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

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281–290 of 310 posts

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

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an internally consistent moral argument that terrorism is warranted in this situation eg Malm's "How to Blow Up a Pipeline." The basic argument is that peaceful protest is effective when it is an alternative to a more militant and disruptive extremist movement with the same goals. You negotiate with the peaceful side so the violent side doesn't tear your shit down. When there is no extremist movement, you rea…

For terrorism to be morally justified, you have to be right that the alternative is millions of deaths. Have you considered the possibility that you are not right? I mean, really considered? Not, my friends all think the same way, and so do the charismatic politicians I prefer, so it must be true? You could start with your "tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths into the climate crisis" claim, which is highly dubiou…

I've seen several publications in the last 5 to 7 years which suggest less nutrients in plants grown in higher CO2 containing atmosphere. For both outdoor and indoor. IIRC the useful nutrients are dispersed in more plant mass, which amounts to dilution. Why it is like that, I don't remember anymore.

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

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you’re saying but is the track record of terrorism any better at causing constructive change? Really we need to engage a lot of people’s minds, and that just turns out to be really hard in our current culture no matter what angle you come at it from.

No, what I'm saying is that understanding peaceful movements separate from violent ones is missing the point. For example martin luther king jr's peaceful civil rights movement was effective in part because there was a credible threat of a violent movement on its wing. There was conflict and cooperation between these movements, they can't be cleanly separated. A lot of the reason white people came to the negotiating…

I have to agree this is always the way I have understood every peaceful movement that has ever existed, the peaceful movements were big and there were smaller violent movements, it did not take an amazing inductive leap to think hey if we don't make some concessions sooner or later these peaceful folks are going to become violent like these others, and then there will be real problems for us.

Since India is also the start of this whole conversation Gandhi especially comes to mind.

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

#283
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…

Maybe Switzerland because entities like Glencore are (nominally) based there?

Mining and such, you know?

Or Nestlé, making billions with water:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nestle-ceo-water-not-human...

IDK, make up your own mind.

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

#284
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point you need to put your heat exchanger pipes underground, which is more annoying than air-based AC but not insurmountable. The temperature 20 feet underground will be about 50 F year-round. Of course, if a city of millions tried to do this all at once I have no idea how the local ground temperature would react.

> 20 feet underground will be about 50 F year-round Is that the case in India? I was under the impression that while underground temperature is consistent across seasons, it does vary considerably across climates, with warmer climates generally having higher underground temperatures. For example, while much of the central US has underground temperatures around 50F, southern Florida, California and Arizona have areas…

I can believe the ground temperature is higher nearer to the equator. At the same time, you don't need the ground temperature to be very low, just low enough for the heat exchanger to function. Alternatively, you can dig deeper until you hit a lower temperature.

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

#285

Just a personal anecdote to provide some context of how hot it really is. I'm from the south of India and now live in Europe. My body tolerates heat quite well compared to my European friends. I remember tolerating 38-40C indoor temperatures and sleeping through it with heavy sweating. But air temperature of 42C is where I draw the line. It is almost biologically impossible to survive this. So this story isn't just a…

I grew up in Las Vegas where summer would hit 120-124 F. Very dry heat. Sometimes in August it would rain for a day. Then moved to Arizona where it would hit 125 F once in awhile. Melt your brain.

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

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bikes are great for the last-10-mile problem, easily. I've got plenty of friends who cycle commute 15km+ each direction, each day, and are quite happy (and healthy) doing it.

That may be practical if it’s the entirety of your commute, but it’s less practical if you then have 70 minutes of riding the train immediately afterwards, right? I’m talking bikes as a response to transit’s last-mile problem. Maybe e-bikes do change the calculus a bit there too though.

Many places have spots for bicycles on the trains, and mass guarded bike parking at train stations. Helps a bit with this last mile problem.

Ebikes really extend the range

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

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. It does, but similar risks have come by before (in S Asia). India & Pakistan had a full confrontation in 1990s, when they were both nuclear capable & backed by Russia and US respectively. People at the helm of warcraft perhaps know where to draw the line. It is highly unlikely Putin will use tactical nukes or pre-emptively strike US/EU, no matter how grim the war looks. People do not realize that the game of br…

It's very hard to understand what is actually at stake - how would nuclear weapons use actually play out. I'm curious, I just don't know. I have to imagine that and actual use of nuclear weapons would play out very differently from how it's often imagined (i.e the mutually assured destruction idea, or the end of all life on the planet meme). My gut tells me that the balance of power is not at all as "equal" as it's c…

The balance of power is ”both sides have nukes _and_ something to lose”

If a country is experiencing mass psychosis and wants to commit murder-suicide, it doesn’t really help that the other countries have nukes too

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

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume it's mostly the thicker walls, at least it was this case in Berlin with older buildings staying cool for a long time because it took months to heat the walls. Then those walls were warm in winter and it took months to cool them down (though it didn't work very well in the last very hot summers that were hot early on)

This is still sometimes done. The newest section of the Freie Universität Berlin campus (the “Holzlaube”) was built so that the inside remains comfortable with no A/C and minimal heating. Thick walls, as you said. I don’t know how applicable architectural cleverness will be in densely populated cities in the developing world that are threatened by global warming. That seems like an impossible situation.

Many parts of the world the outside will be unhabitable :-(

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

#289
post #160
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> yes, other countries should pay attention. India is paying attention but India also knows that Russia has been good partner in the past, lot of Indian military has Russian equipment. You dont want to piss off your military partner.

If you're afraid of p!ssing off your military partner when it comes to quite simple right and wrong ... then they aren't your military partner, you are the slave, they are the master.

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

#290
post #289
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yes, other countries should pay attention. India is paying attention but India also knows that Russia has been good partner in the past, lot of Indian military has Russian equipment. You dont want to piss off your military partner.

If you're afraid of p!ssing off your military partner when it comes to quite simple right and wrong ... then they aren't your military partner, you are the slave, they are the master.

What is right and wrong?

US killed millions of Iraqis and Afghans, yet Europeans still support the US, is it because Europeans are slaves and the US is master or is it because brown lives are worth less than white lives?

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