A Third Of the Planet's Population Is Exposed To Deadly Heatwaves (motherjones.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Nearly a third of the world's population is now exposed to climatic conditions that produce deadly heatwaves, as the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere makes it "almost inevitable" that vast areas of the planet will face rising fatalities from high temperatures, new research has found. Climate change has escalated the heatwave risk across the globe, the study states, with nearly half of the world's population set to suffer periods of deadly heat by the end of the century even if greenhouse gases are radically cut. "For heatwaves, our options are now between bad or terrible," said Camilo Mora, an academic at the University of Hawaii and lead author of the study. High temperatures are currently baking large swaths of the south-western US, with the National Weather Service (NWS) issuing an excessive heat warning for Phoenix, Arizona, which is set to reach 119F (48.3C) on Monday. The heat warning extends across much of Arizona and up through the heart of California, with Palm Springs forecast a toasty 116F (46.6C) on Monday and Sacramento set to reach 107F (41.6C).

Comments

Real, but

[XXongo]

Human-induced climate change is real... but this article is alarmism.

A hint: please don't use Mother Jones as a source for science information.

Re:Real, but

[msmash]

I agree. The same story is also published in The Guardian. I think that gives it more credibility.

Re:Real, but

[Kohath]

Even Mother Jones gets it right sometimes.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Ayup. Here in the UAE, we just call it summer. It is 48 Celsius today and it is only June.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

"published in The Guardian. I think that gives it more credibility."

Are you sure about that?

You have read The Grauniad haven't you?

Re:Real, but

[El Cubano]

Human-induced climate change is real... but this article is alarmism.

Climate change is real, but how much of a role humans play in it is something we will not fully understand for a long time.

That said, this is definitely alarmism. There is a reason why even just a few hundred years ago, even a few decades ago, places like what are today Florida, Arizona, New Mexico, etc. had very few people living there: those places suck without modern air conditioning.

Sure there were wealthy people who wintered in Florida (Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were even next door neighbors during winter on the gulf coast). Sure there were people who lived on the coast year round or in the mountains in the southwest year round, because those were the only tolerable locations in those otherwise intolerable climates. But with things like air conditioning and draining wetlands, very dense populations of people now live year round in places where people simply didn't live before.

Las Vegas is another great example. Imagine a city of 2,000,000 in the middle of the Sahara or some similarly inhospitable place. Of course when temperatures stay mostly in the "normal" range for those places, modern conveniences make them reasonably comfortable. However, our modern conveniences are at times no match for the extremes.

It is the same reason people sometimes freeze to death in cold climates. Though, I don't recall similar alarmism associated with that, even though in the last few winters, in North America at least, most places have experienced much colder than normal temperatures and people have died as a result.

Re:Real, but

[qbast]

Guardian is pretty good source for news, however their opinion pieces are very often batshit insane.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Human-induced climate change is real... but this article is alarmism.

Fire up the A/C, grab a cool one and put on headphones. Most of us won't even be around in 60 years, so who cares?

Re:Real, but

[spun]

You misspelled 'evangelical conservative climate change denier.'

Re:Real, but

[angel'o'sphere]

but how much of a role humans play in it is something we will not fully understand for a long time.
Any links for that?
I thought climate change was driven by the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere (and by that increased water vapour and methan concentrations)
If you know non human reasons I guess many people would like to know about that!

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

even though in the last few winters, in North America at least, most places have experienced much colder than normal temperatures

*Where* in North America have the last few winters been colder than normal? Because right here in Minnesota they have been much warmer than normal.

The last brutally cold winter was the year of the polar vortex. And yes, your average Minnesotan shifted their view on *that* winter from "eh, it's just winter" to "geez it's cold out, I'm getting sick of this, time to move to Floridia or Arizonia" (imagine with accents from the movie _Fargo_).

Re: Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the worst large scale heat waves are typically caused by anticyclone conditions which also cause very low wind conditions over large regions, like half the US or a large part of western Europe. So wind power will not help us cope. The historical deadly heat waves that caused desths in Chicago, France, and Australia were all anticylcone caused.

Re:Real, but

[XXongo]

Human-induced climate change is real... but this article is alarmism.

Climate change is real, but how much of a role humans play in it is something we will not fully understand for a long time.

Sorry, but no. Although there is a well-paid effort to make people believe otherwise, in fact, scientists are not actually stupid .

We've understood the basics of the greenhouse effect for over a century; we've had good measurements of infrared absorption spectra for sixty years; we've had good overall models of how it affects temperature for fifty years now; and we've been making detailed measurements of atmospheric profiles and the incident solar forcing factor for thirty years. The overall picture of how human-emitted greenhouse gasses play in climate is understood.

There is still a lot of science being done, but this is is filling in the fine details. The overall picture is not controversial (at least, not by scientists).

That said, this is definitely alarmism.

We agree, however, on that point.

Re: Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

*Where* in North America have the last few winters been colder than normal?

Fairbanks, Alaska.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Re:Real, but

[PopeRatzo]

I agree. The same story is also published in The Guardian. I think that gives it more credibility.

I'm not believing it until it's on Infowars and the fillings in my teeth.

Re:Real, but

[hey!]

Here's a pro tip: look up the result in other sources using google, find a more useful source that tells you things like the name of the journal the research was published in.

In this case it was Nature Climate Change, a relatively new offshoot of the prestigious journal Nature. Nature Climate Change was established in 2011, but by last year ut gad achieved an impact factor of over 19, making it the most cited journal in its field. This doesn't mean it's infallible, but it means it doesn't have to scrape the bottom of the research barrel to fill its pages. This paper may be right or it may be wrong, but it's pretty much guaranteed not to be garbage.

Knowing the journal name makes it trivial to find the original paper, or at least the abstract.

Still it is never possible to know the significance of a paper or a study in the short term. You have to wait until it is cited in a review paper, which will summarize all the supporting and conflicting results that followed any particular piece of research. You should never make a life decision (change what you eat) or policy decision based on any single paper until it has been cited and characterized as sound in a review paper published in a high impact factor journal.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone told me once there's a huge hot glowing ball of gas not too far away that produces heat.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you will be happy to know that scientists are now studying why the models for global temperature are greatly overestimating the amount of warming that is expected to occur. Models for temperature increase are as much as 9% higher when compared to actual temperatures measured from satellite measurements over the last 15 years.

The study implies that models of historical temperature are undervaluing historical warmth, and the models over-estimate recent years' warmth, in order to create a linearly increasing warming trend; when in reality, historical temperatures are showing that the actual warming trends over the last decades are not significantly higher.

This is the root of the political debate -- how much is it actually warming given sparse historical data, how much has the source data been manipulated to show warming, how much time is there to correct the "problem", and how much money has to be redistributed to politically connected parties to correct the "problem".

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

And does that ball emits CO2?
If not, that argument falls flat on it's face.

Re:Real, but

[Rick Schumann]

What does it really matter if it's alarmist or not at this point? The people who need to listen have already made up their minds anyway, and no adjustment of the volume knob or rewriting of the content is going to change that. We're on a trajectory, and our RCS has failed completely; burn-through of the hull is imminent; smoke 'em if you got 'em, you probably won't get another chance.

Re:Real, but

[penandpaper]

I'll only believe it when I hear it! On a different note, the CIA cafeteria lunch menu will be meatloaf on Tuesday.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, exactly like this.

Re: Real, but

[KGIII]

I don't see why it couldn't. Stars are like factories that produce elements by smashing stuff together. There should be some C and O in there somewhere. If so, I'm not seeing any reason that stops them from bonding with one C and two O.

But, I'm pretty sure there would be no meaningful changes to our climate, based on anything made there. I also would begin to guess how much of that might be emitted. It is rather pointless for this discussion, I imagine.

Re:Real, but

[OYAHHH]

I personally like higher temperatures, bring me on some global warming, we are gonna need it for the next glacial phase of our current Ice Age.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that the redistribution of money to politically connected parties to deny the "problem" from those with a financial interest in the fossil fuel industry is not also at the root of the political debate.

Re:Real, but

[interkin3tic]

in fact, scientists are not actually stupid .

As a group, yes, generally. Individually? Well I'm a scientist and I'm still here, so...

Re: Real, but

[KGIII]

Not true. I am a scientist, and I'm a blithering moron, sometimes. If you don't believe me, ask my girlfriend. She will tell you all about it.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Mother Jones is fine.

Re:Real, but

[mpercy]

Even if warming is part of a natural cycle, it does seem quite likely that man is exacerbating the situation. If nothing else, if we could run our societies without belching pollution into the atmosphere, it'd be the better alternative. I look forward to clean fusion plants (now supposedly only 20 years in the future!).

So please don't call me a "denier". My issue is that few of the proposed "solutions" seem to be based on science. I see the occasional discussion of carbon sequestration and that sort of thing, but far more often the "solution" is just a cloak hiding the proposer's socialist SJW motives.

Even the IPCC report seems to be about poverty and income inequality and funding needed to address it. The report said climate change had the largest impact on people who are socially and economically marginalized. "Climate change will exacerbate poverty in low and lower-middle income countries, including high mountain states, countries at risk from sea-level rise, and countries with indigenous peoples, and create new poverty pockets in upper-middle to high-income countries in which inequality is increasing," [the report] said. But funding needed to offset the impact of climate change is lacking, the report warned, saying developing countries would need between $70 billion to $100 billion a year to implement needed measures. And efforts to reduce the effects of climate change would only have a marginal effect on reducing poverty unless "structural inequalities are addressed and needs for equity among poor and nonpoor people are met."

It's not about climate change or environmentalism, it really hasn't been for a long time...it's about socialist economic policy--redistribution of wealth. The leaders of the movement readily admit as much.

(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War... First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

Christiana Figueres, leader of the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history.”

Former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO), then representing the Clinton-Gore administration as U.S undersecretary of state for global issues, addressing the same Rio Climate Summit audience, agreed: “We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”

Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister: “No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits.... climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”

Daphne Muller, green-progressive-liberal writer for Salon: "This moment requires we the people to rethink democracy as a global mechanism for enacting policy for and by the planet."

Peter Berle, President of the National Audubon Society: "We reject the idea of private property."

David Brower, a founder of the Sierra Club: "The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society, which is nature's proper steward and society's only hope."

Mikhail Gorbachev, communist and former leader of U.S.S.R.: "The emerging 'environmentalizatio

Re: Real, but

[mpercy]

Stars with below 8–9 Solar masses never reach high enough core temperature to burn carbon, instead ending their lives as carbon-oxygen white dwarfs after shell helium flashes gently expel the outer envelope in a planetary nebula.[3][13]

In stars with masses between 8 and 11 solar masses, the carbon-oxygen core is under degenerate conditions and carbon ignition takes place in a carbon flash, that lasts just milliseconds and disrupts the stellar core.[14] In the late stages of this nuclear burning they develop a massive stellar wind, which quickly ejects the outer envelope in a planetary nebula leaving behind an O-Ne-Na-Mg white dwarf core of about 1.1 solar masses.[3] The core never reaches high enough temperature for further fusion burning of heavier elements than carbon.[13]

Stars with more than 11 solar masses start carbon burning in a non-degenerate core,[14] and after carbon exhaustion proceed with the neon-burning process once contraction of the inert (O, Ne, Na, Mg) core raises the temperature sufficiently.[13]

Re:Real, but

[pr0fessor]

I don't actually know any climate scientists that I can ask personally but I do know that in the 70s because of the long cooling trend that started after the dust bowl the media was was grabbing headlines with global cooling scares. It had died out by the end of the 70s then had a short lived resurfacing after the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helen before global warming became the next big thing to catch headlines on.

To my point those global cooling scares of the 70s were based on scientific research hand picked and reported by the media in a sensational way. The effect of greenhouse gases hasn't been understood for over a century and you as much as admitted there are still details we don't understand.

All that being said cleaner, cheaper, safer, renewable resources are what we should be striving for even if tomorrow global warming is solved.

Re: Real, but

[KGIII]

I suppose I should look up hour big Sol is. Google is so very far away.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Phoenix, and IMO this is overblown. We've seen warmer summers than this in my lifetime, with the warmest being back in 1990.

Re: Real, but

[mpercy]

Sol is one solar mass.

Poe's law?

Re: Real, but

[Bartles]

It does emit heat, while co2 does not

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Ayup. Here in the UAE, we just call it summer. It is 48 Celsius today and it is only June.

I hope Ya'll terrists DIE in a scorching inferno. UAE, the most unsustainable place on Earth. A place that apparently is alive, rich and fashionable, but was dead even before the inception. There's no salvation for you.

Re: Real, but

[dcollins117]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the mass of the sun is one solar mass.

Re: Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the worst large scale heat waves are typically caused by anticyclone conditions which also cause very low wind conditions over large regions, like half the US or a large part of western Europe. So wind power will not help us cope. The historical deadly heat waves that caused desths in Chicago, France, and Australia were all anticylcone caused.

+1 - Insightful

Re: Real, but

[KGIII]

Weed might be a factor.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the journal name. However, the name itself assumes a particular slant, which indicates that the reviewers are not exactly unbiased. I would have been happier if the name were just "Climate." It's unlikely that a neutral or counter paper would get published in such a journal.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I also live in Phoenix and you are confusing individually hot days with the total number of days over 120. Yes, I also remember in 2001 even that it was so hot they had to stop all flights in and out Skyharbor.

Also note that on this day in 1990 it was 111 degrees. We're warming that than today. Can you guess when the last record was set for this day? You guessed right, it was June 20th 2016 where it was 116. So while June of 1990 was famously hot, its not even as hot as a normal June for us right now.

Even the Arizona Republic did a story about average summer temperatures rising and they are pretty damned right slanted.

Re:Real, but

[spun]

Even if climate change weren't happening, those kind of conservatives would always find some reason to yell at the rest of us. They like telling people what to do. Environmentalists just want to live and let live, they would rather not be telling people what to do. But people keep dumping their pollution in the shared environment we all have to live in. It's like you let your dog shit on my lawn and then you call me names when I tell you to pick it up.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the punishment for your predictions being wrong?
Wrong on every turn and the media applauds the liars certainly does not attack them but goes back for more wtf
How are those flooding predictions coming for 2011 how many global warming refugees fucking 0?
IF THIS IS REAL YOU JUST THREW AWAY ALL YOUR CREDIBILITY ON EVERY WRONG PREDICTION aka every prediction.

The Paris accord was on track to do nothing because China and India get a free pass and you cannot calculate how much they will pollute for the next 100 years and and that is a massive victory for global warming extremist?
Trump destroyed the planet by not allowing the European union anti capitalist to rape America?
The death cult is so accustomed to not being questioned on it's ethics it's track record and it's math or carbon footprint (what a stupid term we are carbon) that they come up with the Paris accord and they don't even care if it does any good image over substance.
The reason for this is because the heads of any religion do not believe in god they say and do as they please guilt free same rule applies to global warming the people on top know it is not true and that why they show it by not even making an effort to hide their energy usage.

Re:Real, but

[jwilcox154]

As opposed to the chicken littles on the far left claiming humans are causing climate change? Both positions are equally as wrong about climate change. Some evangelical conservatives actually agree that humans are quite responsible for making it worse. However, they also acknowledge the natural portion of climate change as the Earth's climate, much like Earth's geological geological system, is in a constant state of flux. Nut jobs exist in all parts of the political spectrum, not just the ones you disagree with.

Re:Real, but

[butchersong]

Regardless cold weather apparently is much more harmful to humans than hot weather so on balance... I'm not sure it is worthy of concern.
The true enemy of mankind

Re:Real, but

[phantomfive]

we've had good overall models of how it affects temperature for fifty years now;

This isn't really true, unless you mean very rough estimates. Consider that without an atmosphere, the earth would be a certain temperature (as the moon is now). We don't know what that temperature would be for Earth. We have a rough idea, within 10 degrees. Likewise, we don't know how much warming the present atmosphere is providing. We have good rough estimates, but again, within 10 degrees.

You will never read precise numbers for the warming given to us from our blanket that is the atmosphere, because those numbers don't exist. We try to predict how much warming will be caused by a doubling of CO2, but again, the estimates are in a vast range, over 7 degrees of variability. The IPCC report attempts to figure out which of those estimates is most likely, but their answer changes in every report.

Re: Real, but

[butchersong]

Well this is a pretty sketchy unit of measurement then. One sol = our sun but our sun is decreasing in mass by 6 x 10 to the 12th grams every second.

Re:Real, but

[citylivin]

"'its not about climate change or environmentalism, it really hasn't been for a long time...it's about socialist economic policy--redistribution of wealth."

I for one am glad it is. We need to reduce consumption and materialism first and foremost. This is quite often driven by 'for profit' capitalism, so its no surprise that the road eventually leads to a redistribution of wealth. This is not a bad thing. There is no reason with all the abundance in the world, that some people should be "richer" than others simply because of where or in what circumstances they were born (that they obviously cannot control).

So whats wrong with that? You being from a privileged country want to maintain your "standard of living" at all costs. And you think this should trump environmental issues that affect the entire planet.

So your not a denier, your just selfish and entitled. Well too bad, because the rest of the world wants to live like that too, and its america's shitty example that will kill the entire planet when all the other countries want a detached house, a car and oodles of luxury goods. American marketing and brainwashing has refocused the issue from what people need to what people want, which is kind of the origins of this whole mess we are in. (if for instance, we lived by the values of indigenous peoples, where there was very little waste and people lived off the land, we might have very different societal priorities now).

If we really want to solve this climate change problem, we are going to have to go to a world government sooner or later. And that means giving up a whole host of "american values" along with it. The alternative is death, not just for you and me and our families, but for most of the organisms on this planet.

If you really think that "redistribution of wealth" is so horrible that it is worth avoiding at even the terminal costs to the biosphere, i would invite you to look at your own history. You would see that "redistribution of wealth" both through the use of slaves to build your country, and the colonies seceding from england, kind of made your country what it is today.

You've got yours jack, and you'll see the whole world burn before giving up any of it. Does that about sum up your position?

Re:Real, but

[slack_justyb]

It's not about climate change or environmentalism, it really hasn't been for a long time...it's about socialist economic policy--redistribution of wealth. The leaders of the movement readily admit as much.

I really think you are missing a point on this. Let's start basic, winter wheat here in the US. You can apply this to coffee or chocolate, but why not something that most likely directly affects the US? Now over the last few decades the US yield of winter wheat has declined. It isn't that we aren't growing enough, it is that it's overall quality has decreased. Without getting too detailed, wheat grown needs a pretty stable environment especially early on. If that's not the case the amount of starch inside the kernels declines and thus produces a "less good" product. So to bring the numbers back up to a quality that people will want to bake with it, they have to take more plants and combine them in flour to bring the numbers back up. So while it might have take X square feet of wheat to produce Y pounds of quality flour, it is now taking X+n square feet to produce the same Y pounds of quality flour.

That n value isn't insanely large, but it does mean that the cost of growing and producing the exact same amount of end product increases. That in turn changes an economic market, without some economic policy, someone along the food chain here in the production of winter wheat gets hit, and typically that person is near or at the bottom where the growing happens. In the US we have such a policy that hands out government money (or as you might call it redistribution) to encourage keeping that quantity of flour being produced at Y pounds per X+n square feet. Over time, that value of n will increase if there is no policy that aims to combat why n is increasing. Thus if the government is handing out $M to keep flour at Y pounds per X+n square feet, the government will have to hand out $M+$h more dollars just to keep the rate the same. Thus you can see that there are two solutions to this problem. We could address n and why it is increasing, or we could address $h and how to keep it increasing, or we could address both (this later one though seems a bit more than I'd give our collective governments credit for solving).

There's not a more correct answer, it is a preference based off the question of "what do I have more control over?" Addressing n solves a longer term problem but fails to address the here and now, addressing $h solves the now but doesn't address the underlying issue. You could address either in some sort of ratio of address n 30% and address $h 70% and you'll get different results. The bigger thing to remember is, no one has any clear answer on how best to address it period. This isn't something we've collective done before. So economic policy is indeed one way to go about it, but it isn't anywhere near the only policy or what the entire question is about. You have policy makers that sit there and look at the problem in terms of $h and thus, it's no surprise that they are looking at solutions that address the terms that they started with. It's like asking, "why a banker addresses a heart transplant in terms of which doctor they can afford?" Those are the terms that they're most apt to focus in on and know how to enact policy based on their insight. Does that mean that climate change is all about money? No. It's just that the folks you all cited are all folks that work in that specific mindset, global economic policy.

That's why it is a bit disingenuous to assume that the entire thing is strictly about $h. There's still an n variable there and it plays a role in the equation as well. That a lot of talking heads only focus on $h doesn't mean that the n variable just disappears. And this is just a simplification of the overall topic in of itself. That $h looks a lot more appealing as a short term solution if P% of your nation's GDP relies on Y pounds of flour getting made or Y pounds of coffee or Y pounds of chocolate or Y pound

Re:Real, but

[jcr]

conservatives would always find some reason to yell at the rest of us.

Project much?

-jcr

Re:Real, but

[jcr]

We need to reduce consumption and materialism first and foremost

Fuck you, you pig-ignorant misanthrope. There are billions of people still living in poverty, and they have every right to improve their lives. Socialism only expands poverty.

-jcr

Re:Real, but

[Archtech]

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

Please mod parent up to 5 for "Funny". The Grauniad isn't credible about anything - but especially topics that involve numbers, logic, or science.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

We know its real, we've been hearing people beat the drum about it for the last 20 years yet get no where because they think suppressing the very wealthy hydrocarbon economy is the solution (aka cutting carbon output).

Everyone needs to stop wasting their time with carbon reduction, like wake up, its too late for that.

We need to lower the amount of heat reaching the earth - giant sun umbrella in space or sprinkle some reflective dust into the upper atmosphere, and let the hydrocarbon economy run its course.

Re: Real, but

[XXongo]

It does emit heat, while co2 does not

Since CO2 has an emissivity not equal to zero, it emits heat according to Stefan-Boltzmann's law, just like every other substance in the universe.

Re: Real, but

[Hognoxious]

The carbon on Earth came from the star that was there before the sun.

Re:Real, but

[e432776]

You bring an interesting point to this discussion - thank you.

A priori, I agree with you that anthropogenic climate change (ACC, if I may) and global inequality don't necessarily need to go together. Worse, perhaps putting them together makes it harder for people to take necessary actions to avoid possible environmental calamity- it certainly seems to rub you the wrong way, and I don't think you are alone. However, once you add in that less wealthy parts of the world are going to suffer more under ACC, then it makes more sense to discuss climate impacts and human inequality together. This is a major point of the paper on which the article is based.

Something to think about, anyway.

Re:Real, but

[stabiesoft]

We need to reduce us. We have overpopulated the earth. We need the third world to be more like the first world somehow, where it costs to have more kids instead of more kids is better. I don't know how we would achieve this, but without less of us, the world is likely to go to war over less resources per person. China used a pretty draconian method to get started down that path and the net result (no way to know if less kids was why) was a growing middle class.

Re: Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically we are not in summer yet.

Re:Real, but

[rickb928]

The Repugnant is right slanted?

Please excuse yourself. You are wrong.

Re: Real, but

[Bartles]

Fine. It doesn't generate heat, it only stores and releases it.

Re:Real, but

[mpercy]

Redistributing wealth does fuck-all to solve AGW.

It might make some people happier about getting warmed-over, but is not a solution. By all means, let's talk about fusion, or solar power via panels or molten salt reactors, or wind power, or carbon sequestration, or carbon scrubbers, or even carbon taxes as a market-based forcing function to reduce carbon output. Let's even talk about orbital solar shades and/or mirrors and/or power generating panels (or combinations thereof).

The AGW movement is shot through with people who are not interested in *any* of the above, who's raison d'être is the socialization of (which is to say, bringing socialism) the world. The AGW "crisis" is the best most recent thing they can hide behind.

I'm pretty sure they'll only be happy when everyone is naked living in caves and eating dirt, so long as they can still get their wi-fi for their smartphone while they sip their latte feeling superior about themselves for their egalitarianism in making everyone equal at last. Some animals are more equal than others and all that.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Same as the Wall Street Journal actually...

Re:Real, but

[Quirkz]

You have read The Grauniad haven't you?

Hmm, the Grauniad? Does that novel come before or after the Belgariad? My Eddings is rusty.

Re:Real, but

[spun]

And here you are to demonstrate the fact, thanks! I can always count on conservatives to act like conservatives and try to tell me what I'm doing is wrong.

Re:Real, but

[spun]

Science isn't about opinion, it is built on observations. Your ridiculous anecdotal fairy tales won't sway anyone. Why do you even bother? Just stay in your conservative opinion bubble where pesky facts can't reach you.

Re:Real, but

[grantspassalan]

You sound like Paul Ehrlich of the 1970s and his infamous "Population Bomb" BS.

Re:Real, but

[grantspassalan]

You sound like Paul Ehrlich of the 1970s and his infamous "Population Bomb”. You need to be a little more creative with your reasons of why you want to rob the rich to give to the poor. Robbing the relatively few rich will not make the many poor much better off then they are now.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

it's summer. it's hot in the northern hemisphere. The Caribbean has tropical storms. Same old, same old. I remember when the weather man would show the state with flames...it's hot.

Any time the weather gets uncomfortable or a high (or low) is set, it is attributed to global warming, global cooling, climate change....or whatever will produce the best headline for click bait.

And the click bait headlines just makes more dug-in disciples or skeptics.

Sigh.

Re:Real, but

[Neuronwelder]

More like breathe and eat the dog crap.. And like it!

Re:Real, but

[El Cubano]

We've understood the basics of the greenhouse effect for over a century; we've had good measurements of infrared absorption spectra for sixty years; we've had good overall models of how it affects temperature for fifty years now; and we've been making detailed measurements of atmospheric profiles and the incident solar forcing factor for thirty years. The overall picture of how human-emitted greenhouse gasses play in climate is understood.

There is still a lot of science being done, but this is is filling in the fine details. The overall picture is not controversial (at least, not by scientists).

We also thought that we knew that the appendix was a useless organ, only now we are beginning to understand that it is in fact useful. For centuries we thought that "humors" were the key to understanding the body and that bleeding was a good treatment for many ailments. After we have improved the science we look back and realize how little we really understood.

If you think that in a couple of centuries humanity will not look back at this period and time and say something like "wow, we really didn't understand the true effect of humanity on the global environment," then you haven't been paying attention to how science has advanced in the last century.

That's OK, though. I am accustomed to being berated for not kowtowing to the accepted orthodox politically correct view of things. It comes with the territory.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

That David Brower was one amazing guy! He was born in 1912 and still managed to be a founder of the Sierra Club in 1892.

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason these all sound like "socialist" solutions to you, apart from your own perspective, is that self-described right-wingers are still busy denying the problem, and have thus abdicated any part in building solutions.

You have a market-driven, business-friendly plan to address climate change? Pitch it. If you don't, then get together with likeminded people until you can collectively come up with one. Until that happens, don't be surprised if the only people seriously talking about the issue are those you think of as "leftists".

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Try June 26th, 1990.

And Arizona Republic is right slanted? Have you been eating Peyote recently?

Re:Real, but

[jcr]

Not a conservative, but feel free to keep guessing.

-jcr

Re: Real, but

[Jzanu]

No. I'm afraid you are an idiot. The problem with CO2 and other greenhouse gases is that they absorb infrared energy, store it in the atmosphere, and prevent that energy from being reflected back into space as it would otherwise. This increases the energy in that large dynamical system we call the Earth, with predicable results that mean massive die offs in humans and all the animals and plants we depend on for survival.

Re:Real, but

[Plumpaquatsch]

Human-induced climate change is real... but this article is alarmism.

A hint: please don't use Mother Jones as a source for science information.

Ignoring that the article is originally from The Telegraph - here, fetch: https://www.nature.com/article...

Climate change can increase the risk of conditions that exceed human thermoregulatory capacity 1–6 . Although numerous stud- ies report increased mortality associated with extreme heat events 1–7 , quantifying the global risk of heat-related mortality remains challenging due to a lack of comparable data on heat-related deaths 2–5 . Here we conducted a global analysis of documented lethal heat events to identify the climatic conditions associated with human death and then quantified the current and projected occurrence of such deadly climatic conditions worldwide. We reviewed papers published between 1980 and 2014, and found 783 cases of excess human mortality associated with heat from 164 cities in 36 countries. Based on the climatic conditions of those lethal heat events, we identified a global threshold beyond which daily mean surface air temperature and relative humidity become deadly. Around 30% of the world’s population is currently exposed to climatic conditions exceeding this deadly threshold for at least 20 days a year. By 2100, this percentage is projected to increase to 48% under a scenario with drastic reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and 74% under a scenario of growing emissions. An increasing threat to human life from excess heat now seems almost inevitable, but will be greatly aggravated if greenhouse gases are not considerably reduced.

Re:Real, but

[Plumpaquatsch]

Someone told me once there's a huge hot glowing ball of gas not too far away that produces heat.

So did he also tell you that it didn't change heat output, and yet earth's atmosphere's temperature is rising? Do you actually give a damn about those pesky facts?

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally like higher temperatures, bring me on some global warming

Why don't you move to somewhere more cosy then instead of relying on government handouts of heat? Fucking welfare kings in cold red states.

Re:Real, but

[e432776]

"Redistributing wealth does fuck-all to solve AGW."

likely true in the narrow sense, but it could do something about mitigating the effects of AGW for a large portion of humanity. This may be what folks who combine these issues are thinking, anyway.

Having written that, I basically agree with you that roping the two together probably harms our ability to deal with AGW. It's an interesting point, and we should remain skeptical of this sort of "issue bundling". Come to think of it, issue bundling seems common in the West today (ex: anti-GMO+anti-vax, or birther+anti-ACA+911 conspirasist; you can probably think of others..); beyond being a bit lazy, bundling might be increasing polarization. Or is it a product of some other process driving polarization..?

Re:Real, but

[david_thornley]

When it's cold out, I can wear warmer clothes and it's fairly simple to heat my immediate environment by burning things. When it's hot out, there's a hard limit to the clothes I can remove, and air conditioning is complicated and not necessarily all that effective at high temperatures. Moreover, consider room temperature at 70F. The article is discussing temperatures in the neighborhood of 120F, which is 50F above room temperature. 50F below room temperature is 20F, which is very comfortable with proper clothing.

I live in Minnesota, and have had more problems with heat-related problems (heat exhaustion) than cold-related problems.

Re:Real, but

[mpercy]

I suppose it could something about mitigating the effects of AGW for a large portion of humanity.

Now, if only I believed that the people in charge actually cared a rat's ass about that portion of humanity likely to be most impacted. I.e., if the goal was to solve the economic problems that are associated with AGW.

Instead, I'm constantly being slapped by the obvious--and clearly stated by the "leaders"--notion that redistribution of wealth is the goal, and AGW is the crisis under which redistribution of wealth can be obtained. They don't care about people who will be impacted anymore than Stalin cared about the proletariat, and I think given half a chance would just as soon murder 20M people too (they clearly think about 5 or 6 billion need to go).

Re:Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG 120 degree?!! in the fucking desert!!!! of course it is you dumb B@#$
Southern California and Arizona built cities in the desert and wonder why its hot and dry. really? really? REALLY?

Re: Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

"-jcr"

-jcr

Re: Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, we should never let workers collectivize the meansof production; with all the extra money, they would just be poorer!

Tip: calling people names almost always makes your argument look ridiculous. Try channeling all the impotent rage into snark, as I did above!

Re:Real, but

[Truth_Quark]

"Climate change will exacerbate poverty in low and lower-middle income countries, including high mountain states, countries at risk from sea-level rise, and countries with indigenous peoples, and create new poverty pockets in upper-middle to high-income countries in which inequality is increasing," [the report] said.

Which working group and year of IPCC report are you quoting?

It's not about climate change or environmentalism, it really hasn't been for a long time...it's about socialist economic policy--redistribution of wealth. The leaders of the movement readily admit as much.

Bullshit.

(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War... First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

That translation is pretty poor, and lends itself to the interpretation that you've given it. But Edenhofer is merely discussing the difficulties in negotiating climate response, because sufficient actions have a large effect on the world's wealth distribution. Consider the effect on Saudi Arabia or Russia if we require a halt to the extraction of fossil fuels that are likely to be used by burning them. The basis of their economy suddenly disappears.

“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history.”

This is not about "redistribution of wealth". It is merely saying that economic development used to go through a fossil fuel phase, and we have to transform it so that it doesn't.

“This moment requires we the people to rethink democracy as a global mechanism for enacting policy for and by the planet."

This is not about "redistribution of wealth". It is about the fact that we have to come up with a global mechanism for enacting policy for the planet. Unless you're very lucky democracy does not produce polices that cost in the current term, but don't have benefits until later terms, or worse, don't have benefits primarily for the country in question.

Peter Berle, President of the National Audubon Society: "We reject the idea of private property."

I'm having trouble finding the context of this quote. Where did he say or write that? In particular, who is "we", and what has this to do with climate science? Did you know this quote is also attributed to Prince Phillip?

David Brower, a founder of the Sierra Club: "The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society, which is nature's proper steward and society's only hope."

Again, I'm having trouble finding the source of that quote. Was it in one of his books? Which one?

Re:Real, but

[Truth_Quark]

Redistributing wealth does fuck-all to solve AGW.

I think you're misunderstanding, it's the other way around.

Solving climate change redistributes wealth.

For example, there's 200 billion barrels of oil that are under Saudi Arabia, and therefore not under any other country.

Re: Real, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Will you please shut the fuck up about your girlfriend KGIII?

Re:Real, but

[spun]

Guess what, the world doesn't have to accept the labels you place on yourself. We get to make our own assessments and label you whatever the fuck we want to label you. You are a conservative. I don't care what you call yourself. Libertarian, maybe? Same thing. The conservatives purchased the Libertarian brand, thanks to the free market, so they can do whatever they want with it. You don't have the kind of cash necessary to define what "libertarian" means.

Re:Real, but

[jcr]

the world doesn't have to accept the labels you place on yourself.

Of course, you're free to make a fool of yourself to your heart's content. Have at it, sparky!

-jcr

Re:Real, but

[jwilcox154]

My God, you act just as stupid as the Rethuglicans themselves. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't somehow "automagically" make them a conservative except in that mind of yours. Have you been a shill for so long that you forget that there are political positions other than just "us vs them"? Have you forgotten there are those that are seekers of truth rather than adhere to politically dogmatic groupthink? Face it, not everyone adheres to political dogma like you do and no one has the monopoly on the truth, or the facts.

Yes science is about knowledge and observations, something that chicken littles and ostriches alike fail to understand.

Re:Real, but

[jwilcox154]

You are a conservative. I don't care what you call yourself. Libertarian, maybe? Same thing.

Really? If so then why is Trump, a Republican, threatening Amazon with anti-trust laws, something that goes against the free market? Why has the GOP refused to abolish social programs or get on a road to eliminate them? Why haven't they ended the war on drugs? These are issues the Libertarian Party are against while the GOP is in favor of.

Re:Real, but

[spun]

Keep telling yourself that your political views are unique and special, snowflake. But you quack like a duck and walk like a duck so the rest of us are gonna keep calling you a duck.

Re:Real, but

[spun]

Nobody listens to the "libertarian party." Not even Rand Paul. Libertarian is to conservative what Lexus is to Toyota: It's a branding exercise. It's not my fault that some people are too stupid to know who owns the brand they are buying.

But Twitler and the Republicans say it's all okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Pull out of the Paris Accord – ain't no big deal.

Breaking news

[Kohath]

Heatwaves are a thing. They can be very dramatic.

Re:Breaking news

[Anonymous Coward]

The next time someone alludes to failed predictions and Alamism and someone says, "name one!," refer to this story.

Baseline figure for this prediction

[MrMr]

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/...

Re:Baseline figure for this prediction

[Solandri]

According to your link, cold is a bigger killer than heat:

Based on information from death certificates, 10,649 deaths were attributed to weather-related causes in the United States during 2006â"2010. Nearly one-third of the deaths were attributed to excessive natural heat, and almost two-thirds were attributed to excessive natural cold.

That said, here's a link to the original paper in Nature rather than some spin piece in Mother Jones. The 2100 prediction is outright extrapolation, and there's not quite enough history for me to feel confident about the trendline. But there is enough of a historical trend not to dismiss this as mere alarmism as some have posted.

Re:Baseline figure for this prediction

[MrMr]

Correct, it is well known that in total many more people die from cold than from heat. Obviously the numbers vary per season and location. My point is; we have a starting figure and a trend for both higher and lower than optimal temperatures. The Nature paper also only shows the right hand side of the story in figure 4. If you honestly think mortality is the problem, there should be a red line somewhere below 0C as well. Assymmetrically linking only 'bad stuff' to 'higher temperature' may be counterproductive if we want to come to a smarter policy (yes, I work in government, and I think it could be done...).

We live in the tropics or subtropics

[xanthines-R-yummy]

Considering most of the globe lives either the tropics or the subtropics, this is probably only going to get worse, especially as the temperate zones become more and more tropical.

Re:We live in the tropics or subtropics

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats getting worse? That there are hot temperatures in the desert? Name one city, region with record breaking temperatures? I bet you can't.

Re:We live in the tropics or subtropics

[unixisc]

This!!! Absolutely this! Given that 1/6th of the world's population is in India - a completely tropical country, and big numbers in countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, that makes up those numbers easily. Add up the populations of these countries, tossing in Pakistan & Bangladesh, and one gets 31% of the world's population right there. After that, toss in the population of the countries in the equatorial areas of Africa, such as Congo, and the number easily exceeds it.

Looks to me more like a case of elementary geographical demographics, as opposed to AGW. These areas have been exposed to heat waves as long as I can remember

AZ Experiences Global Warming Every Year!

[NaCh0]

Or as those of us in Arizona call it... Summer.

these temps are not new

[Anonymous Coward]

these areas have had these temps before these probably won't even break any records.

Re:But Twitler and the Republicans say it's all ok

[Anonymous Coward]

Make America great again!
Trump Trump Trump!

the desert is hot

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprise, the desert is hot and such high heat is deadly if exposed to it too long. Here is an idea, don't live in the desert.

Re:the desert is hot

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. I can't stand heat and anything above 26C or so is awful. This fall I'm moving farther north.

Re:the desert is hot

[Anonymous Coward]

What, you live in Seattle and you're moving to Vancouver?

Re:the desert is hot

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with the Canadian immigration. I hear they are worse than the Americans in regards to border security and illegal immigration!

Re:the desert is hot

[yuriklastalov]

I hear they are worse than the Americans in regards to border security and illegal immigration!

Isn't that racist? I thought pretty boy Trudeau ushered in a new era of compassionate progressivism? How can they control their borders? Immigration is GOOD NO MATTER WHAT!

Some alternate sources

[XXongo]

Some sources that are not "Mother Jones":

Abstract of the original article: https://www.nature.com/nclimat...
Press release from Nature East Asia: http://www.natureasia.com/en/r...
Press release from U. Hawaii Manoa (the institution of the lead authors): http://www.hawaii.edu/news/201...
Article at phys.org: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-...
Article at Science Daily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/r...

Interactive map of number of deadly heat days: https://maps.esri.com/globalri...

Re:Some alternate sources

[Barsteward]

nice work but unfortunately education is wasted on some

If a third of the planet is hot

[Anonymous Coward]

that means two thirds ARENT?

what the hell i thought the whole planet was the same temperature

Re:If a third of the planet is hot

[PolygamousRanchKid]

that means two thirds ARENT?

Actually, TFS says that 1/3 of the people on Earth are "hot."

It these heatwaves really are lethal, that number will be reduced down to 1/4 really soon. The problem will be self-correcting until nobody lives in a heatwave any more.

Re:If a third of the planet is hot

[penandpaper]

Once again, thanks to technology our problems are solved by doing nothing. Huzzah!

The sky has fallen

[argStyopa]

...so I guess we're all dead then?

Oh wait, humans are the most adaptable creatures to have ever existed (as far as we know) on this planet.

Perhaps the snowflakes will melt.

Re:The sky has fallen

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the snowflakes will melt

On the contrary, I expect Donald Trump to live forever. Unfortunately.

Re:The sky has fallen

[Tyr07]

I'm pretty sure humans will survive as a species will survive due to our adaptability unless something extremely exotic and rare happens, like some sort of super virus or a large rock hitting the planet.

However the real problem we're trying to tell people, is that the current human population is reaching a limited capacity on current conditions without a continue decline into quality of life for those that even have one.

As we inflate the temperatures on the planet, the sustainable population decreases. Hot places are going to be the first to struggle, places that aren't wealthy that can't afford water pumps and air conditioning to artificially provide cooler temperatures and clean drinking water, are going to die off first.

The first thing that will happen is the life expectancy will drop to previous levels. People are living to 80-100 years old, in these regions that number is going to drop significantly as the elderly will be the first to be killed by the heat and lack of water.

As things get warmer, and crops are affected, the max sustainable population will drop below current populations, and a lot of people are going to die.

Affects for people in cooler climates will be a change in environment and the impact of global trade with countries most affected by the additional heat.

It doesn't mean everyone is going to die and humans are going to die out, it just means a lot of people are going to die, way more than currently are.

Re:The sky has fallen

[Anonymous Coward]

The main consequence is expense. The people who are subsidizing polluters are those who have to deal with the added expenses of change, e.g. coast cities no longer being above water, crops having to change, etc.

Perhaps the snowflakes will melt.

Yes, that's a concern. They think they deserve the subsidy, but when people choose to not pay it, they are going to throw a fit that they're denied their entitlement. Watch for some very strong reactions to the imposition of pollution controls. Everyone wants something-for-nothing, and when you fuck with the weather, everyone is going to demand something-for-nothing, and they aren't going to get it. Polluters are going to have to start paying, no longer the rich-but-jobless hippies given free handouts by others. Our current president is an almost perfect example. The only reason he's not scared is that he knows he's near the end of average life expectancy. His death will be his final laugh and "fuck y'all" to the world. But others like him are going to want to continue the free ride, and they're going to try to get it, out of your pocket. When you tell them NO, it's going to be a messy melt!

Re: The sky has fallen

[that this is not und]

In particular, places like Florida and Arizona require disproportionate amounts of energy to stay cool in the heat wave. Their suburbs require disproportionate amounts of energy consumption to keep lawns around ranch style houses and golf courses green.

  Bake those fuckers off, oh Sun.

Re:The sky has fallen

[mpercy]

Aren't some of those pretty much quoting the same things Paul Ehrlich said 50 years ago?

Re:The sky has fallen

[lucasnate1]

I think that maybe some people feel that it's too crowded and want a lot of people to die.

Not just one year [Re:That's nice]

[XXongo]

Climate change has no effect on a year-to-year basis. If we're showing the weather to someone from Year 1900, then ok, but we aren't, so this is just dumb.

To be fair, although I think the Mother Jones article is alarmist, the actual work cited catalogued heat-related deaths documented "for 783 lethal heatwaves in 164 cities across 36 countries," referencing a search of publications dating back to 1980. This was not a one-year study.

Re:Not just one year [Re:That's nice]

[iggymanz]

because there were no massive heat waves with even more deaths before that? Like say the 1936 North American heat wave?

we have better new coverage nowadays, that's all. This is all alarmist trash for young people with no knowledge of recent past let alone history

Re:Not just one year [Re:That's nice]

[Barsteward]

was that a one off event or an increase in occurrences of heat waves ? i've noticed that here in the Uk the summer heatwave events seem to be very regular now when they used to be a one off event. Probably not hot compared to other places but certainly hotter than the norm

Re:Not just one year [Re:That's nice]

[mpercy]

Cold weather is 20 times as deadly as hot weather, and it's not the extreme low or high temperatures that cause the most deaths, according to a study published Wednesday.

The study found the majority of deaths occurred on moderately hot and moderately cold days instead of during extreme temperatures.

"Although the risk of mortality due to extremely cold or hot days is actually higher, they are less frequent," said lead author Antonio Gasparrini of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

The study — published in the British journal The Lancet — analyzed data on more than 74 million deaths in 13 countries between 1985 and 2012. Of those, 5.4 million deaths were related to cold, while 311,000 were related to heat.

Re: Not just one year [Re:That's nice]

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the end of an ice age. Hell, it was so recent that most of North America is still rebounding. Like, physically moving upward after the weight of ice was removed. Yes, the ice age ended that recently.

Re:Not just one year [Re:That's nice]

[david_thornley]

Did it account for the difference in what we think of as "hot" and "cold"?

Figure that comfortable temperatures are 70F. TFS refers to temperatures approaching 120F, which is considered extreme. Back before global warming took off, winters around here, in a large metro area, almost always had one dip to -20F. The range from comfortable to hot (about 20F) is smaller than the range from comfortable to cold (say 50F), and the range from comfortable to i'm-dying-but-it's-too-hot-for-the-aircraft-to-carry-me-away is about 50F, whereas I've driven in temperatures 100F below comfortable.

Re:Not just one year [Re:That's nice]

[iggymanz]

the huge heat wave before that in the USA was 1896.

Why does Phoenix even exist as a city?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some high-paying jobs there. I know. (They have to be high-paying, because living in Phoenix is otherwise a grind of intense suffering and $700/month electricity bills and hour-long car commutes.)

But why are the jobs there? Because the companies are there. But why are the companies there? Move somewhere else and your payroll gets way cheaper. The rest of America is paying to support those companies. Not involuntarily, I'll admit: we can always buy from someone else. But we're paying for people to live in that hellhole. If you were to pay someone else, then people would be able to move out of that hellhole to somewhere nicer. (And "someplace nicer" is pretty much anywhere. Even Tucson, though hot, is way fucking nicer.)

Stop buying Phoenix products and services. Do it for the people of Phoenix, if selfishly saving money isn't reason enough. There are plenty of desert places that offer the advantages of Phoenix if you like heat, without such absurd extreme.

Let The Phoenicians Go! Let them taste some measure of happiness in their miserable lives. That heat bowl should be sparsely populated by farmers: badass motherfuckers who can handle nature.

Re:Why does Phoenix even exist as a city?

[__aaclcg7560]

IIRC, Phoenix offered tax incentives for Silicon Valley companies to relocate there in the 1990's. A lot of people from my church worked at Intel and relocated to Phoenix at that time. The biggest draw then was being able to buy an affordable house far, far away from Silicon Valley.

Re

[meadow]

This news has been out a while. Look at references #9 and #10 here.

Tell me about it...

[__aaclcg7560]

Silicon Valley is the high 90's this week. Power went out yesterday for a few hours, making the afternoon heat unbearable without the fans. Still trying to figure out where to put another fan in the Cougar QBX Mini-ITX case, as the SSD and HDD run ten degrees higher than my fileserver with six HDDs and seven fans. This case is supposed to have enough room for a regular PSU, a dual-slot GPU and a water cooler radiator. I don't have either and there isn't enough room for my fat fingers.

https://twitter.com/cdreimer/status/874112440379744257/

Re:Tell me about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually a neat layout. But I wonder, why are you trying to cram so much into a such a small space? If you are at home, a simple thing to do is to simply don't put things in a case.
But that depends on your personality; I have no problem with a functional mess.
I've actually seen new condos built here in Montreal with what seems to be a small closet in the wall where they pass the telecom cables, and enough room to build a PC on the wall with the parts spread out.

Re:Tell me about it...

[__aaclcg7560]

But I wonder, why are you trying to cram so much into a such a small space?

The ECS KAM1-I AM1 mini-ITX motherboard has two serial ports and headers for two more serial ports, which made it perfect as a Red Hat Linux terminal server for my Cisco certification rack. I got the motherboard and AMD AM1 processor for $25 each last year. The mATX case that I had was overkill and I wanted something smaller. The Cougar case for $50 was perfect. I'll probably replace the PSU with a picoPSU to free up space inside.

Re:Tell me about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you just explained why Silly Valley is in the high 90s.

I bet the temperature would drop five degrees if everyone would switch to lower TDP hardware and away from HDDs to SDDs.

Re:Tell me about it...

[__aaclcg7560]

I bet the temperature would drop five degrees if everyone would switch to lower TDP hardware and away from HDDs to SDDs.

Not necessarily. The case for my file server can hold 14 HDDs. If 1TB SSDs were available for $50 each, I could put 28 into my case with dual SSD adapters.

Re:Tell me about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

OK but why cram it in such a small space? Are you planning a trip to the ISS, or maybe in the Trieste?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathyscaphe_Trieste

Re:Tell me about it...

[__aaclcg7560]

OK but why cram it in such a small space?

I build my systems small. For years it was mATX motherboards. I'm now switching to mini-ITX for future systems.

Re:That's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, keep your head in the sand...

seriously, please do, while I fill the whole and put both of us out of your misery

I agree!

[Anonymous Coward]

This human caused global warming is just superstition!

It's obvious that Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit are mad at people for not being Godly! We have the Proof. It's right in our faces. God doesn't like the way we're treating this planet and instead of another flood, this time He is going to just roast us to death.

And Arizona? Please! Just old people who are waiting to die anyway. Social Security and Medicare are being over taxed and the less old farts on entitlement programs the better.

Praise Jesus!

Re:I agree!

[Anonymous Coward]

Preach it brother! If you're not wealthy and staying cool, then jeebus just don't like you.

Re:I agree!

[aicrules]

Phoenix, Arizona and Palm Springs are desert cities. These temperatures, while certainly unsafe, are not irregular for summer time. Palm Springs has been 123 degrees before. Sacramento has been 115. Phoenix has hit 122. That's not to say this isn't a danger to those living there, especially old people, but it's being reported as if it's evidence of global warming. It isn't. So the idea of it being human caused warming or not is irrelevant because it's not global warming in the first place. If it's 130 degrees in Fargo, North Dakota today and you'll have my attention.

So let's go find the cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Linda? Burning inside?

Re: What the hell is this

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Greenpeace hijack slashdot today?

Or maybe it was French Special Forces.

There is literally nothing to talk about here.

Then go somewhere else, and stop whining.

At least with the Ethiopia coffee story you could draw the line between IT workers and coffee drinking, which was already pretty weak. But come on. This article is a load of shit. Oh holy crap it gets hot in places. MSMash and "anonymous reader" you are both fucking idiots.

Sure man, and what's your contribution? That of a gibbering buffoon? You could find a way to participate in the discussion, such as questions of building design, population relocation, or something interesting, but instead, your contribution is? Ranting and raving?

Why not just submit some OTHER story that interests you?

Millions will perish.

[Gravis Zero]

I find it strange that some people call this alarmism when the truth is that extreme weather conditions were predicted to occur decades ago. It's been going on for a while and we're now getting a taste of its brutal heat. The point is that this brutality is going to spread to much of the planet. In the developed world we have electricity to help cool us and sufficient water to keep our crops alive. However, in the underdeveloped world people will try to survive just like they always have but it won't be enough. Either they will migrate to a cooler climate and/or they will die from the heat. If you don't want mass immigration to devastate your nation, you need to be working on a way to reverse the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Considering how lightly most countries are taking this threat, million of people are going to die and millions more will migrate and it will reshape our societies. You can call it alarmism but it's really happening and it's happening right now.

Re:Millions will perish.

[Carewolf]

million of people are going to die and millions more will migrate and it will reshape our societies

You mean that the same process that has been going on for hundreds of thousands of years is going to continue? That's not exactly a bold prediction.

? Heating for thousands of years.. No

It has been going on for 200 years, and is on an exponential curve, making it sucker punch now that it is kicking in.

Re:Millions will perish.

[Gilgaron]

You wouldn't think so but plenty of people have their head in the sand about the impacts of the changing climate. As you point out, it should be fairly obvious that there will be lots of societal upheavals and suffering.

Re:Millions will perish.

[WrongMonkey]

The process I was referring to was millions of people dying, millions more migrating and societies reshaping. This has been an ongoing process since before hominids migrated out of Africa. The details might change, but that process won't stop anytime soon.

Re:Millions will perish.

[vakuona]

Millions will perish? Really? I have an even worse prediction for you. More than 10 billion people are going to die in the next 100 years.

(You see what I did there?)

Now that isn't to say that we should do nothing about climate change, but if, and it's a big if, the price of climate changes is a few (or even scores of) millions of lives, we need to balance this with the billions whose lives are better off as a result of increase access to energy (including to CO2 producing energy).

We already have people living in places where the temperature routinely goes above 50 Celsius, and they haven't all dropped dead yet.

Re:Millions will perish.

[Oligonicella]

Temperature over the ages:
here.

It has mostly been much warmer from mid-Carboniferous to now.

Re:Millions will perish.

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in this heat advisory area and while it is indeed hot...it's been this hot before and it will be this hot again. I don't understand why this year everyone is making such a huge deal of it. It's 113 here today...it was 113 last year (and the last century +)...it will be 113 again next year. Should there be an advisory? Yes, but to indicate that somehow this is out of the ordinary is dishonest. Stay indoors when you can, drink plenty of water, don't exert yourself during the main part of they day. Same advice i've gotten for 30 years growing up and it's the same advice we give anyone who moves here.

Re:Millions will perish.

[Carewolf]

that is based on the famous hockey stick graph which has been debunked .

I think you mistyped verified by everybody, even by scientists funded by the Koch brothers specifically to debunk it.

Darwin Award

[Tablizer]

If a Republican dies of heat stroke, they may qualify for a Darwin Award.

Re:Darwin Award

[Anonymous Coward]

Which Republican policies caused global warming, and which Democratic alternatives would have prevented it?

Re: Darwin Award

[Anonymous Coward]

why do so many lefties are promoting death and violence

Re: Darwin Award

[Tablizer]

Death to bad grammar!

Anyhow, how is my statement "promoting" such? The award is generally NOT considered prestigious by the recipient.

Re: What the hell is this

[aicrules]

Part of my contribution to this site is to call out stupidity, like yours, when I see it. That there were enough people who upvoted this story to make it to the front page is severely disappointing.

a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[iggymanz]

in 1990 it was 122 deg F in Phoenix.

this is alarmist trash, study the history of heat waves and find out when the massive deaths were. Hint, not recently. 5,000 dead in the 1936 north american heat wave, for example

kids. imagining any and every bad thing that happens in their lifetime is the world's greatest tragedy. pffft, this is alarmist nonsense.

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[djinn6]

Weather is not climate. One heat wave 80 years ago doesn't prove anything, especially not if you're comparing the two by the number of deaths. People didn't have AC back then, so of course more died.

Last year was already the warmest year on record, 0.94 C above mid-20th century mean, and we've been having very warm years for the last 2 decades. If your point was that temperatures aren't rising, then I'm going to want to see some data to back up your claims. Even if it's just where you live, can you show temperatures have been flat or falling in the past 4 decades? Or do you just have worse and worse memory and can't remember how cold it was back then?

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's alarmist, and further a weather event is not evidence of climate change. As warmers are fond of tell us.

When it's cooling they will tell us it's more evidence of climate change. They have the upper hand politically and that is the ultimate goal here to end capitalism and enforce some kind of global socialist paradise where only those who pass ideological litmus tests will be wealthy and in charge, and the rest of us will be slaves.

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[Anonymous Coward]

in 1990 it was 122 deg F in Phoenix.

And? What, you going to claim a prior record temperature is a reason to not want to recognize the potential problem?

this is alarmist trash, study the history of heat waves and find out when the massive deaths were. Hint, not recently. 5,000 dead in the 1936 north american heat wave, for example

Britain had a heat wave that killed a thousand people recently. India and Pakistan also had issues. And Australia. And Russia. And even the US.

Yes, we have more awareness and resources now, thank you for noticing, but more demands is not a good thing.

kids. imagining any and every bad thing that happens in their lifetime is the world's greatest tragedy.

Adults: Recognizing that bad things that happen might be worth addressing.

pffft, this is alarmist nonsense.

Pfft, your response is denialistic blatherskith.

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for the record, it's supposed to hit 120 F in Phoenix again tonight. Though there are enough clouds that maybe it won't be that bad.

We've been at or above 110 F lately, though. 120 F is not exactly unknown around here, though it is quite miserable. It's about like walking into an oven.

Speaking of which, I encourage everyone to donate water bottles or cash to their local shelters. The homeless do have it really bad right now and donations drop off over the summer.

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[Holi]

You mean you have to compare it to Phoenix's all time high?

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[Anonymous Coward]

What cities,regions are shattering the records? I bet you can't even name one?

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[religionofpeas]

in 1990 it was 122 deg F in Phoenix.

Which is pretty much a confirmation of the article.

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[Anonymous Coward]

People didn't have AC back then, so of course more died.

So what you're saying is that burning fossil fuels to produce AC has made an already dangerous climate safer?

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[Anonymous Coward]

Tap water...fuck you...give me fiji water you fascist!

The homeless.

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[Anonymous Coward]

oh yes give us that climate wisdom daddy. where would we be without your condescending and self-aggrandizing insights?

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[djinn6]

What cities,regions are shattering the records? I bet you can't even name one?

SF Bay Area? It happened 2 days ago.

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[djinn6]

So what you're saying is that burning fossil fuels to produce AC has made an already dangerous climate safer?

Tragedy of the commons. Or you can power the AC with solar.

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[iggymanz]

yes.

it regularly gets this hot in phoenix.

wake me up when they break that old record

Re:a third has ALWAYS been exposed to deadly heat

[iggymanz]

I'm just being rational, I'm not denying anything, just sticking with facts. It even hit 118 in the 1950s, wow how about that.

Interesting

[Osgeld]

The highest temperature in Arizona's recorded history was 128 degrees, on June 29, 1994

seems like we are moving in the right direction then, good job humons

Re:But Twitler and the Republicans say it's all ok

[Anonymous Coward]

Yip, no rebuttal, just modded down. That's how today's politics go and this is the reason we'll never get ahead. Thanks mods, fraudulent as you are you've helped to prove me correct yet again.

This should not alarm anyone

[Anonymous Coward]

The planet is badly overpopulated. Anything which helps to reduce overpopulation is welcome.

Re:This should not alarm anyone

[__aaclcg7560]

Other than a pandemic, the last one we had was a century ago, old age is expected to do the rest. Humanity doubled twice in the 20th century, but it won't even double once in the 21st century. Population should peak at 10B by 2050 and decline to 6B by 2100.

Re:This should not alarm anyone

[angel'o'sphere]

I don't think it is plausiible that the planets population is declpining by 4B people over the course of 50 years.
It is more likely it will stabilize around those 10B give or take 1B.
Western countries, mainly Europe have a decline of about 0.5% - 1% of population per year. I see no reason why that should be different world wide when health care, birth control, and social security is established and working everywhere.

Re:This should not alarm anyone

[WrongMonkey]

Starting from a peak population of 10B in 2020, a decline of about 1% of population per year means losing almost exactly 4B people over the course of 50 years.

Re:This should not alarm anyone

[angel'o'sphere]

Oh, I did not do the math.
Probably you are right, interesting math again.

It is the summer solstice

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for some global warming hysteria.

Today It's just weather.. and a bit of Irony.

[dschnur]

I've lived in Phoenix most of my life. My family has been in Arizona since the 1930's. It's the summer now, it's hot.

Late June has always been the hottest part of the year in the southern desert. The high today is well within the curve we expect this time of year. Insane hot? Yes. Atypical, no. Fun watching some unlucky Weather Channel reporter standing outside in the sun saying "Yep it's hot." We try not to do that ourselves.

However:

Yearly average temperatures are hotter than before. It's getting hot earlier in the year and staying hot until much later in the year. It's not attention-grabbing enough to say that it didn't drop below freezing for the past two years in Phoenix, but that is significant. It's just significant in a way that has more to do with microclimate, rather than macroclimate.

Over the years, Phoenix has grown. It's now the 5th largest city in the US. Phoenix also has many satellite cities. Some of them are major cities in their own right. For example, Mesa by it's self is slightly bigger than Atlanta GA. What that means is lots of concrete, paved roads, and air conditioning. All produce or retain heat. Phoenix has developed an urban "Heat Island," which repels rain storms and makes the city even hotter.

In other words, the Temperature in Phoenix today is NOT a valid indicator of global climate.

Now, let's go two hours North of Phoenix to Sedona and Flagstaff. Those smaller cities are in forested areas which are drier and slightly warmer than before. It's easy to see large swaths of dead trees in the forests caused by the stresses of longer-term changes in climate (and poor forest management.)

Now for the irony:
Most voters in Arizona take it in faith that what they are told by their political party is correct. Arizona is also strongly Republican. See where I'm heading? Strange if you think of it. Perhaps it's the heat?

  -D

Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[Rick Schumann]

The Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief of the US of A says so! That's why his administration minions are cutitng funding for renewable energy and instead propping up the fossil fuel industries! Also your 'thermometer' is something created because of SCIENCE, and Jesus hates science, so of course it's lying to you!

* * * WORLD-DESTROYING FACEPALM OF DOOM * * *

Face it: We're fucked. The only reason I can stay relatively sane, is I know I'll be long dead by the time the formerly temperate zones of the Earth become nigh-unto uninhabitable. Tell your single-digit-aged childen to cross their fingers that the current climate theories are in fact wrong and that there's a mini ice age coming up.

..and now I sit back and bask in the glory of being modded down to negative one by all the rabid conservatives. Go ahead, use your points up on me! All you're doing is proving that you're mad.

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mad about Trump TALKING about grabbing pussy, but Bill Clinton RAPING women doesn't bother you?

Nor does the fact that Hillary was totally OK with all of that?

And let's not forget the emails, which were NEVER debunked, wherein she admitted to sabotaging Bernie Sanders, which resulted in causing someone on Bernie's campaign to go on a homicidal rampage. You know, the guy that tried to kill Scalise and a bunch of Republicans?

Does Hillary even feel any shame about that, or is she still mad at the people that exposed her wicked actions?

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[Brett Buck]

There are very few rabid conservatives here, it's a leftist dream world.

      You might consider that all this distress you are under is not because you are a leftist, but because you are an excitable, gullible, moron, highly susceptible to suggestion.

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL U MAD xD xD xD xD

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[Rick Schumann]

O I C, I'm the moron, huh? Not you, who apparently doesn't grok sarcasm? Should I really need to put a tag at the end, for the two-digit IQ people like you?

Oh and by the way, I didn't vote for Clinton (because I didn't, and don't, trust her at all), and neither did I vote for Cheeto-head (because he's a buffoon, a liar, completely unqualified for the job, and very likely a criminal and/or traitor), I voted for someone else just to mock both of them and the entire broken electoral system. Accoding to the comments you've posted, you voted for the unqualified buffoon/liar/criminal/traitor -- and now that it's clear how much he's fucking everything up, you're massively butthurt, but your pride won't allow you to admit you fucked up -- not that there were any good choices anyway, it was a shit-fest from the beginning. But, see, that means you're not smart, not at all, and worse: you THINK you're smart, which makes you dangerous. Do yourself a favor and get a clue, son.

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pot, meet Kettle.

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[Anonymous Coward]

STFU and go drink your forty.

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[Oligonicella]

Sarcasm, like facetiousness, does not translate well into print.

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[Anonymous Coward]

> O I C, I'm the moron, huh?

Ok, maybe we can go with emotional unstable instead? Get a grip.

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of room for you and your ilk in Nunavut and no bugs in winter although the is not much arable land there in fact non of it is thus the name.

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[XXongo]

O I C, I'm the moron, huh? Not you, who apparently doesn't grok sarcasm? Should I really need to put a </sarcasm> tag at the end, for the two-digit IQ people like you?

Yes, please.

Sarcasm becomes invisible when posted on /. (or pretty much anywhere else on the 'net) because it's indistinguishable from the apparently sincere posts of trolls and clueless idiots.

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL your imagination is something I think you should get a grip on, son, it's running away with you. xD

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[Rick Schumann]

Heh, well, you might have a point. Also there's way too many pedants, and people who just plain lack a sense of humor to start with -- and not just the Trump voters, either. xD Makes for a tough room on the best of days.

Re:Your thermometer is FAKE NEWS!

[david_thornley]

And one more Trump supporter is stupid enough to not realize that Trump won. The election was over seven months ago, and Hillary Clinton is largely irrelevant. You can stop running against her now, because the important stuff is what the actual winner says and does.

so its true

[Anonymous Coward]

all our govts are blowing hot air?

it is a DRY HEAT - and it is not that hot!

[Anonymous Coward]

0) Everybody in AZ has air conditioning everywhere-- it's like they live on Mars and run from bubble to bubble... but without the space suit.
1) Arizona has dry heat. The heat index matters more; it's all about the body being able to regulate the heat. Sweat doesn't work if it doesn't evaporate.
2) Arizona isn't that hot the rest of the year
3) Much of Arizona is a dessert which heavily depends upon water from elsewhere. The nuts seriously talk about making massive aqueducts cross country to get water to the point where great lakes states created a pact to prevent it.
4) A few degrees a little longer has big impacts on water evaporation rates.
5) Unprepared places take time to adapt; the poor take longer to adapt if there are any expenses involved (air conditioning... more expensive water.)
6) Arizona IS NOT THAT HOT. They just like to brag because parts of the year in parts of the state suck a little bit... They have nothing much and nothing unique in their state (only bordering it) so they spin it as "The Sunshine State." South Dakota has more to it.

But forget all that and pretend the world revolves around them... it's not so bad for them so don't worry about poor countries with high humidity and tropical diseases like malaria.

Re: it is a DRY HEAT - and it is not that hot!

[KGIII]

I could be wrong, but I think much of Arizona is not actually a dessert. I bet it wouldn't taste good, at all.

Re:it is a DRY HEAT - and it is not that hot!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I live in the tropics, so 120F in Las Vegas a couple years ago was a walk in the park. Arizonans sound like weenies tbh.

Re:it is a DRY HEAT - and it is not that hot!

[rogoshen1]

when it gets above 110, it doesn't really matter -- it's unbearably hot, irrespective of humidity.

definitely agree with you though, Phoenix should not exist as a metropolitan area with 4+ million people. That water comes from somewhere (colorado river). What's even worse is that there are cotton fields.. one of the most water intensive crops on earth, being grown with stolen water, in a fucking desert. Something is seriously out of whack in regards to how water is priced in that part of the country.

(But Arizona is god damn hot, year round. The extreme northern area around Flagstaff is cooler, but that's only due to elevation. The rest of the state is a desert, and it is hot)

Re: it is a DRY HEAT - and it is not that hot!

[phantomfive]

If you think that's bad, you should try some Baked Alaska. With AGW will have even more of it.

Re:it is a DRY HEAT - and it is not that hot!

[Khashishi]

People say dry heat like it ain't no big deal. It's true that in the shade, dry heat isn't that much of a problem. AFAIK, one definition of heat index uses the wet bulb temperature, measuring the temperature of a wet bulb in the shade. But the thing about the desert is that there is no shade. There is no cloud cover, pretty much every day, and there are no trees to hide under. You have some short bushes and occasional cacti, but you won't have meaningful shade unless it's man-made. The air temperature isn't that bad, but the temperature of any surface exposed to the sun skyrockets. I've lived in Phoenix and in Austin. Yeah, it's more humid in Austin, but there's shade everywhere. There are trees.

Re: it is a DRY HEAT - and it is not that hot!

[KGIII]

I am baked in Maine. Close enough?

Re: it is a DRY HEAT - and it is not that hot!

[penandpaper]

No, we really need you to be baked in Alaska with a Baked Alaska. Are you even trying?

Re: it is a DRY HEAT - and it is not that hot!

[KGIII]

Not very hard, no. Sometimes the missus says I'm trying her patience, but I consider that a point of pride.

Re:it is a DRY HEAT - and it is not that hot!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want shade, wear a hat. And humidity on top of temperature is definitely more dangerous.

Re:The core issue is this :

[Anne Thwacks]

But no one wants to actually DO something about this.

Actually, ISIS, Al Quaida, the Russians and a bunch of people in the Middle East and North Africa are actively working on a solution as we sit here typing!

Cold waves?

[bluegutang]

How much of the world's population is exposed to deadly cold waves?

Below-freezing weather is pretty unsurvivable unless you have shelter and artificial heating. A lot of the world's population lives in areas that occasionally get below freezing.

It makes sense that as the planet warms, deadly cold waves will become less common - isn't it only fair to take this into account as well?

Re:Cold waves?

[angel'o'sphere]

Below-freezing weather is pretty unsurvivable unless you have shelter and artificial heating.
An Iglu does not need artificial heating to be warm. The body heat of the people inside is enough.

It makes sense that as the planet warms, deadly cold waves will become less common
In the far north, far south and everywhere with appropriated hight: it will always be cold in 'winter'.

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically what they are saying is that any given time, 1/3 of the Earth's population is exposed to deadly heatwaves... that are coming from the Sun?

I could've told you that.

What's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up in the American deep South in a house without airconditioning. I went to schools without airconditioning. What's the problem? If it was hot, that was normal. Nobody thought twice about it.

Snowflakes gonna melt!

Re:The core issue is this :

[Anonymous Coward]

So.... with any luck at all, you'll be one of the first to go.

But it's a dry heat

[Anonymous Coward]

Try 100 F and 98% humidity. Having lived in NOLA and in Arizona, I'll take Arizona any day of the week. High humidity means your body can't cool itself. Your body is way more efficient cooling itself when there is low humidity like Arizona.

The problem

[theendlessnow]

The problem I see is that we like to place the blame at the feet of somebody else. Maybe folks need some encouragement?

• Do you dive a vehicle (rarely) and it NEVER averages below 50MPG on a tank of gas (or maybe it's all electric?)
• Do you keep your smart phone for more than 5 years to avoid the costs to the environment?
• Do you keep your air conditioning on only as needed and only to keep temperatures "acceptable" and not pleasant?
• Do you avoid disposable plastics and recycle all that you do use?
• Have you given up computer gaming altogether? (sorry, but that's a lot of heat and power and hard to recycle parts)
• ... and gazillion more things that MATTER much, but people simply will not do...

Re:The problem

[david_thornley]

What I do as an individual has absolutely no measurable effect. It's lost in the noise. It's what we do collectively that matters. Driving a 50mpg car may give you a virtuous feeling, but if people are still buying sub-20mpg vehicles in quantity it won't do much good.

The most productive thing to do is to replace burning fossil carbon for energy. If we can turn more power generation over to wind, solar, and nuclear, we're doing some real good.

Re:The problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there any submarines rated at 50mpg?

Yet another false prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Like all end of the world religious cults the cult of global warming has a long history of prophecies that never come true. And like all cults true believers simply ignore the failed prophecies and latch onto the next one that will also inevitably fail. Literally they cannot see the failed prophecies even when shown them in writing because their faith makes them blind to facts that contradict their cult's beliefs. This prophecy too will fail, but at least the false prophets are getting smarter and putting the timeline far enough into the future that they will be dead and their prophecy forgotten before it is proved false, but in the meantime their true believers will cry for money to be given to their prophets so their prophets can find a way out or appease the angry gods.

P. S. Just do a Google search of global warming alarmist predictions and you'll find that every single one has failed including predictions made in UN reports signed off on every leading climate alarmist "scientist" as "fact". The most ridiculous of course being that all of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Hundreds of "scientists" agreed that would happen unless we did something RIGHT NOW to appease the gods. Of course, a teenager with knowledge of physics could do the calculations to show how ridiculous that was so once a teenager took the hour to do the calculations the scientists has to admit they all just decided to make it up to scare people which is exactly why they make all of their end of the world prophecies.

New normal sometimes is reversion to the mean

[mpercy]

Example, California drought claimed by alarmists to represent the doom of AGW coming to Cali. But research is indicating that California has been far wetter over the last century than it is normally and that the current drought is actually par for the long-term normal.

California’s current drought is being billed as the driest period in the state’s recorded rainfall history. But scientists who study the West’s long-term climate patterns say the state has been parched for much longer stretches before that 163-year historical period began.

Through studies of tree rings, sediment and other natural evidence, researchers have documented multiple droughts in California that lasted 10 or 20 years in a row during the past 1,000 years — compared to the mere three-year duration of the current dry spell. The two most severe megadroughts make the Dust Bowl of the 1930s look tame: a 240-year-long drought that started in 850 and, 50 years after the conclusion of that one, another that stretched at least 180 years.

“We continue to run California as if the longest drought we are ever going to encounter is about seven years,” said Scott Stine, a professor of geography and environmental studies at Cal State East Bay. “We’re living in a dream world.”

California in 2013 received less rain than in any year since it became a state in 1850. And at least one Bay Area scientist says that based on tree ring data, the current rainfall season is on pace to be the driest since 1580 — more than 150 years before George Washington was born. The question is: How much longer will it last?

Stine, who has spent decades studying tree stumps in Mono Lake, Tenaya Lake, the Walker River and other parts of the Sierra Nevada, said that the past century has been among the wettest of the last 7,000 years.

Looking back, the long-term record also shows some staggeringly wet periods. The decades between the two medieval megadroughts, for example, delivered years of above-normal rainfall — the kind that would cause devastating floods today.

The longest droughts of the 20th century, what Californians think of as severe, occurred from 1987 to 1992 and from 1928 to 1934. Both, Stine said, are minor compared to the ancient droughts of 850 to 1090 and 1140 to 1320.

Bill Patzert, a research scientist and oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, says that the West is in a 20-year drought that began in 2000. He cites the fact that a phenomenon known as a “negative Pacific decadal oscillation” is underway — and that historically has been linked to extreme high-pressure ridges that block storms.

Such events, which cause pools of warm water in the North Pacific Ocean and cool water along the California coast, are not the result of global warming, Patzert said. But climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels has been linked to longer heat waves. That wild card wasn’t around years ago.

“Long before the Industrial Revolution, we were vulnerable to long extended periods of drought. And now we have another experiment with all this CO2 in the atmosphere where there are potentially even more wild swings in there,” said Graham Kent, a University of Nevada geophysicist who has studied submerged ancient trees in Fallen Leaf Lake near Lake Tahoe.

Re:New normal sometimes is reversion to the mean

[phantomfive]

FYI the drought in California is over.

New study: Models run too hot

[Anonymous Coward]

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/20/the-new-consensus-on-global-warming-a-shocking-admission-by-team-climate/comment-page-1/#comment-2531533

New paper from Ben Santner, a big global warming modeler, on the government pay roll.
Conclusion, models way over predict the 21st century warming over what was observed.

Despite more CO2 in the air than ever, emissions rising, the temperature in the 21st century has lagged way behind what the models predicted.

So the link from CO2 to warmth is not adequately captured in the models.

And these models ware what is being used to drive politics and policy.
The climate sensitivity parameter has been overestimated for political reasons, so even though CO2 warms the climate, the future increase will be moderate and manageable.
Yet, unlike real models say used in electrical engineering, these have not been validated with the data.

California drought solution: stop farming

[mpercy]

http://www.mercurynews.com/201...

Although many Californians think that population growth is the main driver of water demand statewide, it actually is agriculture. In an average year, farmers use 80 percent of the water consumed by people and businesses — 34 million of 43 million acre-feet diverted from rivers, lakes and groundwater, according to the state Department of Water Resources.

“Cities would be inconvenienced greatly and suffer some. Smaller cities would get it worse, but farmers would take the biggest hit,” said Maurice Roos, the department’s chief hydrologist. “Cities can always afford to spend a lot of money to buy what water is left.”

Roos, who has worked at the department since 1957, said the prospect of megadroughts is another reason to build more storage — both underground and in reservoirs — to catch rain in wet years.

In a megadrought, there would be much less water in the Delta to pump. Farmers’ allotments would shrink to nothing. Large reservoirs like Shasta, Oroville and San Luis would eventually go dry after five or more years of little or no rain.

Farmers would fallow millions of acres, letting row crops die first. They’d pump massive amounts of groundwater to keep orchards alive, but eventually those wells would go dry. And although deeper wells could be dug, the costs could exceed the value of their crops. Banks would refuse to loan the farmers money.

The federal government would almost certainly provide billions of dollars in emergency aid to farm communities.

“Some small towns in the Central Valley would really suffer. They would basically go away,” said Jay Lund, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Davis.

“But agriculture is only 3 percent of California’s economy today,” Lund said. “In the main urban economy, most people would learn to live with less water. It would be expensive and inconvenient, but we’d do it.”

Farmers with senior water rights would make a huge profit, he noted, selling water at sky-high prices to cities. Food costs would rise, but there wouldn’t be shortages, Lund said, because Californians already buy lots of food from other states and countries and would buy even more from them.

In urban areas, most cities would eventually see water rationing at 50 percent of current levels. Golf courses would shut down. Cities would pass laws banning watering or installing lawns, which use half of most homes’ water. Across the state, rivers and streams would dry up, wiping out salmon runs. Cities would race to build new water supply projects, similar to the $50 million wastewater recycling plant that the Santa Clara Valley Water District is now constructing in Alviso.

Decades ago they made lots of predictions

[mpercy]

Many of them never came to pass. That perhaps the most generic "there will be extreme weather events" is one of the few that appears to have had merit is telling in itself. Even Miss Cleo could be right once in awhile "There will be a death in your family in the next few years..."

One of the things that fuels "deniers" is the failure of the climate models to make specific, verifiable predictions that actually occur when predicted. E.g. http://thefederalist.com/2014/...

Re:Decades ago they made lots of predictions

[Gravis Zero]

One of the things that fuels "deniers" is the failure of the climate models to make specific, verifiable predictions that actually occur when predicted.

"The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will be higher than this year year," is a prediction that has been going strong. ;)

Re:Decades ago they made lots of predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

Your link is obviously written by someone with zero knowledge of what the models are actually for.

If you're expecting the One True Climate Model to nail next year's temperature every time, then get used to disappointment because there's far too much randomness and unknown variables to ever predict specific temperatures years ahead - if the ENSO cycle swings one way instead of another, or a largish volcano blows its top, observed temperatures will vary in ways the models don't even try to predict. Additionally, since our data is still incomplete, the many different models make different assumptions for values like climate sensitivity, or future human CO2 emissions, and all these models will of course give different results - the many coloured lines in the CMIP5 model suite.

But from an aggregate of all the models, we can get a very good idea of the long-term trend - the *general slope* of the line, not every wiggle. And you only have to look at a more up-to-date version of your link's graph to see that indeed, current observations are actually quite close to what the models predicted.

Duh Slashdot, it's called...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the Sun!!!!!

Re:But it's a dry heat

[mpercy]

Anywhere in south Georgia and South Carolina pretty much in its entirety runs 90 degrees and 90% humidity right on through summer.

Meanwhile, drought levels across the country

[mpercy]

Have reached lows. Have a look at the map at

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Just 5 percent of the United States is experiencing drought conditions, the lowest level of drought here since government scientific agencies began updating the U.S. Drought Monitor on a weekly basis in 2000.

Re:Meanwhile, drought levels across the country

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no a drought in a desert why don't you fucking morons stop moving to deserts and stop claiming to be the authority on all weather on this planet. Prove warming has anything to do with drought.
It has been warmer is recorded history and it has been colder.
You assholes supported the Paris accord before you read it and found out it does nothing it's all just a religion and you dare not question the pope.
Come to Winnipeg at Portage and Main in January no need to bring a coat you will be fine.

btw /. thanks for deleting my comment very noble in never use foul language in that post so what was the issue?
why bother signing up to be censored.

Thank You, Mother Jones!

[RobotRunAmok]

Keep printing this wild "DEADLY HEATWAVE CREATES RISING FATALITIES!!" stuff. You make my job of painting all climate change alarmists as bug-eyed screwballs that much easier...

Breaking News: Hot Places are HOT!

[LeftCoastThinker]

The more environuts put out this crap, the more reasonable people with half a brain see them for what they are: chicken little idiots with zero science behind them. There is zero scientific evidence that humans are causing global warming, or that global warming is a thing as defined by the global warming alarmists. (Check out the global temperature over the last 500,000 years: http://www.climate4you.com/ima... here's a hint: those historic warm periods were not caused by man).

I have been to Phoenix a number of times over the last 40 years, and it has always been damn hot:

"On average, there are 107 days annually with a high of at least 100 F (38 C) including most days from late May through early October. Highs top 110 F (43 C) an average of 18 days during the year. On June 26, 1990, the temperature reached an all-time recorded high of 122 F (50 C)". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The record high was 27 years ago, hardly justification for global warming alarmisim...

I am willing to bet any amount of money that within 5 years of a balancing the research funding of anthropogenic global warming (i.e. giving grant money to study AGW) with natural global warming research funding, the scientists will completely abandon AGW as even a theory because the facts and history just don't back it up. Further, they will stop fudging data and mathematical models and most will agree that we are in a localized natural warming period that is good for most humans (ice ages destroy crops/reduce arable farmland and kill millions through starvation and exposure, but never mind reality). The few thousand island peoples who are negatively affected by the natural temperature rise will have to adapt, just like we all have since time before history, but for most of the world population, global warming is good. Florida will have to build some seawalls, just like the Netherlands, but that amounts to just a few dollars more a year in taxes, it's hardly the apocalypse. However, as long as all the federal research money is for AGW, so will all the "scientists" who are on the take of that money and their research which was funded to justify it.

Re:Breaking News: Hot Places are HOT!

[david_thornley]

There is scientific evidence of AGW. We know the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere affects the climate, and we have measured the rise of CO2 from about 280ppm to about 400ppm. We know what's driving global warming for the most part.

We also know about our fossil fuel use, and how much CO2 that produces. We also measure the isotopic concentration of carbon atoms in the air, and they're short on C-14 (which is going to screw up carbon dating for future archaeologists). The increase in CO2 is due to our burning of fossil fuels, and that causes the warming.

BTW, I don't know of any grant money going to AGW. There's grant money going to climate science, which is a good idea. If a climate scientist can provide a model showing that AGW isn't happening which matches the evidence currently available, that scientist is going to be famous. I really don't expect it to happen.

Re:Breaking News: Hot Places are HOT!

[LeftCoastThinker]

Actually, no. If you do some research you will find that there is ample evidence in the last century that CO2 was already at and in some cases above 400 ppm, and the low historical numbers were cherry picked to prove global warming, not because of it.

Further, the 400 ppm it'self is a myth. If you research you learn that the values are based on one observation station in Hawaii (not the "globe") and that those values can fluctuate 600 ppm in a single day! AGW in general and "global" CO2 levels in particular have holes so big you could fly a plane through...

This site is a good primer for those who actually want to know the facts on CO2: http://drtimball.com/2012/pre-...

Re:That's nice

[RobotRunAmok]

Why so violent?

...and fill the whole what?

Cooling wasn't real, but warming is [Re:Real, but]

[XXongo]

You may "know" that there was a global cooling scare in the 70s, but in fact there wasn't, or at least, there wasn't any such a scare supported by or coming from the science community. The American Meteorological Society wrote an article debunking that myth: http://journals.ametsoc.org/do...

The myth of the "1970s global cooling scare" rests primarily on one high-profile 1975 Newsweek article, with a scary headline ("The Cooling World"). But the atmospheric science community never had any consensus that the world was heading for a cooling trend.

Shocking!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, another scary climate change story on Slashdot. Get back to tech you fools.

You'd expect more to die

[rsilvergun]

Pre air conditioning. The question isn't has it always been this way but rather what are we doing to make it better?

Which is hotter: Gravity Wave or Heat Wave?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do gravity waves cause global warming or is it only heat waves that cause it?

Nothing new...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stretches of California reach 115F+ every year. Following the drought in the early 80's, temperatures routinely went over 110F in the Sacramento area and the Bay Area hit 109F through my 30 years of living there. It's called El Nino. Nothing to see, move along.

Re:Cooling wasn't real, but warming is [Re:Real, b

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit!

I'm old enough to remember the 'snowball Earth'/'impending new ice-age' hype back then.

Same shit this time in reverse, only with better methodologies for milking it for wealth-redistribution, scientific study grants, and plain old political power.

"And we climate-alarmists would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling seniors remembering our past BS and posting it on that blabbermouth internet!"

So long Icehouse Earth.

[emil]

The question that we should be asking: is the transition point to Greenhouse Earth under 700ppm of CO2? If so, there is likely no stopping it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth

Unlike a greenhouse earth, an icehouse earth has ice sheets present, and these sheets wax and wane throughout times known as glacial periods and interglacial periods. During an icehouse earth, greenhouse gases tend to be less abundant, and temperatures tend to be cooler globally. The Earth is currently in an icehouse stage, as ice sheets are present on both poles and glacial periods have occurred at regular intervals over the past million years.

Re:Cooling wasn't real, but warming is [Re:Real, b

[pr0fessor]

No there wasn't an actual global cooling scare supported by the scientific community in the 70s however there were hand picked scientific articles that the media used to create one in the general public. Then later it was chlorofluorocarbons will destroy the ozone layer. In general the media over the years has snowed over the details they are reporting and gone for the worst case scenario to grab headlines even if it meant re-interpreting the results.

Since I will not be doing any research into the field myself I have to take what the media says with a grain of salt.

Re:The core issue is this :

[BlueStrat]

But no one wants to actually DO something about this.

Actually, ISIS, Al Quaida, the Russians and a bunch of people in the Middle East and North Africa are actively working on a solution as we sit here typing!

And don't forget Kim Jong Un, that champion advocate of combating human-caused global warming by eliminating humans!

Maybe the DNC could hire Kim as a climate change consultant. He'd fit right in with the #huntrepublicans crowd at the DNC!

Strat

Re:But it's a dry heat

[HornWumpus]

I've seen water condense on the outside of windshields where the AC was blowing. Fuck Florida.

stupid ancestors are to blame

[slashmydots]

Someone at some point decided "Yeah, let's stop here. This crappy desert with no water and no place to grow crops is a lovely place to live. I'm sure it won't get any better if we keep walking," and then set up cities in places like the middle east and north Africa. They're really the ones to blame, not climate change. Those places were hot even before CO2 went nuts.

Check the textbook [Re:Real, but]

[XXongo]

Huh? Nothing you said here is accurate. Read any textbook. We know the radiative equilibrium surface temperature of the Earth (the temperature it would be if it had no atmosphere) very well-- you can calculate that directly from the Stefan-Boltzmann equation; it comes out to 256 Kelvin, which is -17C. See, for example
http://lasp.colorado.edu/~bage...
http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/ees/climate/lectures/radiation/

You will never read precise numbers for the warming given to us from our blanket that is the atmosphere,

...unless you check an astronomy text, which will go through the planetary equilibrium temperature and the greenhouse effect.
The average surface temperature of the Earth, including atmosphere, is 288K (15C). Subtract out the radiative equilibrium temperture of -17C and you get the average planetary greenhouse effect warming, which turns out to be 32 to 33C.

because those numbers don't exist.

Sure they do. This is not news; it's been known for ages. It will be in any astronomy textbook. Or even, for that matter, Wikipedia.

Re:Check the textbook [Re:Real, but]

[phantomfive]

Wikipedia has a good explanation. Briefly, it turns out albedo is tough to calculate.

Re:Check the textbook [Re:Real, but]

[XXongo]

Wikipedia has a good explanation. Briefly, it turns out albedo is tough to calculate.

May have been hard to calculate once, according to the single ancient reference Wikipedia cites in saying that the albedo is not well known. It is, however, something we can measure now. Google "Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System" (CERES) mission, which has flown various implementations of albedo radiometers since 1978. (SOMEWHAT postdating that Wikipedia 1972 reference).

Re:Check the textbook [Re:Real, but]

[phantomfive]

Good point.
The rest of what I said is true though :)

Ibid

[pubwvj]

And what portion lived in places like that in the past? Similarly high no doubt since it is the hotter zones that humans came from and followed as much as possible.

Re:Cooling wasn't real, but warming is [Re:Real, b

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you are saying is that FAKE NEWS has been going on since the 70's, and it was published by Newsweek. So instead of the scientists being wrong, the media was. Either way, it's a breach of trust that as you can tell has not been forgotten.

Re:Cooling wasn't real, but warming is [Re:Real, b

[phantomfive]

It was easy to debunk because the scare was actually in the 50s and 60s. In the media it peaked in the 70s, but not in the scientific community.

Re:Cooling wasn't real, but warming is [Re:Real, b

[Jzanu]

CFCs do destroy the ozone. Their elevated release due to manufacture and use in consumer products was responsible for the predicable chemistry destroying ozone (O3, particularly in the stratosphere). Since 1987 CFC reduction has been responsible for the predictable chemistry that resulted in the reduction of the very same ozone hole. Understandably this is history for you, but not for those who lived through it and have worked in related industries.

Re:Cooling wasn't real, but warming is [Re:Real, b

[pr0fessor]

Actually no one debunked it... Global Cooling sure but that's not the point, the scare created by the media was very real.

I do find it funny that I can say the media propagated an unsupported global cooling scare and it's interpreted as global cool is real instead of the media failed to report accurately.

Because we don't know everything, doesn't mean...

[XXongo]

We've understood the basics of the greenhouse effect for over a century; we've had good measurements of infrared absorption spectra for sixty years; we've had good overall models of how it affects temperature for fifty years now; and we've been making detailed measurements of atmospheric profiles and the incident solar forcing factor for thirty years. The overall picture of how human-emitted greenhouse gasses play in climate is understood. There is still a lot of science being done, but this is is filling in the fine details. The overall picture is not controversial (at least, not by scientists).

We also thought that we knew that the appendix was a useless organ, only now we are beginning to understand that it is in fact useful. For centuries we thought that "humors" were the key to understanding the body and that bleeding was a good treatment for many ailments. After we have improved the science we look back and realize how little we really understood. If you think that in a couple of centuries humanity will not look back at this period and time and say something like "wow, we really didn't understand the true effect of humanity on the global environment," then you haven't been paying attention to how science has advanced in the last century.

To the contrary, I know the history of science pretty well (comes with being an astronomy professor, you have to teach some amount of history of science to the undergrads.). What the history of science shows, over and over, is that science proceeds by making successively better improvements to our understanding. Kepler's laws of planetary motion didn't invalidate Copernicus' heliocentric solar system, it expanded and filled in details. Einstein's theory of relativity doesn't invalidate Kepler, nor Galileo and Newton's laws of motion, it extends on and improves them. The way science works is by starting with understanding the big picture, and then getting better and better understanding of the details.

As a take-away line: "Just because we don't know everything does not mean that we don't know anything."

That's OK, though. I am accustomed to being berated for not kowtowing to the accepted orthodox politically correct view of things. It comes with the territory.

But that's the problem. There is no "orthodox politically correct" science. The science is what it is regardless of your political views.

The paper was in Nature, Climate change.

[Truth_Quark]

The headline is from Around 30% of the world’s population is currently exposed to climatic conditions exceeding this deadly threshold for at least 20 days a year, which in turn is from the abstract of the paper.

So you can't get a much better source of scientific information than Nature Publishing Group.

What part of the article do you think is unscientific?

WTF?

[Truth_Quark]

In an era when nearly every print media organisation have replaced their science staff with generic reporters, the Guardian still maintains a science team, and produce a science podcast.

Are you sure the differences in their logic and yours are due to faults on their part?

Cycle?

[Truth_Quark]

Funny looking cycle.

Aren't cycles supposed to follow a repeating pattern, rather than starting in a repeating pattern then suddenly take off?