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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

#111

Post by chasil »

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…

As opposed to our current icehouse phase, plants have thrived during intense greenhouse periods of global climate.

"Earth has been in a greenhouse state for about 85% of its history... Earth is now in an icehouse state, and ice sheets are present in both poles simultaneously."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Eart...

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#112

Post by torstenvl »

ethanbond wrote: post #110
torstenvl wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Good point. Once you look past ideology, water is everywhere to be found. “You just dig up water! Duh!” - Person from The Land of 10,000 Lakes Brilliant. Couldn’t make it up.

Everywhere there are people, yes, it is. People cannot survive without water, heat wave or no.

EDIT: To respond to your edits: I'm not from Minnesota. And it's hard to imagine what kind of formation would lead you to believe wells only work in places like that.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#113

Post by mistermann »

adrianN wrote: post #79
wwilim wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Ah yes, our two most sacred institutions: democracy and science, neither of which have a (literally) actionable plan to solve the problem at its source: human behavior.

The twin hills that humanity may die on if something doesn't happen to wake people up to their foolishness.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#114

Post by tsss »

cogman10 wrote: post #78
huppeldepup wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They're pushing heatpumps out of some misplaced effort to reduce emissions, not to improve climate control in homes. Nobody I know in Germany has AC except commercial buildings and rich people. They couldn't afford to run it anyway with the highest electricity prices in the world.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#115

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

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...

Good thing the problem is as easily solved by going 6 ft underground, or getting in a cold bath.

Patna India typically has weather like this for two months a year and probably a million people live there without A/C (just fine): https://weatherspark.com/y/111069/Average-Weather-in-Patna-I...

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#117

Post by bloomingeek »

darkerside wrote: post #41
safety1st wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I can only reply with my experience, if you had access to water to put on your body in a hot area with a fan, you would get some evaporation. If there's no easy access to water, then shade, IMO, is the best option. Hot, blown air on a very hot day is almost painful.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#118

Post by olalonde »

jijijijij wrote: post #54
codebolt wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> an opportunity for many of the people living near the equator to become more prosperous Please tell us, what you have in mind. More economic growth?

Yes, of course. There's a reason why people in developing countries are the least concerned about pollution or global warming. It's because economic growth has a much greater positive impact on their lives than an imperceptibly slow warming of the planet.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#119

Post by ethanbond »

torstenvl wrote: post #112
ethanbond wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Once you look past ideology, water is everywhere to be found. “You just dig up water! Duh!” - Person from The Land of 10,000 Lakes Brilliant. Couldn’t make it up.

Everywhere there are people, yes, it is. People cannot survive without water, heat wave or no. EDIT: To respond to your edits: I'm not from Minnesota. And it's hard to imagine what kind of formation would lead you to believe wells only work in places like that.

Does heat increase, decrease, or not affect people’s need for water?

> Everywhere there are people, there is water

LOL. Yeah bud, that’s because people have to leave when they run out of water, otherwise they die. That is the whole problem.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#120

Post by throwaway392021 »

cogman10 wrote: post #78
huppeldepup wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Most of the deaths happened in southern Europe, where temperatures above 32 °C are common in July and temperatures reaching 40 °C are not unheard of.
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