climate denialist logic in a nutshell
There have been so many of these stories I’m just numb to the whole idea now
Honestly… usually I just tune out these climate stories because they are nothing but the same shitty news over and over and over and over and over again, and (almost) nobody doing anything about the situation.
Yes, I get it: the earth keeps getting shittier. What do you want me to do about it, hang a bunch of fossil fuel executives and bulldoze their factories?
I’m just waiting for the first “wet bulb” event.
I’m not sure what else it’ll take for people to take climate change seriously, but by then it’ll probably be too late…
What’s a wet bulb event? (I know I can search it, but I wanted to engage here)
When water evaporates, it has a cooling effect - this is why your body produces sweat. As the sweat evaporates, it causes your body to cool down.
The wet-bulb temperature is the lowest temperature that can be reached as a result of water evaporating.
When this wet-bulb temperature approaches human body temperature, then the human body cannot reduce its temperature via sweating. This causes your body to overheat and will eventually lead to death. This is true even in the shade, even with unlimited water to drink.
At some point in the near future, it will be so hot somewhere that the wet bulb temperature will reach 35C (95F). Once this is reached, anyone exposed to that temperature will die after a few hours. The only way to avoid it is air conditioning, and if the power fails due to the heat then that won’t work either.
This is most likely to happen somewhere tropical first, but it will slowly happen in more and more places as the Earth warms.
you have both enlightened me and scared the shit out of me at the same time!
Thanks! I think there’re places in my country (Spain) that are super close to having those kinds of events. That’s scary af
Pretty sure they mean an event where temperature and humidity combine to the point that the human body is unable to cool itself. So your body temperature would rise and if it got high enough would kill you.
You would need some external source of cooling like cool water or air conditioning. Fans wouldn’t do any good.
I live in a place where this happens every other summer already, people unfortunately are so propaganda-ized or beaten they don’t care and deny climate change. This current heatwave is brutal, most buildings don’t even have ACs.
Fortunately, revolutions are more common during heat waves.
I live in India where temperatures are quite high and run slightly higher each year. I also know quite a few people who believe climate change is a hoax and post that kind of stuff on Facebook, WhatsApp etc.
I was talking to one such relative’s father recently and he was complaining that this guy turns the air conditioner on right when he comes to visit his parents and only turns it off when he leaves weeks later.
Starting to hear similar conversations here on AC, older people remember being able to use a fan in a window during the summers.
It won’t be too long now. Apparently wet bulb temperatures of ~35°C have already been recorded, but only for a few hours. With the rate of warming we will soon have events that last the ~6 hours it takes to kill a healthy human at these temperatures
In 2021, southern British Columbia was exposed to temperatures of 40C and above for a week straight - June 25 to July 1st, and a reportedly 719 people died.
It’s already too late. It makes me wonder whether collectively humans have free will.
The current crisis definitely puts human civilization at risk. Agricultural societies came into existence at roughly the current average temperature and were stable for thousands of years. Now, runaway capitalist industrialization is making a mess out of the climate and causing a mass extinction. I am confident humanity can survive, but will agricultural civilization? Last time the climate wasn’t stable, we relied on hunting and gathering for food.
Personally, I think there is hope even if large-scale agriculture becomes unfeasible. Proteins, starches, etc. can be grown in bioreactors. There are also non-bioreactor solutions such as mycoproteins and indoor farms. The productivity of these methods are higher than traditional agriculture and don’t rely on a stable climate. However, they will all rely on maintained supply chains and electricity production that is resilient to heat waves, droughts, floods, etc. as well as having a high enough energy return on investment.
Even my hopium has me worried. 😰
I generally agree, and if we get to the point where we will have to rely on technology for things like food production, then it will be important for countries to have fully independent domestic supply chains because the global supply chains are incredibly fragile. China is probably in the best position for that right now.
