Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave • Hacker News Board

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#221

Post by allisdust » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:24 PM UTC

7sidedmarble wrote: post #213

allisdust wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly because it starts with a Indian heat wave that kills 20 million people in a couple of days. Beyond that its a load of gibberish glorifying eco terrorism and full blown woke politics. Basically its written to be the extreme left's wet dream of breakdown in global order and bringing to heel the 'global elite'. It is difficult to move past the heavy pro communist overtones and the whole narrative lurches into man…

>I wouldn't be surprised if this is their first novel and reads like a middle school essay of some kind. It's Kim Stanley Robinson...

My bad. I didn't lookup the Author name. I am a fan of his Mars trilogy. I don't know why the writing style is so crappy in this one. I tried pushing forward but its just hard. Its actually a lot similar to the Red faction in the Mars trilogy. That rabid faction never made any sense to me in those novels and the same pre assumed moral superiority didn't make much sense in the new novel.

I prized the trilogy for its vivid descriptions of the Mars in the beginning to how it was transformed using technology. The pace was good and never boring. Not so in this latest one - some characters and their feelings are given so much space in the book without moving the plot - like that character who survived the heat wave - by the 3rd of the book, you would wish he didn't - just chapters and chapters of PTSD descriptions.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#222

Post by ricardobayes » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

35mm wrote: post #65

Instead of relying solely on air conditioning, which often adds to greenhouse gas emissions if run on fossil power, there are a number of passive solar design strategies that work without additional energy: - Solar chimneys draw cool air in when it’s sunny via pressure differential - Building orientation along with natural shading from deciduous trees prevent excessive solar insolation heating the building - Building…

Spanish houses are made of ventilated brick without insulation so they stay really nice even when outside temps are touching 40C. Of course the price to pay is it's 'freezing' between Jan-March.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#223

Post by ricardobayes » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:29 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #211

pseudostem wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deployed my own design (not calculated, eyeballed) of a buoyancy based passive cooling at my parents home near Mumbai, India. It did make a measured difference of approximately (temperature meters aren't very accurate) 2 degrees Celsius. I have been reading a lot in my spare time and your blog looks like a nice read. My point is, is 2 to 3 degrees Celsius enough? From what I read is that I need to really move very…

At some point the thing to do is give people shovels and tell them the roof of their new dwelling has to be at least 2 meters/6 feet below the surface. Or use modern tech.

Got a point there, we as a species lived in 'caves' for a long time, it's only the past 2000 years or so we gave up our nice caves/mud houses. In my region in Europe people still lived in straw mudhuts/semi dug-in houses up until 100 years ago. Somehow that became uncool so we deal with modern people problems.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#224

Post by giraffe_lady » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:30 PM UTC

kevin_morrill wrote: post #220

giraffe_lady wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an internally consistent moral argument that terrorism is warranted in this situation eg Malm's "How to Blow Up a Pipeline." The basic argument is that peaceful protest is effective when it is an alternative to a more militant and disruptive extremist movement with the same goals. You negotiate with the peaceful side so the violent side doesn't tear your shit down. When there is no extremist movement, you rea…

I get what you’re saying but is the track record of terrorism any better at causing constructive change? Really we need to engage a lot of people’s minds, and that just turns out to be really hard in our current culture no matter what angle you come at it from.

No, what I'm saying is that understanding peaceful movements separate from violent ones is missing the point. For example martin luther king jr's peaceful civil rights movement was effective in part because there was a credible threat of a violent movement on its wing. There was conflict and cooperation between these movements, they can't be cleanly separated. A lot of the reason white people came to the negotiating table at all was because of fear of what would happen instead if they didn't.

Whose minds do we need to change? Climate change is a major issue with massive popular support. There are relatively few people actually able to take action on it and they will not under the current circumstances. Specifically because there's no credible non-peaceful consequence they have to confront, they can ignore the demands of everyone else.

The actual historical effectiveness of terrorism alone is questionable. It's not a reliable or sustainable way to change the minds of a large mass of people. But that's not actually what we need to do here. Making a powerful few frightened enough to do what they ought may be sufficient.

And the effectiveness of the credible threat of violence, combined with a mass peaceful movement, is well attested.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#225

Post by elevaet » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

ryukafalz wrote: post #166

halfdan wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transport hasn't solved the problem of "the last mile". How do I get to/from the train station/bus stop? Frequently you still need a car to even get there and then you will need parking - which is often limited and costs a lot. Then there's timeliness. Deutsche Bahn is known for frequently their trains are delayed. In summer, even on the Intercity connections (IC, ICE) trains will be filled to the brim and air…

Bikes are great for solving transit’s last-mile problem provided it’s at all close to the last mile and not, say, the last 15. E-bikes especially so. Beyond that, yes, transit schedules need to be frequent and reliable, with frequency especially being important if you have to make lots of transfers. It’s no big deal if you miss your train if another one will be there in a few minutes; if you have to wait 15-30 though…

Bikes are great for the last-10-mile problem, easily. I've got plenty of friends who cycle commute 15km+ each direction, each day, and are quite happy (and healthy) doing it.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#226

Post by ricardobayes » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

OccamsRazr wrote: post #132

sschueller wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow this has been lost over the years. I can especially see this in Zürich Switzerland where new office buildings being built are awful and there seems little thinking about temperature. Everything is managed by complex air systems to move air from one area to the other. On the other hand you go into a 200+ year old building and you notice it's cool in summer although there is no air conditioning. The building is…

As someone who was in Europe for one of the heatwaves of recent years, and whose appartment was in one of these older buildings designed this ways with thick walls etc., I can attest that this only works up to a point . This design relies on there being cold air for the building to retain. However, in a heatwave it doesn't even get cold at night. The result is your apartment gradually heating over a period of days /…

Northern Europe complains of the heat in the summer - they have nice radiators for the 7-9 months that need heating, Southern Europe complains of the winter cold because of the lack of insulation and central heating.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#227

Post by mistrial9 » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #211

pseudostem wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deployed my own design (not calculated, eyeballed) of a buoyancy based passive cooling at my parents home near Mumbai, India. It did make a measured difference of approximately (temperature meters aren't very accurate) 2 degrees Celsius. I have been reading a lot in my spare time and your blog looks like a nice read. My point is, is 2 to 3 degrees Celsius enough? From what I read is that I need to really move very…

At some point the thing to do is give people shovels and tell them the roof of their new dwelling has to be at least 2 meters/6 feet below the surface. Or use modern tech.

how does this work where there are heavy rains in that part of the world, each year? desert, sure..

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#228

Post by mistrial9 » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

ricardobayes wrote: post #223

ianai wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point the thing to do is give people shovels and tell them the roof of their new dwelling has to be at least 2 meters/6 feet below the surface. Or use modern tech.

Got a point there, we as a species lived in 'caves' for a long time, it's only the past 2000 years or so we gave up our nice caves/mud houses. In my region in Europe people still lived in straw mudhuts/semi dug-in houses up until 100 years ago. Somehow that became uncool so we deal with modern people problems.

"uncool" !@!

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#229

Post by K0balt » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

__alexs wrote: post #143

K0balt wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t matter. We are now in a feedback loop that will take us to +20c regardless of human emissions. Geoengineering is our only hope.

Cite your sources? This is 10x any estimate I've seen.

Look into the papers collected by the ipcc. The ipcc is the most conservative possible estimates that every member nation can unanimously agree on, and many are big carbon export nations.

Even the ipcc report this year says we are fubared.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#230

Post by ricardobayes » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:41 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #148

OccamsRazr wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was in Europe for one of the heatwaves of recent years, and whose appartment was in one of these older buildings designed this ways with thick walls etc., I can attest that this only works up to a point . This design relies on there being cold air for the building to retain. However, in a heatwave it doesn't even get cold at night. The result is your apartment gradually heating over a period of days /…

What Europe needs is heat pumps and lots of them. More efficient heating, simply run them in reverse during a heat wave for refrigeration. Most of the Continent is mild enough in winter that an air-loop heat pump will reliably heat throughout the winter, and these aren't more expensive to install than other heating systems, they're less energetically intense to operate, and they provide cooling on demand.

Problem with that is electricity is expensive in Europe. Of course as you know Europe varies a lot between Portugal and Romania. While the first has a balmy 10C in winter daily low, colder areas can easily have -10C, -15C at night. That's the minimum operating range of a heat pump. That's a 30C difference to work through. That's why they have cheap (Russian) gas, it has the biggest energy density (and nuclear). Ground-source heat pumps would work better in continental Europe but they are expensive to install (I have only seen them in new build villas).