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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

#31

Post by donatj »

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...

I grew up poor and without AC in Minnesota where we regularly get spells of 100°F+ (37.7°C) at VERY high humidity thanks to all the lakes. It’s survivable, it’s absolutely not pleasant though and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Fans and wet rags help some. I used to fill a 2-liter bottle with cold water and hold it against my chest. A lot of sleepless nights. When we got a local second run $2 movie theater, it was a literal godsend.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#32

Post by infotainment »

nedrylandJP wrote: post #29

Don't worry, our lawmakers will save us. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/08/florida-bill...

Can we just declare political entities who push climate negative policies an existential threat to humanity and neutralize them?

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#33

Post by hackerlight »

tvbv wrote: post #26

The scientific litterature and IPCC’s summaries warned about these phenomenon. When 2 billion people will be living under wet bulb temperature that can’t be tanked by the body it’s going to be a mess worldwide.

People who live in the humid tropics are already on a knife's edge. A small increase makes the heat intolerable and you will see either mass death or mass waves of immigration. "Just build aircon" doesn't work when you're talking about people with intermittent (or no) electricity and who have an annual income equal to a single aircon unit.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#34

Post by mr_person »

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...

Can confirm. Its disgusting.

I am also a grumpy fart right now because the night time temperature has not dropped below 20degrees since, like, November[1]. If I tried to aircon that like I do most of the day time, I would wake up a sinusy coughing mess...

Sure, 30degrees and 90+ humidity is survivable, but only just.

[1] https://7news.com.au/news/brisbane-set-to-break-record-of-da...

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#35

Post by jijijijij »

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...

The thing to think about, is how poorly developed, rural places, without ACs or stable grids, are much more likely to experience heat waves with universally fatal wet-bulb temperatures. Places like parts of India or Bangladesh with high population densities, too.

Further more, I think, we also need to consider how non-survivable conditions to humans, may play out for other animals we depend on. The cows, chicken, sheep and goats? All dead. But consider also the impact on ecosystems, when birds and predators may die in large quantities in a short time - these ecosystems may completely collapse. Great impact on food security in affected regions. Not to mention disease dynamics when pathogens experience body-like conditions outside the body, and all the decay and death around. I am not sure all plants would make it either, since they need evaporation of water from their leaves, too, to transport nutrients from the soil upwards - and with halted transport, may not be able to fight fungi and so on.

Now, this threat may not come as a gradual trend, but may introduce itself as single (first) freak heat-wave killing hundred thousands of people all at once. A whole region may get the message their land is not habitable for humans anymore. Imagine the migration pressure as a consequence. I don't think a poor country could ever properly adapt to frequent non-survivable temperatures sustainably...

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#36

Post by safety1st »

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...

Millions of people already live in these conditions (temperature in the low 30s, constant high humidity) in the tropics so I am skeptical about that study.

It sucks for me in those conditions but a lot of locals say they're used to it. The general strategy without AC is to minimize activity during the hottest part of the day and keep a fan on you.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#37

Post by tapland »

renegade-otter wrote: post #30
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...

That's a typical summer night in NYC. We did not have AC one summer, it was VERY unpleasant. I couldn't sleep, but - probably not fatal if you chug tons of water.

At that humidity level you can't cool by sweating.

We've had days like that in southern Sweden, near the coast with very high humidity.

I'm starting to go crazy over us not having ACs, and windows that are really hard to get working well with a portable ac.

Retirement homes celebrate getting ice cream machines, but still lack AC and the deaths during summer are significantly higher =/

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#38

Post by wolfram74 »

wiz21c wrote: post #20

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".

Well, the global system has a lot of mass. It'll take time to fix the things we've messed up. To survive in the interim while we do that, there'll need to be some harm mitigation measures.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#39

Post by hackerlight »

jijijijij wrote: post #35
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...

The thing to think about, is how poorly developed, rural places, without ACs or stable grids , are much more likely to experience heat waves with universally fatal wet-bulb temperatures. Places like parts of India or Bangladesh with high population densities, too. Further more, I think, we also need to consider how non-survivable conditions to humans, may play out for other animals we depend on. The cows, chicken, sh…

[flagged]

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#40

Post by wwilim »

infotainment wrote: post #32
nedrylandJP wrote: post #29

Don't worry, our lawmakers will save us. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/08/florida-bill...

Can we just declare political entities who push climate negative policies an existential threat to humanity and neutralize them?

If only everybody everywhere voted for left-wing parties instead of right-wing populists...
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