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Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

bbc.com

41–50 of 124 posts

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#41

France is rich country and AC might be considered in people from certain age It's not the first heat wave and from the speed the global warning is heading, we might see many more heat waves in the near future

Why worry when according to alarmist politicians in the U.S. we only have “12 years left”. I find these claims, and those similar from “activists” like Greta Thunberg, wholly unproductive both to steps taken to actually curb climate change and legitimate science. Society isn’t going to cease growing and moving forward just because of climate change. It is unfortunately a reality that must be dealt with by creation an…

[deleted]

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#42
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and yes. Heatwaves like the one experienced in Spain have been extraordinarily long. We experience heat waves all summers and they usually last 2-3 days. This one lasted 1 week. And last year we had 2 heat waves 5 days each. I am talking about ~40 degrees every day. At night barely 28. You can compare historical data here (es) http://www.aemet.es/es/idi/clima/registros_climaticos You can look at the median yearly…

Would people be able to physically adapt to longer periods of higer temperatures? I mean, it is around 40 degrees every day for most of the two months of hot season where I live. And a lot of people don't have air conditioning. On the hottest days they sit around in the village in the shade, drinking a lot and not moving much. Lots of complaining but we don't hear much about heat related deaths.

Adaptation works until the wet bulb temperature is above human body temperature, at which point you'll just slowly broil since you can't lose energy by sweating. Not very likely to get there in Europe, but other (hotter, wetter) countries may.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#43

France is rich country and AC might be considered in people from certain age It's not the first heat wave and from the speed the global warning is heading, we might see many more heat waves in the near future

Why worry when according to alarmist politicians in the U.S. we only have “12 years left”. I find these claims, and those similar from “activists” like Greta Thunberg, wholly unproductive both to steps taken to actually curb climate change and legitimate science. Society isn’t going to cease growing and moving forward just because of climate change. It is unfortunately a reality that must be dealt with by creation an…

Society grew because we made laws to protect people from killing and stealing from each other. Now for society to keep growing we have to make new laws that do not allow people to kill others with pollution and its effects.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#44
post #34

I live in Texas. The heat wave that France is experienced this summer is like maybe 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a normal summer for us. Preparedness for summer is deeply ingrained in everyone's minds here. Many Apartment complexes treat issues with AC units as emergency situations, reach out to on-call handymen and give high priority to their fix. In the city of Dallas, city code requires that property owne…

In France it's very very uncommon to have AC.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#46
post #34

I live in Texas. The heat wave that France is experienced this summer is like maybe 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a normal summer for us. Preparedness for summer is deeply ingrained in everyone's minds here. Many Apartment complexes treat issues with AC units as emergency situations, reach out to on-call handymen and give high priority to their fix. In the city of Dallas, city code requires that property owne…

It doesn't make sense to have AC preparedness when it's only used for 1 week out of a year.

Also the environmental impact of everyone having an AC, that's not good.

In France and the UK hardly any has an AC because it's not really needed. Your suggestion is that they spend billions of dollars for this? Who buys everyone the AC?

I lived in PNG which is near the equator and hot. It's not the temperature that's the true problem, but humidity. We stayed cool by using the fan, resting, removing clothing, swimming.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#47
post #34

I live in Texas. The heat wave that France is experienced this summer is like maybe 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a normal summer for us. Preparedness for summer is deeply ingrained in everyone's minds here. Many Apartment complexes treat issues with AC units as emergency situations, reach out to on-call handymen and give high priority to their fix. In the city of Dallas, city code requires that property owne…

The people of France aren't ignorant. They have just acclimated to a climate that is rapidly getting hotter.

It would be patronizing if French people offered basic advice on not building on floodplains and storm preparation after Harvey. People just plan based on their prior experiences.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#48
post #34

I live in Texas. The heat wave that France is experienced this summer is like maybe 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a normal summer for us. Preparedness for summer is deeply ingrained in everyone's minds here. Many Apartment complexes treat issues with AC units as emergency situations, reach out to on-call handymen and give high priority to their fix. In the city of Dallas, city code requires that property owne…

Maybe more appropriate topic of discussion should be how climate change affects the people of France and what can be done about it, instead of chastising them for not having Dallas housing codes.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#49
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and yes. Heatwaves like the one experienced in Spain have been extraordinarily long. We experience heat waves all summers and they usually last 2-3 days. This one lasted 1 week. And last year we had 2 heat waves 5 days each. I am talking about ~40 degrees every day. At night barely 28. You can compare historical data here (es) http://www.aemet.es/es/idi/clima/registros_climaticos You can look at the median yearly…

Would people be able to physically adapt to longer periods of higer temperatures? I mean, it is around 40 degrees every day for most of the two months of hot season where I live. And a lot of people don't have air conditioning. On the hottest days they sit around in the village in the shade, drinking a lot and not moving much. Lots of complaining but we don't hear much about heat related deaths.

We have already physically adapted to different environments. People in Africa can stand higher temperatures. People in Scandinavia can withstand lower temperatures. This is what "races" are, humans adapted to their environments.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#50
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and yes. Heatwaves like the one experienced in Spain have been extraordinarily long. We experience heat waves all summers and they usually last 2-3 days. This one lasted 1 week. And last year we had 2 heat waves 5 days each. I am talking about ~40 degrees every day. At night barely 28. You can compare historical data here (es) http://www.aemet.es/es/idi/clima/registros_climaticos You can look at the median yearly…

That graph suggest that climate change has caused a 2 degree change in the last 50 year. No one believes that—the number is more like 1 degree in the last hundred. And anyway, we’re talking about outlier heat waves, not yearly medians.

One degree globally, perhaps, but then there can be regional variation that's larger. The Washington Post just ran a long story (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climat...) on a region in Uruguay that's been heating up more rapidly. Quoting from that article:

"Straddling the equator, the tropics are already hot because they receive the most sunlight. As the sun hits the tropics, enormous columns of air rise skyward and then outward. But as greenhouse gases trap more heat, those columns of air are pushed farther toward the north and south poles. Air that rises in the tropics falls back down over the middle latitudes. With a warming planet, though, the air is falling in different places. ... Near Uruguay, the Brazil Current collides with the cold and nutrient-rich Malvinas Current that flows north from waters off Argentina. Where the two currents meet — what is known as the “confluence” — features sudden temperature contrasts and fosters rich fisheries. But that zone, too, is on the move. Research suggests it is shifting southward at a rate of more than 40 miles per decade."

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