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Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

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Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#11

Post by [deleted] »

lstodd wrote: post #3
cromulent wrote: post #2

A friend of mine who lives in Queensland (Sunshine Coast) was talking about a recent spell of 32° and 100% humidity and how oppressive it was. My understanding is that such weather is not survivable long term [1] without air conditioning. A power failure would be disastrous. [1] https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/humans-cant-endure-t...

Try living in Goa in the monsoon season. Or even rewatch Apocalypse Now or basically any Vietnam war movie. I assure you, even 36C/100% is survivable.

[deleted]

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#12

Post by leoedin »

cromulent wrote: post #2

A friend of mine who lives in Queensland (Sunshine Coast) was talking about a recent spell of 32° and 100% humidity and how oppressive it was. My understanding is that such weather is not survivable long term [1] without air conditioning. A power failure would be disastrous. [1] https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/humans-cant-endure-t...

It is scary - but I suspect the headline temperatures/humidity aren't the only story. We can build passive structures to regulate peak temperatures - caves and windowless insulated boxes with high thermal mass, for instance. As long as the average temperatures (day and night) over a few days or a week are survivable, active cooling isn't strictly necessary.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#14

Post by coldtea »

Fun fact I remember reading in some studies: increased heat increases tendency for violence.

Ah, not the ones I had in mind, but these will do:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/16/two-new-s...

https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/308Readings/Anderson2001...

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#15

Post by coldtea »

leoedin wrote: post #12
cromulent wrote: post #2

A friend of mine who lives in Queensland (Sunshine Coast) was talking about a recent spell of 32° and 100% humidity and how oppressive it was. My understanding is that such weather is not survivable long term [1] without air conditioning. A power failure would be disastrous. [1] https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/humans-cant-endure-t...

It is scary - but I suspect the headline temperatures/humidity aren't the only story. We can build passive structures to regulate peak temperatures - caves and windowless insulated boxes with high thermal mass, for instance. As long as the average temperatures (day and night) over a few days or a week are survivable, active cooling isn't strictly necessary.

>We can build passive structures to regulate peak temperatures - caves and windowless insulated boxes with high thermal mass, for instance. As long as the average temperatures (day and night) over a few days or a week are survivable, active cooling isn't strictly necessary.

Survival is a consolation, but if we need to start living in caves and windowless insulated boxes, then those are not very reassuring news...

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#16

Post by coldtea »

lstodd wrote: post #3
cromulent wrote: post #2

A friend of mine who lives in Queensland (Sunshine Coast) was talking about a recent spell of 32° and 100% humidity and how oppressive it was. My understanding is that such weather is not survivable long term [1] without air conditioning. A power failure would be disastrous. [1] https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/humans-cant-endure-t...

Try living in Goa in the monsoon season. Or even rewatch Apocalypse Now or basically any Vietnam war movie. I assure you, even 36C/100% is survivable.

>I assure you, even 36C/100% is survivable

Survivable is a pretty low bar.

Also, "survivable but kills babies, the elderly, and the sick in much greater numbers than they die today" doesn't have the same shine as survivable for everybody...

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#17

Post by rokkamokka »

lstodd wrote: post #3
cromulent wrote: post #2

A friend of mine who lives in Queensland (Sunshine Coast) was talking about a recent spell of 32° and 100% humidity and how oppressive it was. My understanding is that such weather is not survivable long term [1] without air conditioning. A power failure would be disastrous. [1] https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/humans-cant-endure-t...

Try living in Goa in the monsoon season. Or even rewatch Apocalypse Now or basically any Vietnam war movie. I assure you, even 36C/100% is survivable.

It is a guaranteed death if continued for more than a brief while. With evaporative cooling not functioning and the temperature too high, you have no effective way to cool down. Any burning of calories, even without exertion, will heat you up.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#18

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

defrost wrote: post #8
cromulent wrote: post #2

A friend of mine who lives in Queensland (Sunshine Coast) was talking about a recent spell of 32° and 100% humidity and how oppressive it was. My understanding is that such weather is not survivable long term [1] without air conditioning. A power failure would be disastrous. [1] https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/humans-cant-endure-t...

We had a run of five days at 45 C and near 50% humidity here in W.Australia last month - bit unpleasant. Later in the month the days that were 30 C and 90% humidity felt worse when working.

Unpleasant? Ken oath. It started to push the limits of my AC.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#19

Post by ponector »

seiferteric wrote: post #13

This is why I think we should be seriously considering atmospheric aerosol injection already. Not sure why there aren't more large government funded studies of this.

Who should pay for it? No one really wants to spend money on something like that.

People don't want to spend 0.1% of GDP to help survive people in Ukraine and you think they care how hot is there for the people of Australia?

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#20

Post by wiz21c »

fta: "Our best hope in the face of inevitable rises in heat? Cooperation. “We’ve built forecasting systems that will warn us when disasters are incoming by working together at enormous scale. We must continue to do the same.”

This sentence basically says "we don't need to make less disasters, just better handle them".

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