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Mornings and nights no longer exist at 47C: A day in the hottest place in India

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Mornings and nights no longer exist at 47C: A day in the hottest place in India

#31

Post by fyjmff »

elcritch wrote: post #20
probably_wrong wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone's footprint is the same, though. If I cut down my plane flight in half that means I'll take a plane every two years, meaning I'll also see my family half as much. You'd also have to include that, since I travel economy, you'd divide my contribution by ~350. If Taylor Swift cuts her plane travel by half she'd "only" make 51 trips a year [1] on a plane that carries 12 and would still make more money in a y…

I didn't say we're all equally culpable. We're not. Yet en masse we're all guilty to some degree. There's only what 10's of thousands Taylor Swifts in the world. Yet there's billions of everyone else. The majority of greenhouse gasses likely come from the aggregate of everyone.

[dead]

Re: Mornings and nights no longer exist at 47C: A day in the hottest place in India

#33

Post by II2II »

elcritch wrote: post #20
probably_wrong wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone's footprint is the same, though. If I cut down my plane flight in half that means I'll take a plane every two years, meaning I'll also see my family half as much. You'd also have to include that, since I travel economy, you'd divide my contribution by ~350. If Taylor Swift cuts her plane travel by half she'd "only" make 51 trips a year [1] on a plane that carries 12 and would still make more money in a y…

I didn't say we're all equally culpable. We're not. Yet en masse we're all guilty to some degree. There's only what 10's of thousands Taylor Swifts in the world. Yet there's billions of everyone else. The majority of greenhouse gasses likely come from the aggregate of everyone.

It doesn't always work that way.

A personal example: I don't drive. I use public transit a couple of times a year. I am in private cars maybe once every two year. I haven't flown in about 15 years. Clearly this is a contrived example. My energy use patterns are much more typical when using other metrics. That said, it is also the flip side of being a Taylor Swift of the world. There is a point in the developed world where the millions are using much more energy than the thousands.

I said developed world because there are also parts of the world that simply don't have access to my gratuitous level of energy use. To say that they are guilty of contributing based upon the technicality that they are directly or indirectly using a disproportionately small amount of energy is beyond insulting. It is also a blatant way to paper over our responsibility.

Re: Mornings and nights no longer exist at 47C: A day in the hottest place in India

#35

Post by polski-g »

scott_w wrote: post #14
antonymoose wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Pretty sure there’s a middle ground between “forced sterilisation” and “boil humans to death in 50°C heat,” don’t you?

Sterilize half of humans, and boil the other half?

Re: Mornings and nights no longer exist at 47C: A day in the hottest place in India

#36

Post by abdullahkhalids »

elcritch wrote: post #7
jyounker wrote: post #2

"But global warming is a hoax. And even if it wasn't it's not our fault. People couldn't be the cause. And even if it is our fault there's nothing we could do about it." We have broken our world for the greed of a few. History will not be kind to us.

See I could agree with the first part. But then you add We have broken our world for the greed of a few . After that I sort of understand why so many folks reject the former – they're rejecting the empty moralizing. If you truly believe climate change is real then also admit that "We all have broken the world", except perhaps some uncontacted peoples in the Amazon. Anyone who has ridden in an automobile, a train, a p…

There are only about 1.6 billion cars in the world. Only about 20% of the world population has access to a personal car. Less than that have ever ridden a plane, and less than 10% fly with any regularity.

A super majority of greenhouse gases emitted are due to the lives of the top 20-30% of the population (of which unfortunately I am a part). The remaining people's contributions are small. 80:20 rule in full glory.

Worst of all, the 80% are the most impacted by climate change as TFA illustrates.

Re: Mornings and nights no longer exist at 47C: A day in the hottest place in India

#37

Post by LeifCarrotson »

Reminds me of the opening to "Ministry for the Future" by Kim Stanley Robinson.

In that book, a wet bulb event (high humidity and high temp) in India pushes infrastructure past the breaking point, the grid goes down, AC systems still running on generators are overloaded and overcrowded and fail, the water temp goes over body temp, and millions die.

The positive cultural/societal reaction to the disaster strained my suspension of disbelief pretty hard, as is typical of KSR novels in my experience, but the idea of a heat wave causing a massive catastrophe (and the poignant description of attempting to live through it) stuck with me.

Re: Mornings and nights no longer exist at 47C: A day in the hottest place in India

#39

Post by RegW »

childofhedgehog wrote: post #5

We know that cutting down trees increases heat and intensifies drought but we continue to do it, how bad do things need to get before we reverse course?

... when we find that it also affects us - sat on our fat backsides in our air conditioned gold plated ballrooms.

Re: Mornings and nights no longer exist at 47C: A day in the hottest place in India

#40

Post by cute_boi »

dieselgate wrote: post #23

> Poor people don't have the luxury of worrying about the heat Just.. damn man > For eight or nine days, temperatures of 47-48C continued without a break Wasn't sure if the night time temps stayed that hot due to some factor but it appears that's the daytime high. > Overnight temperatures remain around 30C.

In India even middle class people can't afford AC. However, Indian government and musk is worried about falling birth rate.
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