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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

#71

Post by ethanbond »

elzbardico wrote: post #55
lstodd wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People need sometime to build tolerance to a given temperature. Someone who lives in Manaus or Belem do Para, Brazilian Amazonia would have a hard time getting used even to daily averages around 40F, and vice-versa.

No, the temperature being described here is extremely lethal within hours even to heat-adapted people.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#72

Post by masklinn »

brazzy wrote: post #48
donatj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It also causes long-term damage (e.g. loss of kidney function) to healthy individuals. This is an issue that’s been tracked for a decade in mesoamerican field workers.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#73

Post by saalweachter »

huppeldepup wrote: post #65
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…

The 2003 heatwave killed 70.000+ in Europe. But nobody seems to remember/know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heatwave

And also made European forests a net CO2 producer for the year, IIRC.

Photosynthesis doesn't work well at high temperatures, so instead plants switch to respiration, burning their stored sugars for energy while taking in oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. Which, you know, is why plants produce those sugars in the first place, not to magnanimously produce oxygen/scrub CO2 for us.

Heat-waves, with lots of days over 40C/100F, will also wreak havoc on our agriculture.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#74

Post by osigurdson »

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...

Interesting as large swaths of humanity would die if utilities (electricity, water, gas) shut down for long periods of time. I would have died at least twice this winter for example.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#75

Post by _heimdall »

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.

Before we start filling our atmosphere with theoretical solutions, shouldn't we reduce as much of emissions and consumption and possible?

We humans consume an insane amount of natural resources. We have built many of our societies around global interdependence. We produce a constant flood of stuff that is consumed quickly and discarded.

We could make a big impact simply shifting to more local economies. For example, a recent lead poisoning issue in the US was tracked back to apple sauce pouches sold at the dollar store. Little could be done legally because of how complex the supply chain was. I don't remember all the details, but multiple countries were involved from growing the apples, processing the apple sauces, packaging, etc.

We don't need such insane systems all powered by energy consumption. We just need local sources of damn apples for our kids to snack on.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#76

Post by nicbou »

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…

Wet bulb temperature is the lowest temperature to which air can be cooled by the evaporation of water into the air (sweating, evaporative cooling).

If that temperature exceeds the body's max temperature, the clock starts ticking. If you stay, you die. It's not just very hot.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#77

Post by brabel »

renegade-otter wrote: post #44
tapland wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Ice coffee in Europe is not a thing!

What?! How long haven't you been here?? I can't remember not having wide varieties of iced coffee, frapuccinos etc. in basically any cafe I've been to in at least 10 years... Europe is not a single place though, so perhaps you mean a certain part of Europe (I am familiar with France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Austria, Poland, Belarus and a few more surrounding these countries)!?

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#78

Post by cogman10 »

huppeldepup wrote: post #65
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…

The 2003 heatwave killed 70.000+ in Europe. But nobody seems to remember/know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heatwave

The issue there is a lot of homes throughout europe at the time had no air conditioning, just heaters. This included things like nursing homes.

They were basically relying on the fact that historically above 90F (32C) temperatures were unheard of.

Now it's so common that there's been a rush to install AC and heatpumps throughout.

https://www.eurodev.com/blog/europe-hvac-market

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#79

Post by adrianN »

wwilim wrote: post #40
infotainment wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

If only everyone voted for parties who don't deny science...

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#80

Post by brabel »

ethanbond wrote: post #71
elzbardico wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need sometime to build tolerance to a given temperature. Someone who lives in Manaus or Belem do Para, Brazilian Amazonia would have a hard time getting used even to daily averages around 40F, and vice-versa.

No, the temperature being described here is extremely lethal within hours even to heat-adapted people.

While you're correct, I suppose that people who live in already warm areas with high humidity to tend to build more resistance, and would be the "last to die" compared to people from, say, Europe.
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