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Wet-bulb temperature

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Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#51

Post by abeppu »

skyfaller wrote: post #25
samcheng wrote: post #12

If you haven’t read it yet, the first section of Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson describes a wet-bulb event in striking detail. The horror of this climate-change catastrophe is what finally triggers a significant global cultural shift around climate change. The passage was vivid enough for me to suggest preparatory measures to my retired parents. I wholeheartedly recommend the book to anyone intereste…

I hate speaking negatively about Ministry for the Future, because I admire KSR, and we need fiction that confronts the climate crisis and shows people taking positive action to change the world for the better. Still, I sadly cannot recommend this book. To quote from my spoileriffic review, "This does not help us imagine realistic positive outcomes to the climate crisis. Robinson correctly diagnoses the threats we fac…

I agree that the plot repeatedly follows society making choices which I find implausible -- but if one reads that alienation (one's inner critic saying "this is not the world we live in") as part of the experience of the work, then it can function as a kind of compelling tool. Noting all the points where humanity in the book takes necessary and beneficial actions to improve their situation, that are available to but refused by our society, one arrives at a pretty jarring condemnation. Not only is the current disaster entirely of our making, but all the ways in which it will fail to be addressed are also our responsibility.

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#52

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

NoraCodes wrote: post #23
nonethewiser wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But think about the solution. It's making A/C very accessible and reliable. That requires cheap energy with a high-uptime grid. There are many ways to solve this problem but adding difficult to meet constraints to energy companies that risk price and availability is not one of them.

The short term solution is making A/C very accessible and reliable. The long term solution is no longer putting huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. It is imperative to do both, no matter the (e: monetary) expense.

[dead]

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#53

Post by MH15 »

samcheng wrote: post #12

If you haven’t read it yet, the first section of Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson describes a wet-bulb event in striking detail. The horror of this climate-change catastrophe is what finally triggers a significant global cultural shift around climate change. The passage was vivid enough for me to suggest preparatory measures to my retired parents. I wholeheartedly recommend the book to anyone intereste…

First chapter of Ministry for the Future- incredibly powerful and harrowing.

Every following chapter- terrible, not worth your time.

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#54

Post by alangibson »

jlmorton wrote: post #30
alangibson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped reading it because the premise is entirely unbelievable. A mass casualty event of pretty much any size would not lead us to do anything about climate change. For evidence, look at the deaths in the USA from gives and cars every year . Yet there is zero momentum toward doing anything about those from a policy standpoint.

All life is a trade-off. There has been massive effort at reducing traffic fatalities, representing probably trillions of dollars of investment, including road design and barriers, speed limits, signaling, car safety features like crumple zones, seat belts, air bags, all manner of crash safety testing, enforcement actions, and much more. We haven't entirely banned cars, and carbon emissions weren't totally banned aft…

A massive failure judging by the numbers. Which is my point. We will continue to feel bad, maybe drop in some metaphorical traffic circles, but do nothing to actually solve the issue.

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#55

Post by aeternum »

cogman10 wrote: post #29
hkpack wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in my opinion, a lot of folks won't take climate change seriously until it adversely affects their way of life in such a dramatic way that they cannot deny it any longer. It won't. People you are talking about have access to air conditioning. They will not care about people dying in distant places, whom become an annoyance after a while. They will just wish people die silently without complaining.

Hate to agree but yeah. We've already seen a number of deadly heat waves in Europe. In 2003, 70,000 people died in the EU from a heat wave [1]. A fact that is never really comes up in talks about climate change. The death toll could be millions and we'd still see deniers clamoring that we need to burn more coal for grid stability or whatever. [1] https://www.france24.com/en/environment/20230717-parisians-a...

More people die of cold than heat, a fact that never comes up in talks about climate change.

Obviously there's a limit, but based on the data about lives lost due to cold vs. warm temps, we should expect increased global temps to first save human lives since a lot more people freeze to death.

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#56

Post by sjducb »

falcolas wrote: post #49
jncfhnb wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have fantasies about these heatwaves that just decimate all living things. It’s not that simple. It’s not THAT hard to cool down even if you’re incapable of sweating to do so. People aren’t idiots either. Despite imaginations of cultural hubris, people can tell when it’s deathly, disgustingly hot, and do not casually tank it until they die. And even if they did, they’re not idiots. If one person collapses…

> It’s not THAT hard to cool down even if you’re incapable of sweating to do so. How would you recommend cooling down for hundreds of thousands of people at a time? I have to assume that those affected wouldn't have easy access to AC.

Fill a bath and get in it. The groundwater is usually much colder than the air.

However there is a limit to how long you can live in the bath.

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#57

Post by allemagne »

dmans0n wrote: post #43
alangibson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped reading it because the premise is entirely unbelievable. A mass casualty event of pretty much any size would not lead us to do anything about climate change. For evidence, look at the deaths in the USA from gives and cars every year . Yet there is zero momentum toward doing anything about those from a policy standpoint.

In the book, the Indian government takes unilateral action to cool the planet (spraying reflectants into the upper atmosphere, iirc) after the heat wave kills 20 million Indian people in the space of a few days - a few weeks. Given the fractious state of international politics and the urgency of the problem, this seems like a fairly realistic depiction of how efforts to cool the planet might commence IRL.

There was about paragraph or so spent on that realistic response, and then huge swathes dedicated to India switching to collectivized farming (a la early Soviet Union), the world's central banks putting carbon offsets onto a blockchain, and millions of Americans willingly displacing themselves to create a giant wildlife preserve in the midwest.

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#58

Post by dingnuts »

mikeyouse wrote: post #45
allemagne wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't agree more. The wet bulb event chapter is definitely worth a read, though. The sad reality is that the world's actual response to something like that happening will probably be about as disappointing and anticlimactic as the rest of the book was to read.

If the comment sections on any news story about e.g. the Maui fire or any other natural disaster are an indication - the world's response will be hyperpartisan conspiracy mongering involving random rich people (Oprah, Zuckerberg and Obama in Maui), shady groups of profiteers (developers and clean energy installers), and fictional tech (directed energy weapons and various "lasers) rather than the shortest moment of in…

If climate activists wish to change minds, they simply cannot react with apoplexy that after a generation of messaging about how "weather is not climate" that the new generation responds to catastrophic weather events with "weather is not climate"

But of course, weather isn't climate. https://www.axios.com/2023/08/14/climate-change-heat-wave-ca...

If climate activists only wish to broadcast how virtuous and smart they are for not denying The Science, by all means, look down on the uneducated unwashed masses for arguing as to whether or not a hot day or season is definitive evidence of human caused climate change -- even though that's exactly what the climate activists taught them not too long ago.

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#59

Post by alangibson »

tchalvakspamm wrote: post #40
alangibson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped reading it because the premise is entirely unbelievable. A mass casualty event of pretty much any size would not lead us to do anything about climate change. For evidence, look at the deaths in the USA from gives and cars every year . Yet there is zero momentum toward doing anything about those from a policy standpoint.

That’s aggregate deaths one at a time, though. If all the car deaths happened all at once in a localized area and took out half of Rhode Island, it would spur action.

Then explain the total lack of action after Sandy Hook, that Las Vegas shooting, etc

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#60

Post by alangibson »

pjtn8 wrote: post #35
alangibson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped reading it because the premise is entirely unbelievable. A mass casualty event of pretty much any size would not lead us to do anything about climate change. For evidence, look at the deaths in the USA from gives and cars every year . Yet there is zero momentum toward doing anything about those from a policy standpoint.

A sudden mass causality event triggered 9/11 responses, pandemic response. A heat related mass death event most likely would trigger a response. The real question is would it be organized and tidy response, or civil unrest? When 4% hunt anymore and no one can grow a carrot? Suddenly logistics are interrupted worse than covid because, what, Phoenix burns down? Oh, it’ll trigger a response.

You sighted two totally ineffective responses to crises. We'll do something, it just won't be what is required to actually fix the underlying problem.
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