633
submitted 4 months ago by Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/news@lemmy.world

Temperatures above 50C used to be a rarity confined to two or three global hotspots, but the World Meteorological Organization noted that at least 10 countries have reported this level of searing heat in the past year: the US, Mexico, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India and China.

In Iran, the heat index – a measure that also includes humidity – has come perilously close to 60C, far above the level considered safe for humans.

Heatwaves are now commonplace elsewhere, killing the most vulnerable, worsening inequality and threatening the wellbeing of future generations. Unicef calculates a quarter of the world’s children are already exposed to frequent heatwaves, and this will rise to almost 100% by mid-century.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 85 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Further, what happens when everyone knows the power isn't coming back and instead the roads out of Phoenix all get backed up and people die in the heat of their cars trying to escape the heat of Phoenix. Because heat can kill a lot of vehicles, and a lot of people have ill-maintained vehicles, meaning roads being completely blocked from escape can happen fast.

I really think Phoenix will become the first mass casualty event from climate change in the USA.

EDIT: Obligatory Peggy Hill. Peggy gets it.

[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 34 points 4 months ago

That's one of those nightmare thoughts - when the power goes out, what do people usually do for a while? Wait for it to come back on. Someone is coming to fix it, right? Much of modern society is built upon such assumptions, and it mostly works. So I think you're right for some, but many would perish at home, trying to outlast the day (and what if the night doesn't cool?)

[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 15 points 4 months ago

And then their food goes bad. Three days of starvation is all it takes to eat cake.

[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 25 points 4 months ago

Water also disappears. At some point water is being pumped by a power source. I suppose that's more when people get driven out, by hunger and thirst than by just curiosity or a plan. So much easier to leave before things go bad, but like Katrina showed, mobility is a class thing, some people can't leave like that.

[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 7 points 4 months ago

Yup absolutely. Hopefully the people can do something about it actually do something. Not you and me, I mean the corporations that got us into this mess in the first place.

[-] evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Lots of cars > lots of traffic > stopped cars > radiators don't cool > cars break down > roads blocked

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Car radiators have fans. They can idle indefinitely. You're more likely to eventually run out of gas.

Edit: oh you mean because of the heat. I don't think that's going to be an issue, ambient temp is still going to be far below the roughly 200°F of an engine.

[-] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 4 months ago

Do you not live in the USA? Do you not realize how many people are driving around old beaters that can absolutely get overheated in such an environment?

In my hometown more than half the driveways are filled with multiple beater-ass cars, most of which don't work and are just sort of rotting. They just keep adding new ones by buying more shitty vehicles that die quickly and doing the same cycle over again.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago

I do live in the USA. I'm pretty sure that no parts of the US are predicted to remotely approach 200°F air temperature.

I actually drive a beater myself. But if the coolant pump or radiator fan aren't working, you're not going to be driving it very far, regardless of air temperature.

[-] neonred@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

if anyone else was wondering, 200 °F are 93.33333 °C

[-] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

This assumes a car with a working cooling system. How many people have old cars with bad head gaskets or a radiator leak and "just fill it with water" and not fix the problem, only to find that pure water isn't enough, as modern cars will walk up and down from 185-235F, which will blow steam before the fans kick on. They never noticed because they only drove a few miles a day, not long or hard enough to find out there is a real problem and not a nuisance.

[-] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 months ago

Most people buy the cheapest car batteries they can get. As a Floridian I can tell you, the heat destroys these things faster than most people realize. Everyone is already strapped for cash so they're going to be driving around with batteries that barely start their car for months before it finally leaves them stranded.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

EDIT: Obligatory Peggy Hill. Peggy gets it.

And considering how rarely she "got" things, that's saying a lot!

[-] Reyali@lemm.ee 4 points 4 months ago

That’s when it becomes Rita as opposed to “heat Katrina”.

For folks who don’t remember/know about Rita because they didn’t live through it, less than a month after Katrina a record-breaking cat 5 hurricane was heading for Texas. Everyone still had Katrina on their minds and panicked. Millions of people (literally estimated as 2.5–3.7 million) evacuated, or tried.

The highways out of Houston came to a total standstill. About 100 people died before the storm even hit land because of the evacuation. And then the hurricane itself was nbd; the evacuation was literally the worst part.

[-] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 2 points 4 months ago

Realistically it'll be when people can no longer insure their homes when we see the first mass migrations. Florida is already at the point where only state insurance will cover hurricane prone areas, and it sounds like that currently costs $7k/year. Anyone have any bets for if it'll be the southwest suffering more frequent more severe fires that gets it first or Florida and neighboring states from more severe hurricanes?

this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
633 points (98.2% liked)

News

23655 readers
3340 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS