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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

#41

Post by darkerside »

safety1st wrote: post #36
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.

With high enough heat, a fan will only make things worse, no?

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#43

Post by beAbU »

hackerlight wrote: post #33
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.

Smol nit: immigration means moving into a country. In your example we'll see a lot of emigration, people moving out of the country. You emigrate from one country and thereafter you immigrate into another.

Mnemonic: IN=IMmigrate, EXIT=Emigrate

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#44

Post by renegade-otter »

tapland wrote: post #37
renegade-otter wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 =/

Europe in general needs to get with the program. The States have AC'd everything - busses, elevators, train stations, etc.

Ice coffee in Europe is not a thing! Ask for it and you will be looked at funny. And even the "cold" drinks from the fridge in a store are just below room temperature.

I don't get it.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#46

Post by marcinzm »

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".

To me it says "we'll never succeed at making fewer disasters given how we've done so far, so we better learn to handle them better."

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#47

Post by netsharc »

sgu999 wrote: post #22
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...

This is the plot of the Ministry for the Future [0]. Power failure during a prolonged wet bulb temperature above 35°C, millions of dead. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future

Is it a plot? It's an event that happens in chapter 1 and paints a "this is what will happen" scenario. The whole chapter is available here: https://www.orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts/the-ministry-for-t...

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#48

Post by brazzy »

donatj wrote: post #31
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 li…

The point is that at some sufficiently high humidity, fans and wet rags do not help any more, at all! Combine that with sufficiently high temperatures, and it's not survivable. And will kill people with weak circulatory systems (i.e. the elderly and babies) quite a bit earlier.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#49

Post by codebolt »

hackerlight wrote: post #39
jijijijij wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

Or the hysteria was overblown, and we instead sabotaged an opportunity for many of the people living near the equator to become more prosperous.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#50

Post by LilBytes »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #5
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...

Much of Queensland's population lives on the coast, so those who can tolerate the sun could at least seek some reprieve in the ocean. As long as cold water is running, people can also use tap water to cool themselves down, though it will turn into a swampy mess when none of it evaporates. Perhaps public shaded pools with a cool water source will become critical public infrastructure to help people survive heat waves…

Brisbane checking in. Wish we were near the coast. :(
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