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Page added on July 19, 2020
If you can’t stand the heat…get off of the planet!
As I sit in 90-degree heat typical of Washington, D.C. in midsummer and a so-called “heat dome” hovers over much of the United States, I am reading the following:
At 11 or 12 degrees [Fahrenheit] of [global] warming, more than half the world’s population, as distributed today, would die of direct heat. Things almost certainly won’t get that hot this century, though models of unabated emissions do bring us that far eventually.
That implies one of two things: A lot of migration or a lot fewer people. This second thought is suggested in the observation above, but few people want to come out and say it: What we are doing to the climate, to the air, to the water and to the soil, and thus to ourselves, on our current trajectory implies a dramatic decline in human population as multiple crises converge and our ability to cope with them dwindles.
As it turns out, the number of 90-degree days in Washington’s summers has been on a steady rise. And even though the record for the longest streak of days with temperatures reaching above 90 wasn’t broken this time—only 20 days in a row instead of 21—those 90-degree days are coming sooner in the season, and there are more of them.
“Okay, so it’s hot,” you may say. “We’ll live. We’ll live by staying indoors in the air-conditioning, by drinking more water, by taking more cold showers, by simply taking it easy in the hot temperatures of midday, right?”
I was in the great heat wave which hit Chicago in July 1995. I was staying with friends whose second-floor apartment had no air-conditioning. None of us believed air-conditioning was particularly healthy for humans and generally avoided it. We were all quite a bit younger, of course, and so held up quite well the first three days since we had all already adapted to summer temperatures by forgoing air-conditioning.
But as the heat wave continued, it wasn’t the daytime temperatures—which were over 100 degrees—that finally got to us. It was nighttime temperatures which only fell to the mid-80s. Even with windows open and fans roaring, it was difficult to cool down, and therefore difficult to recover from the scorching daytime heat.
On day six we walked up to university campus where my friend worked and sat in the faculty lounge while he took care of some business. When exactly he joined us, I don’t know, because the rest of us quickly fell soundly asleep on the couches in the almost icy cold room and slept for about three hours. I hadn’t realized how much my body needed to cool down to recover from the heat.
So now, I’m trying to imagine what might happen if other systems which make living in this kind of heat failed simultaneously with the coming of such a heat wave. Let’s say the power goes out, not just briefly, but for a prolonged period and there is no air-conditioning.
Fossil-fueled electricity generation relies on copious amounts of water. If those supplies, which are often taken from rivers, are low in midsummer because of drought, plants may not be able to operate or at least operate at full capacity. And then, there is the general state of America’s electrical grid which the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gives a D+ in its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card, the latest available. This creaky system we call the grid isn’t keeping up with our needs. Perhaps the most egregious example is the California grid which sparked many deadly wildfires during the severe drought that gripped the state in the last decade.
How about public water systems? The news is not good. The ASCE gives America’s water systems an even lower grade, D. Will water interruptions increase over time as our neglected system continues to degrade? The savage decline in municipal and state government revenues in the wake of the worldwide pandemic and economic depression doesn’t bode well for renewed investment in public infrastructure of any kind.
And, then there is the overall effect on agricultural productivity. A few 90-degree days in summer isn’t going to ruin crops. It might even help them. But persistent heat and drought could lead to drying out of agricultural soils and inadequate water for rainfed crops. And, the opposite—widespread severe flooding—could also bring trouble to the farm fields. Both are emerging consequences of ongoing climate change.
But, when food supplies are inadequate, excessive heat may seem a secondary consideration.
What I’m getting at is that when we think of adapting to climate change, we often think of tackling discreet tasks one at a time. But the reality is that we are already faced with multiple systemic threats across many domains. Addressing those threats will involve understanding that our entire way of life is unsustainable and therefore cannot just be tweaked slightly here and there to make it sustainable.
While the heat dome which hangs over most of us denizens of the United States cannot be said to be “caused” by climate change, it may represent a more and more frequent feature of our climate-disturbed world. In the midst of this disruption, we may fantasize escaping all this either through technological fixes or leaving planet Earth altogether as some so-called visionaries suggest.
As I was watching the film “Gravity” last night on television, I was reminded that such deep space fantasies are nonsense. Earth’s biosphere is the only place permanent human habitation is viable. It’s the only environment to which we are adapted because we were forged in its evolutionary processes. That’s why in the film, after swimming to safety from her sinking spacecraft, astronaut Ryan Stone hugs the shore where her harrowing journey back from space comes to an end. We should take our cues from her.
13 Comments on "If you can’t stand the heat…get off of the planet!"
Theedrich on Sun, 19th Jul 2020 5:03 pm
When reality hits spoiled brats, they go mad. That is why polls show Yankee masses overwhelmingly preferring a senescent troll in a basement to the current president. The Yidbox has convinced the Little Lord Fauntleroys of America that all of their toys have been stolen by big, bad Trump. Never mind specifics. Evil has become incarnate in the POTUS. As the unrelenting, 4-year media onslaught on him has assured the nation, a Workers’ Paradise will appear as soon as the troll is elected and Satan is cast into the depths of utter darkness. And Whites with him.
Something similar happened back in 1978, in a Todestanz (“death dance”) now known as the Jonestown massacre. In that affair, a Biden-like World Savior named Jim Jones led a bunch of down-and-outs to Guyana in South America where he founded a godly, non-racial commune for them. Anyone can look up the details for himself or herself, but the culmination of the entire cult was the slaughter and suicide of 913 members.
Four decades later, we are now witnessing a frenzied lunge for a Promised Neverland advertized by international oligarchic scam artists, and away from the serious work needed to deal with the diminishing returns of global complexification and the growth of economic and military competition. Œdipal crown princes like U.S. virtue-signallers and Leftists cannot stand even the thought of coping with the latter difficulties. They prefer to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
Most people refuse to entertain the idea that a Dem win will cause drastic, perhaps terminal damage to the country. In Venezuela, the masses — citizens of a country with immense oil wealth — engaged in similar refusal when they voted in a “Socialist” government a few decades ago. Strange to say, today those same masses can no longer vote to change anything at all. They live in a one-party state.
And a one-party, Jonestown state is exactly what the Democrat Party is planning for America.
Go Speed Racer on Sun, 19th Jul 2020 6:01 pm
There are natural feedback loops
that solve the problem naturally.
The CO2 makes the temperature rise.
However as temperatures soar, it’s less
appealing to burn sofas and tires in your
backyard.
As those bonfire beer parties get cancelled,
CO2 emissions are naturally reduced and
the temperature is regulated back to
normal.
makati1 on Sun, 19th Jul 2020 6:26 pm
The heat dome probably is am effect of climate change. We just have not discovered how it is. We pretend to understand the system we live in, but that is only arrogance, not fact. However, Mother Nature is going to teach us, the hard way. Be patient!
makati1 on Sun, 19th Jul 2020 6:31 pm
BTW: 90+F heat and high humidity is every day here in Luzon, Philippines. It has been above 90F (often 95F or 96F) every afternoon here for months. Most Filipinos have no A/C but they survive and thrive. Adjust Amerikans. This is the new reality.
Anonymouse on Mon, 20th Jul 2020 3:42 am
I blame it all those sofa-fueled power stations. If only we could find the political will-power to switch to say, recliner-fired power stations wed be just fine.
Recliners are smaller than sofas and emit less Co2. It seems like a no-brainier why we are not switching over to environmentally friendly recliner fires.
Go Speed Racer on Mon, 20th Jul 2020 6:49 am
Hi Anonymouse, thx mentioning those issues. I now propose a government study on CO2 emissions comparing recliner fire, sofa fire, and tire fires, for different emissions. ONE other variable may be the brand of beer and how late in the evening, plus how much beer they drank (and how many sofas and recliners). This can go into an Excel database and feed directly into the NASA global climate supercomputer simulation.
Also if the study shows we are saving CO2 by switching to recliners, I will buy those CO2 credits showing if I buy a boat I am still net 0 emissions on CO2 even with both Yanmar diesels at full throttle.
(O;
Sissyfuss on Mon, 20th Jul 2020 8:23 am
The Arctic methane being released is akin to the function of a self cleaning oven. The resulting and overwhelming heat will cleanse the planet of all the accumulated grunge that has built up over millennia and produce a clean slate for Gaia to start a new experiment, one that might live within its means.
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flagle on Sun, 3rd Dec 2023 10:17 pm
I’m afraid of the heat so I want to come to winter sooner