Oh… if only the scientists had warned us something like this could happen…
Oh… wait…
Well, if only the scientists had done something bigger and been louder to get everyone’s attention, like saying global warming is bad and self-immolating in a public place to try to warn people we’re all about to die…
Oh… wait…
Well, don’t worry, the magic sky gods will all take us to paradise once it gets too hot, and they lived happily ever after, the end, Yay! 🎈 🎉
Depends on the country. A few years ago, there was a heat wave that provoked over 10 deaths in France, while Spain barely registered any despite suffering even harsher temperatures. This is because most homes in Spain have AC, but French ones usually don’t. I would expect this to change in the following decade.
I lived in Paris and no one had it besides commercial buildings. But with climate change causing higher temperatures across the region, I think AC modifications of some sort will become the norm. My friend in Spain recently got AC after one summer he had to stay with his friend in Denmark because his house became unlivable. Like it would’ve killed his cat it was so hot inside.
Ahhh yeah good point. So somewhere like Pakistan probably has low humidity I’m guessing. Otherwise I feel like being outside at all could be extremely dangerous.
I lived in Phoenix Arizona where 52 C was the peak of the summer heat. I’m not sure how one would have a regular life without AC. Sleeping in that type of heat is very hard.
I had a truck with no AC and driving around with the windows open was like opening a convection oven door and letting the fan blow on you.
Which doesn’t work if the air is already saturated. Water cools by evaporating. If the air can’t hold any more water, it can’t evaporate and cool. I mean, external cold water I suppose, but if you have actively cooled water, we’re probably not in a heat crisis situation.
Shifted jetstream will do that. But while the UK gets an unseasonably cold summer, Alaska is under a historic heat wave. Not enough cold air to go around.
20 is my good spot too, like 24 and I’m dying. We had a heat wave in BC, Canada last couple of yeara and it hit 38-40 most days during the 2 weeks. The amount of sweating and fatique were exhausting. 52 would have killed me.
We adapt. Whenever I have my relatives from Brazil visiting, they’re always wearing coats indoors while I’m wearing short sleeves and shorts. A few years ago, I endured 40-45 C summers.
Gotcha. Yeah, there’s a lot of concern over refugees migrating now. Wait a summer or two with these types of temperatures, and countries won’t be able to build fences high enough.
I start to wonder if corporate executives themselves arent responsible for this myth that the meaningful bulk of emissions comes from them. So consumers can feel guilt free about buying these gas guzzling chunkers, after all their choices dont have any meaningful effect on emissions.
But no, corporate headquarters doesnt have a giant smokestack spewing out those corporate emissions you hear about. Those emissions are coming from…SUV tailpipes! Transportation is the highest emissions sector in the US, and personal vehicles make up the bulk of those emissions, especially trucks and SUVs.
Definite agree with the core of what you’re saying, though for US and EU (and to a lesser degree “High income countries”), the numbers are quite close, as clean grid energy is significantly outpacing electric vehicle adoption (and EVs rely on a clean grid to be clean).
I find it fascinated… one side of their mouth, they’re hating corporations. Other side, they’re praising the product(s) they buy from said corporations. If any of these so called, “combatants of climate change” were true to their beliefs, they’d go find a piece of wilderness and live in it.
It’s not just “they make products and services that people buy”, it’s that “they maximize their personal profit at the expense of people and the environment”.
It’s easy but reductive to blame consumers for consuming, when it’s worth noting that biodegradable packaging costs more than plastics that will never break down, so corporations will choose cheap plastic over environmentally friendly packaging 99.9% of the time.
The incentives are wrong. Instead of maximizing profit we need to ensure that profit is not maximized at the expense of sustainability, at the expense of pollution, and at the expense of the entire future of our planet.
E.g. a carbon tax will solve a lot of problems, or a tax on waste like plastic. It is very very unpopular with the public though so the government can’t put it in place for fear of being voted out.
Nothing is stopping corporations from doing The Right Thing right now except their own desire not for profit, but for maximized profit at all costs. Dare I say it, but if a company can’t make a profit without creating harm, it doesn’t deserve to make a profit.
The degree to which businesses prioritize political patronage over economic efficiency can’t be overstated. From Shitcoins to Big Box Retailers, we expend enormous amounts of carbon in pursuit of flights of fancy.
And all those private jets and helicopters out to remote ecologically preserved vacation spots could definitely be defined as “burning fossil fuels for fun”.
it’s not the SUVs that are causing the problem, it’s the fucking corporations
The corporations are the ones that block mass transit infrastructure and extract subsidies for increasingly oversized vehicles. American car companies basically don’t bother making sedans anymore.
I don’t think there’s a bright line between the two problems. More SUVs = Corporate profit $$$ = More lobbying = No Mass Transit = More SUVs
Hottest I’ve ever been in is 114f iirc in a dry heat. It was brutal like “you can feel moisture evaporating out of your eyes”, I felt like just sitting around I couldn’t drink water as fast as I was losing it. 125 is bonkers
50C is near OSHA’s max limit to touch safe zones which is 60C. At 60C, no matter how many seconds, you will get burnt. At 50C you can hold an object for a few seconds safely.
You know how 0C is far from 60C but you can easily experience 0C in a winter? Well check it out, 50C is closer to 60C by about 50C difference from 0C. This 50C tends to be near 60C when compared to 0C and really 49 other whole numbers of degrees Celsius! An infinity of numbers if you add decimal places.
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