat dome" and here's what turned up: 2020-07-10 - "How a ‘Heat Dome’ Forms—and Why This One Is So Perilous (A massive, intense heat wave is settling over the continental US. The ravages of the Covid pandemic are going to make it all the mor…

In Miami a few days ago, an apartment block collapsed. Around 150 perished. In the heat wave that hit British Colombia, 230 people perished.

When heat waves hit Europe in the summer, there are thousands to tens of thousands of deaths. It's nothing to sneer at.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#72
post #67

Maybe it’s time to signal political leaders that climate collapse is an urgent issue.

It's easy to blame political leaders, but they are (mostly) elected by the general population. Here in the US ~50% of the people vote for climate change deniers, so they are the ones you need to convince.

US voters didn't become climate change deniers by chance

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#73
post #62
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most desalination methods are unfortunately quite energy intensive, and produce a concentrated brine that has environmental/disposal concerns such that it can't just be pumped back into the ocean, really. It presents a difficult problem for entrepreneurs to tackle. Definitely the potential to change people's lives for the better, though.

Most desalination plants do just pump the brine back into the ocean. That isn't ideal from a marine conservation standpoint but if the outflow pipe runs out deep enough then it's not too bad.

If it's not ideal right now, how well does it scale if more and more desalination plants come online to meet freshwater demands, and dispose of their brine in the same manner?

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#74
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Vancouver. The hotel I stayed at couldn’t get the room to go below 25C - about 80F. Extremely uncomfortable, albeit better than 95F outdoors.

Have you acclimated yourself to 20C/86C using AC that 25C/80F is uncomfortable?

Nobody here has AC to acclimate themselves to that, 20C is a more normal temperature for Vancouver.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#76
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an individual, there isn't really anything you can do. Going vegetarian doesn't help. Recycling doesn't help. Using your shower for 5 minutes doesn't help. As a society, we've chosen to manage resources via capitalism. If you use less water, what that means is water is cheaper so some corporation can afford another few acres of almond trees. If consumers cut their waste in half, the slack would be picked up at the…

Wars are not exactly beneficial to the planet. And it would be a nice joke if your righteous war to save the planet from climate change ends up leading us into a nuclear winter. Neither violence or authoritarianism are necessary to solve the problem. We who live in democracies "just" have to elect governments sufficiently not corrupt that they will impose the required environmental restrictions on industry, and use s…

> We "just" have to elect a government sufficiently not corrupt that it will impose the required environmental restrictions on industry, and use strong economic pressure on other nations that don't get their houses in order.

This is essentially the operating definition of "authoritarianism" in Washington, though. If you can't be bought, you must be anti-freedom.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#78
post #23
post #11

Maybe it's time to start talking about ways humanity can geo-engineer our way out of this instead of just sitting here waiting to suffer. The US Air Force has been interested in this topic for decades, but there's no way to know how viable any of that research actually is. Some of the speculative documents I've read propose using carbon black dust as a way to artificially reflect heat, like https://web.archive.org/we…

One of the more compelling geoengineering strategies I've seen discussed has been Olivine weathering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivine

Agreed. Following Project Vesta with interest: https://www.projectvesta.org/

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#79

I feel like extreme weather is right up there with super moons and other astronomical events when it comes to generating headlines, so I did a time constrained Google search for "heat dome" and here's what turned up: 2020-07-10 - "How a ‘Heat Dome’ Forms—and Why This One Is So Perilous (A massive, intense heat wave is settling over the continental US. The ravages of the Covid pandemic are going to make it all the mor…

I mean, it was 108 degrees in Seattle on Monday. The previous record was 103. Not sure what more information you need to determine significance-- it's literally never been hotter

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#80
post #8

To some seeing records such as these fall is heartbreaking. It’s agonizing and vexing when you wonder what can you do to help slow down climate change? The reality is we aren’t doing nearly enough to slow it down and the Earth is gradually destabilizing. We see insane cold snaps such as those that impacted Texas this winter, and at the opposite end of the spectrum heat waves unlike anything humans have ever experienc…

As an individual, there isn't really anything you can do. Going vegetarian doesn't help. Recycling doesn't help. Using your shower for 5 minutes doesn't help. As a society, we've chosen to manage resources via capitalism. If you use less water, what that means is water is cheaper so some corporation can afford another few acres of almond trees. If consumers cut their waste in half, the slack would be picked up at the…

A dictatorship[1] of the proletariat could do that!

> I genuinely believe the only answer is violently enforced regulation.

I would like to point out that 'violence' is not _strictly_ necessary, except as a defensive measure. An internationally-organized working class could simply refuse to work on destructive projects (new oil pipelines, etc). Unfortunately, people in power tend to react with increasing violence when their power is threatened (see for example the police response to DAPL protests), so you do have to be prepared to respond to violence one way or another during the transition of power. i.e. better organized = less violence. Unfortunately we are very disorganized currently, and organizing is (in my experience) hard. Better get on that.

[1] This word makes the whole term sound undemocratic but actually refers to the proletariat as a whole enforcing their will (which must by definition be determined in a democratic way) despite the will of the existing ruling class without the need for negotiation.

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