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Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

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Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#21

Post by ZeroGravitas »

ngc248 wrote: post #12
eklavya wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, why care for the poor population even when Europe is busy buying oil for itself. It’s not like per capita consumption of the west is 10x or greater.

exactly .... "rules for thee, but none for me". In an already resource constrained place like India, it will take time to switch to renewable resources. Until then the only option is fossil fuels.

It doesn't seem to get talked about as much it should but the economically efficient way to net zero is for rich, but non-sunny places to install solar in poor but sunny places and split the carbon reduction 'credit'. It’s a win-win-win.

I wonder how much more effective in economically damaging Russia it would be to push solar (and efficiency, insulation etc.) in regions on its southern border.

EU should do it at home too, as its the smart thing to do regardless, but bang-for-buck probably depends more on a) geography, b) growth rate of electricity usage, c) displacement of coal power, followed by poorly regulated methane extraction.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#22

Post by hadeohedron »

If there is anybody who sees Indian domestic news and/or articles, could you tell us whether there is any political impetus there to start spraying climate-modifying aerosols at high altitudes regardless of effectiveness and/or international opinion, or if it's completely outside of the Indian overton window?

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#23

Post by gshakir »

hadeohedron wrote: post #22

If there is anybody who sees Indian domestic news and/or articles, could you tell us whether there is any political impetus there to start spraying climate-modifying aerosols at high altitudes regardless of effectiveness and/or international opinion, or if it's completely outside of the Indian overton window?

Nope. The hot weather is off the news cycle and the top news is political. https://www.ndtv.com/

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#24

Post by vishnugupta »

hadeohedron wrote: post #22

If there is anybody who sees Indian domestic news and/or articles, could you tell us whether there is any political impetus there to start spraying climate-modifying aerosols at high altitudes regardless of effectiveness and/or international opinion, or if it's completely outside of the Indian overton window?

I'm experiencing this heat right now, albeit very very mild but still bad, in southern part of India.

Coming to climate modifying aerosols I haven't heard/read this being discussed. A comparable exercise, cloud seeding, was done couple of years ago. But it was very geographically limited. What we are experiencing right now is unprecedented. So I guess we just have to wait it out.

For comparison; Bangalore used to see high summer temperature of 32-34 about a decade ago. It's gotten progressively worse. To an extent that Bangalore reached ~35-36 as soon as summer months began, mid/late March.

By far the harshest heat I've experienced is back in 2015, early May in Delhi, India. I don't know what the temperature was but the blast of heat wave as soon as I exited from office building is vivid in my memory. Couple of days later I read in news that a few cars spontaneously caught fire around the office building I visited.

Also, fire broke out last week in Delhi last week[1]. So yeah, it's quite bad.

Edit: more content.

[1] https://www.india.com/news/delhi/video-delhi-bhalswa-landfil...

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#25

Post by unlikelymordant »

rich_sasha wrote: post #19

A grim thought, but in 50 years time when a lot of the planet is uninhabitably hot, does that reduce emissions, by virtue of, you know, there not being people to stoke the fires?

There is a force in the opposite direction, because all the tree carbon and soil carbon currently stored in those areas will likely burn or decay, increasing total atmospheric carbon. Also permafrost melting will release huge amounts of methane. Lots of positive feedback loops that will be going independent of burning fossil fuels.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#26

Post by sph »

> there are street vendors in major cities selling special fruit that supposedly helps protect people from the potentially damaging effects of above-normal temperatures. [...] "Instead of the regular synthetic fruits, you know, the ready-made fruit juice which is harm[ful] to the health, these are good for your health as well and these are the only way that you can manage the heat."

What's this mysterious special fruit the article strangely forgets to name?

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#27

Post by shmageggy »

hadeohedron wrote: post #22

If there is anybody who sees Indian domestic news and/or articles, could you tell us whether there is any political impetus there to start spraying climate-modifying aerosols at high altitudes regardless of effectiveness and/or international opinion, or if it's completely outside of the Indian overton window?

Was this comment inspired by Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future, or is this a case of life-imitates-art-imitates-life?

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#28

Post by naruvimama »

wewxjfq wrote: post #18
eklavya wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, why care for the poor population even when Europe is busy buying oil for itself. It’s not like per capita consumption of the west is 10x or greater.

Europe is stopping it, India is asking for more. 140 countries could condemn the war in an UN vote - India couldn't.

No post body was provided.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#29

Post by kzrdude »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #21
ngc248 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exactly .... "rules for thee, but none for me". In an already resource constrained place like India, it will take time to switch to renewable resources. Until then the only option is fossil fuels.

It doesn't seem to get talked about as much it should but the economically efficient way to net zero is for rich, but non-sunny places to install solar in poor but sunny places and split the carbon reduction 'credit'. It’s a win-win-win. I wonder how much more effective in economically damaging Russia it would be to push solar (and efficiency, insulation etc.) in regions on its southern border. EU should do it at hom…

Tangential to this, there is the Morocco solar project - where the plan is to export via HVDC link to the UK - will this result in UK energy prices influencing those of Morocco? "Ideally" the production site should have access to cheaper energy since it's "their resource".

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#30

Post by oumua_don17 »

sph wrote: post #26

> there are street vendors in major cities selling special fruit that supposedly helps protect people from the potentially damaging effects of above-normal temperatures. [...] "Instead of the regular synthetic fruits, you know, the ready-made fruit juice which is harm[ful] to the health, these are good for your health as well and these are the only way that you can manage the heat." What's this mysterious special fru…

Most likely Ice Apple [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borassus_flabellifer

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