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Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning

lse.ac.uk

201–210 of 505 posts

Re: Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning

#201
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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I've always assumed there is some sort of "acclimation" period, maybe even related to the conditions you grew up in. I much would rather spend a time outside in -40c (with proper outerwear) than 40c. I'm relatively healthy but I feel like my body shuts down at anything above 36c

My understanding is that full heat acclimatization requires elevated core body temperature for 30-60 minutes a day for several weeks to really kick in and it’s easily lost during winter. Someone going largely from air conditioned to air conditioned building during the summer months may not even build up much of a passive acclimatization.

I don’t do as well in heat so for the summer hiking months in California so I have to do a two week sauna or hot bath protocol, otherwise I struggle really badly during the season. YMMV of course.

Re: Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning

#202
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That heat goes out into the world, it doesn’t just disappear

Eventually radiates out into space ;-) It doesn’t disappear, but we don’t need to care much about infrared passing Alpha Centauri.

Except we have an lot of greenhouse gases that are really good at reflecting that infrared back down to earth.

Re: Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning

#203
post #169

Europeans don’t get scolded enough for their resistance to air conditioning. In terms of accounting for preventable deaths, Greece has 2x more heat-related deaths per capita annually than Mississippi has gun deaths. By comparison, the worst US state for heat related deaths, Nevada - a literal desert - has >10x fewer deaths per capita than Greece.

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> us simply cannot have AC

Im really curious how this works. Do standalone units not exist?

Re: Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning

#204
post #91
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more that air conditioning is (currently) prohibitively expensive. The few people I know that have it spent several thousands of euros on their installations. That's not something most people have lying around. You'd think the government could subsidize aircon like they did solar for years, and both of those things combined would translate to very pleasant summers spent in energy neutral air conditioned…

You don't even need an expensive AC. If you can't afford one, you can just get an evaporative cooler[1] for $100 or lesser[2]. Possibly even cheaper if you don't mind buying a second-hand unit. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler [2] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Evaporative+cooler

The main reason high heat causes issues in Europe is due to the high humidity, so you can't get rid of body heat as your sweat won't evaporate. It's why 35C in the shade might be perfectly fine in Nevada but absolute hell in the UK.

For exactly the same reason an evaporative cooler isn't going to work: there's no "space" in the air for the water to evaporate into.

Re: Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning

#205

Europeans don’t get scolded enough for their resistance to air conditioning. In terms of accounting for preventable deaths, Greece has 2x more heat-related deaths per capita annually than Mississippi has gun deaths. By comparison, the worst US state for heat related deaths, Nevada - a literal desert - has >10x fewer deaths per capita than Greece.

Are you echoing rants from Levels? He has a point but the death rate stats he posts comparing US to EU are bogus, incomparable measures. These places record heat related deaths differently which accounts for a large part of the difference. If you have better sources on this than he does, please share.

Re: Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning

#206
post #178

Europeans don’t get scolded enough for their resistance to air conditioning. In terms of accounting for preventable deaths, Greece has 2x more heat-related deaths per capita annually than Mississippi has gun deaths. By comparison, the worst US state for heat related deaths, Nevada - a literal desert - has >10x fewer deaths per capita than Greece.

Well yeah, because it requires re-engineering the entire built environment! Heat waves only became a serious problem in Europe in the last decade. The vast majority of buildings predate the need for air conditioning by several decades - and in plenty of cases by several centuries. The buildings are designed around being livable in a pre-climate-catastrophe climate without needing air conditioning - which is perfectly…

An AC unit essentially requires just a small hole in the wall and a bracket to hold the compressor unit. Europeans have walls don't they? I'm European and I have a wall that could host an AC unit. The barrier is regulatory not engineering.

Re: Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning

#208

Europeans don’t get scolded enough for their resistance to air conditioning. In terms of accounting for preventable deaths, Greece has 2x more heat-related deaths per capita annually than Mississippi has gun deaths. By comparison, the worst US state for heat related deaths, Nevada - a literal desert - has >10x fewer deaths per capita than Greece.

In the UK and other European locations maybe this is related to some of the highest electricity costs in the world.

Re: Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning

#209
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arrogance isn't going to hold against the sun. You mean against human-induced global warming.

Keep dying from the heat while the oligarchs live their lives in villas near expensive lakes.

The thing about rich people is their life is only possible by paying enough people to fight entropy. Robotics isn't advanced, and nobody rich is even close to being smart enough to be able to maintain equipment on their own.

Re: Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning

#210
post #187
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it raises the heat outside of buildings. No it doesn't. Seriously, where does this meme even come from? It should be pretty obvious just from a solar insolation map that AC is just noise vs the sun. The energy usage is tiny vs vehicles or non-heat pump heating and only electric. What changes temperature overall is the balance of thermal retention by the atmosphere vs radiation into space, hence why net increase…

The way AC works is by transferring heat from one place (inside) to somewhere else (outside), and it takes energy to do this which produces even more heat, which is generally in the outside part of the AC system. This isn't something you can engineer away either, it's a result of the second law of thermodynamics. Is that increase small compared to other things, like surfaces that absorb more solar radiation? Maybe. I…

The difference in ambient temperature due to air conditioning pumping heat outside is unmeasurably low. If all the power a city uses went to AC, it'd still be negligible compared with the sun irradiation on its surface.
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