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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

#61

Post by stavros »

gundamdoubleO wrote: post #54
jokoon wrote: post #50

And here in the western world, people still don't like using public transport and their bikes (when they can). It's difficult to be optimistic, but it seems there is nothing that will truly limit fossil fuel consumption. Maybe some oil producing countries could get in some sort of alliance, and artificially limit the amount of oil they extract, in return for subsidies? Those countries could also put a tariff on oil.…

Not sure where you mean by "western world" but public transport and cycling are very popular and normal options where I live.

The GP almost certainly means the US, that's certainly not true in most of Europe.

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

#62

Post by AmIDev »

LightG wrote: post #37
kzrdude wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a European. I think we have to accept that not the whole world has to care about a war in eastern Europe. For us, it's the world, but it's hypocritical to demand that everyone pays attention to our crisis.

I generally agree - but considering this conflict could (unlikely but possibly) become a world war then, yes, other countries should pay attention.

Should it be considered world war if it's only NATO vs Russia? WW2 involved millions from commonwealth(India contributed the largest volunteer military), I don't see India, China and Africa getting involved into NATO-Russia war directly. That excludes majority of the world's population.

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

#63

Post by Ekaros »

pawsforthought wrote: post #42
mangecoeur wrote: post #2

Climate change in action, only going to get worse.

Is nature going to put a stop to our rape of this planet by directly killing millions (maybe billions) through heat, fire, flooding, famine, drought, etc.? Is that what it will take? Am I wrong to be despondent about our capability as a species to prevent this coming catastrophe any other way?

Population reduction is the most effective tool we actually have. So nature doing it for us is a good thing. Sadly it targets more likely those who emit less and not more.

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

#64

Post by Etheryte »

refurb wrote: post #48
mangecoeur wrote: post #2

Climate change in action, only going to get worse.

Article says this isn’t a record high so what do you mean? This may surprise people, but places near the equator are really god damn hot most of the time and when they have a heat wave it’s even hotter.

Climate change isn't only new record high temperatures. It's also, as described in the article, temperatures consistently being higher than is regular for this time of the year.

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

#65

Post by 35mm »

Instead of relying solely on air conditioning, which often adds to greenhouse gas emissions if run on fossil power, there are a number of passive solar design strategies that work without additional energy:

- Solar chimneys draw cool air in when it’s sunny via pressure differential

- Building orientation along with natural shading from deciduous trees prevent excessive solar insolation heating the building

- Building on top of a thermal slab to provide enough thermal inertia to prevent excessive heat during the day

I wrote more details on this on my blog: https://uplevelgreen.com/passive-solar-cooling-in-hot-humid-...

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

#66

Post by ak39 »

oumua_don17 wrote: post #30
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

Thanks for linking this. I've had this fruit before, fond memories of a childhood visit to Mumbai in early 80s. It's known by the Marathi speakers as "targolay". Its taste can be roughly described as a mix between a slimey coconut flesh with a distinctive sweetness found maybe in litchi fruit, but not as intensely sweet. Some rumour that it is intoxicating after a certain quantity - not sure about this. But it's a taste sensation unlike anything I've ever experienced since. Recent visit to Mumbai (2016) in Dec yielded nothing as explained by a dismissive street hawker: "tadgolay won't be found in winter". Much disappointed!

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

#67

Post by consp »

elric wrote: post #58
jokoon wrote: post #50

And here in the western world, people still don't like using public transport and their bikes (when they can). It's difficult to be optimistic, but it seems there is nothing that will truly limit fossil fuel consumption. Maybe some oil producing countries could get in some sort of alliance, and artificially limit the amount of oil they extract, in return for subsidies? Those countries could also put a tariff on oil.…

"Hilarious" is not the word I'd use. "Dispiriting", "Irresponsible", "Fucked up". I don't understand why we aren't pouring massive amounts of money into public transport. Apparently many people in Western Europe seem to enjoy being stuck in traffic for hours every day. For some reason, company cars are still a thing in Belgium, very nearly everyone working in IT gets one. I can't wrap my head around how stupid this i…

> I can't wrap my head around how stupid this is.

Same as in the Netherlands: It's a cost/tax dodge. Looks like you get 500-800 euro/month in car but it actually only costs about 200 to the company and the company doesn't have to pay a significant amount of taxes over it. Scrap that advantage and it will quickly go away.

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

#68

Post by kortilla »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #53
sitic wrote: post #14

Reminds me that I should finish reading The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future

I read it and I thought it was pretty dumb. Much much too optimistic for my understanding of the situation. My main gripe with it was that it leaves the reader thinking that climate change can be combatted with sensibility and reason. The idea that our global elites will come to their senses if we shove a few incidents in front of their faces goes against the fundamental narcissistic arc western civilization is curre…

China is left out because the government behavior there for the past few decades has been to deprioritize climate change entirely. Until they take some kind of initiative in leading the world in reducing CO2, European countries are likely where this innovation will be. Right now both the US and China are the problem, this has nothing to do with “white”.
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