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

bbc.co.uk

91–100 of 157 posts

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

#91
post #43
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also going to mention wet bulb temperatures as well. As horrible as the conditions described in the article is, it describes a very dry heat. Which means sweating and water can still help. The really scary thing will be when the wet bulb temperature goes above 35 degrees, and humans can only survive with AC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

For what it's worth they can live under ground [1][2], even build cities but they would have had to start that project some time ago. Before someone says it, yeah not everywhere and its not for everyone but in enough places and for enough people that we can adapt to heat and at least survive as a civilization. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsYmw6FtSIA Wyoming Tr…

You can live underground during extreme heat, you cannot build an underground shelter under extreme heat.

When the day comes do you think there will be room for everyone?

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

#92
post #91
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth they can live under ground [1][2], even build cities but they would have had to start that project some time ago. Before someone says it, yeah not everywhere and its not for everyone but in enough places and for enough people that we can adapt to heat and at least survive as a civilization. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsYmw6FtSIA Wyoming Tr…

You can live underground during extreme heat, you cannot build an underground shelter under extreme heat. When the day comes do you think there will be room for everyone?

you cannot build an underground shelter under extreme heat.

Yup. That's why I said,

"but they would have had to start that project some time ago"

When the day comes do you think there will be room for everyone?

Depends when the project starts, how much money goes into it based on the nations priority. There are subway systems in some countries designed for this purpose that can hold entire cities. Not entire nations but enough that a nation or civilization could be restarted. It would be a very rough start.

If countries started putting a small percentage of their GDP into building underground cities a few decades ago they could probably save most people. They would have to store up massive amounts of freeze dried food and have water treatment facilities that can hold lakes of drinkable water.

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

#93
post #43
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also going to mention wet bulb temperatures as well. As horrible as the conditions described in the article is, it describes a very dry heat. Which means sweating and water can still help. The really scary thing will be when the wet bulb temperature goes above 35 degrees, and humans can only survive with AC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

For what it's worth they can live under ground [1][2], even build cities but they would have had to start that project some time ago. Before someone says it, yeah not everywhere and its not for everyone but in enough places and for enough people that we can adapt to heat and at least survive as a civilization. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsYmw6FtSIA Wyoming Tr…

I stayed in a mongoloid home in Tunisia last year. It was lovely. It was a large, central, below-grade courtyard with dugout, underground rooms branching off it. The rooms were cool all day. By being below grade, the courtyard was in shade most of the day and didn't get too hot. Through clever tunneling, the rising heat generated a draft.

I also learned that mongoloid, at least in Tunisia, is not considered a derogatory term.

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

#94
post #75

What I find bizarre is the word "siesta" doesn't appear in this article. People have been working around the hot summer hours in Southern Europe for centuries. Until recent times it was part of the culture.

It's part of the culture where I live, but the heat keeps increasing. 45 in dry heat (unless you work outside) is fine if you get cooler nights to recover, but when you don't get a break, it's lethal. Also aircon helps you but adds significantly to the heat outside in urban areas, causing what feels like a vicious circle. Anyway, where I live aircon is not common and electricity costs are high.

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

#95
post #73
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.

True that it’s a few in a global sense but it’s almost every user of this website surely, the vast majority of whom will continue to “break the world” so to speak which makes this less a lament and more a boast.

No. It's really a small few. It's largely Republican politicians, especially Trump, protecting coal and petrochemical companies.

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

#96
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth they can live under ground [1][2], even build cities but they would have had to start that project some time ago. Before someone says it, yeah not everywhere and its not for everyone but in enough places and for enough people that we can adapt to heat and at least survive as a civilization. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsYmw6FtSIA Wyoming Tr…

I stayed in a mongoloid home in Tunisia last year. It was lovely. It was a large, central, below-grade courtyard with dugout, underground rooms branching off it. The rooms were cool all day. By being below grade, the courtyard was in shade most of the day and didn't get too hot. Through clever tunneling, the rising heat generated a draft. I also learned that mongoloid, at least in Tunisia, is not considered a derogat…

I believe you mean troglodyte homes. It's literal Greek for "hole-dweller" but become an insult by association.

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

#97
post #50

If you are reading this in your climate controlled northern hemisphere room, be reminded that the people suffering this are not just going to disappear, and they will need to live somewhere, somehow, and they will be more motivated than you will ever be. If you love your "western comfort" so much, the best thing you can do is to make sure other people than yourselves can also have a bare minimum of living conditions.

There needs to be a population decline in these places where living conditions are not amenable to human existence. Yet somehow theres over a billion people.

That's beside the point. Fact is, there are a billion people there now.

We can either make them want to stay there, away from our "western comforts" (blegh), or force them to stay there at the cost of the very comforts we wanted to keep for ourselves.

"If you let your neighbor's house burn, expect to breathe smoke"

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

#98
post #41

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 s…

I was also going to mention wet bulb temperatures as well. As horrible as the conditions described in the article is, it describes a very dry heat. Which means sweating and water can still help. The really scary thing will be when the wet bulb temperature goes above 35 degrees, and humans can only survive with AC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

> The really scary thing will be when the wet bulb temperature goes above 35 degrees, and humans can only survive with AC.

That's already an everyday reality in Singapore.

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

#99
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’s a popular comic for this take - https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

That comic is popular only because it absolves people of personal responsibility, not because it makes a great point.
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