" . . . or find some air-conditioned place to continue their activities".
Air conditioning is also a function of wet bulb temperature as the system must exchange heat into that environment, hence indoor cooling cannot be achieved.
" . . . the Canadian border will be armed and patrolled — by Canadians".
And overwhelmed by US Armed Forces. What the US Government wants, it takes if the target state is weaker.
__________
In any case . . .
Why argue. 2025-2026 is forecast to be exceptionally hot, with high Wet Bulb Temperatures that make those locations where wet bulb temperatures approach 35C unsurvivable. Humans cannot adapt, air-conditioning systems will not function and plants will be unable to thermo-regulate and so goes the one thing that sustains most life on earth - Photosynthesis. Lead times are long, measured in decades and processes are locked in. There is actually nothing that can be done to alleviate the dramatic accumulation of heat, as forecast. Obviously worth hanging about for. We'll see who's right.
___________
As for that highly literate class who helpfully inform one and all that the climate has always changed, 'tis true. It always has. They never complete that sentence. For the entire period of life on earth, extending back perhaps two billion years, humans did not exist and could not exist. The recent few hundred thousand years has been very conveniently and sufficiently cooler.
___________
The Middle East will be unsurvivable. Just how will the Religious Class deal with God's Little Acre - Israel, when they shift out - permanently?
___________
Just who has the best survival strategies? Microbes. The first life on earth and likely the last. Anaerobic microbes do quite well without oxygen. BTW - No country for the young. It now pays to be old, very old. Or an anaerobic microbe.
___________
But it gets worse than that. As the seas rise, nuclear electricity generator cooling systems flood and then a very difficult situation arises, as the nuclear generators must be shut down. Yet energy is required to manage them for decades to maintain safety and then there are the pools of spent radioactive rods. By what means is this to be managed?
A good, accessible distillation of the concepts in the Feb. 2019 book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells, expanded from his July 2017 essay in New York Magazine, with its impact refocused on the USA audience.
We so often have to be centered in the picture to pay attention, don't we...
Thanks, Agustin, for this kind review / note. I appreciate it, and appreciate your careful reading.
About civil revolt:
> "But are we sure that that's what people want? Are we sure that in a well functioning democracy (let's imagine it without the elite consent manufactured by the media) people would indeed choose a complete change to their lives (before it's too late)?"
No, we're not sure, or at least, I'm not sure. But I think it's the only choice. People are slow to revolt, despite recent events to the contrary. And the recent "revolt" (one can characterize it in many ways) is rapidly being isolated and confined/defined to a certain unlikable group, to the group that stormed the Capitol, not the larger group that gathered.
(BTW, revolt takes many forms; murder and bodily harm are only two of them and unacceptable. Anything that applies force is revolt. Had AOC and her pals truly hard-balled Pelosi, that would have counted as revolt, and a powerful one.)
Thanks --this does clarify what you were trying to say. I agree that serious change is our only option forward --but what I meant is that a lot of work needs to be done to make sure it takes a more productive shape than the one we witnessed recently.
This is one of the best written newsletter articles I've read: concise, to the point, and incredible clear in its assumptions and its conclusions. Thanks very much (and thanks also for the clear explanation of wet-bulb temperature, and for the references to the studies and maps --that ProPublica article is also excellent).
I am not so sure about the final question, though: "is civic revolt a valid/only option on the table?" It reminded me of Kim Stanley Robinson's latest (and great) book, The Ministry for the Future. Both the book and this article seem to assumes that, were it not for our current ruling class, most people would choose the necessary change. If I understand it correctly, the argument is that the popular will clearly leans towards a massive transformation of our lives, but elite violence and control makes that choice impossible --and therefore civic revolt, to resist that control, is the only option. But are we sure that that's what people want? Are we sure that in a well functioning democracy (let's imagine it without the elite consent manufactured by the media) people would indeed choose a complete change to their lives (before it's too late)? Or is a lot of convincing still needed? I am not sure...
" . . . or find some air-conditioned place to continue their activities".
Air conditioning is also a function of wet bulb temperature as the system must exchange heat into that environment, hence indoor cooling cannot be achieved.
" . . . the Canadian border will be armed and patrolled — by Canadians".
And overwhelmed by US Armed Forces. What the US Government wants, it takes if the target state is weaker.
__________
In any case . . .
Why argue. 2025-2026 is forecast to be exceptionally hot, with high Wet Bulb Temperatures that make those locations where wet bulb temperatures approach 35C unsurvivable. Humans cannot adapt, air-conditioning systems will not function and plants will be unable to thermo-regulate and so goes the one thing that sustains most life on earth - Photosynthesis. Lead times are long, measured in decades and processes are locked in. There is actually nothing that can be done to alleviate the dramatic accumulation of heat, as forecast. Obviously worth hanging about for. We'll see who's right.
___________
As for that highly literate class who helpfully inform one and all that the climate has always changed, 'tis true. It always has. They never complete that sentence. For the entire period of life on earth, extending back perhaps two billion years, humans did not exist and could not exist. The recent few hundred thousand years has been very conveniently and sufficiently cooler.
___________
The Middle East will be unsurvivable. Just how will the Religious Class deal with God's Little Acre - Israel, when they shift out - permanently?
___________
Just who has the best survival strategies? Microbes. The first life on earth and likely the last. Anaerobic microbes do quite well without oxygen. BTW - No country for the young. It now pays to be old, very old. Or an anaerobic microbe.
___________
But it gets worse than that. As the seas rise, nuclear electricity generator cooling systems flood and then a very difficult situation arises, as the nuclear generators must be shut down. Yet energy is required to manage them for decades to maintain safety and then there are the pools of spent radioactive rods. By what means is this to be managed?
A good, accessible distillation of the concepts in the Feb. 2019 book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells, expanded from his July 2017 essay in New York Magazine, with its impact refocused on the USA audience.
We so often have to be centered in the picture to pay attention, don't we...
Thanks, Agustin, for this kind review / note. I appreciate it, and appreciate your careful reading.
About civil revolt:
> "But are we sure that that's what people want? Are we sure that in a well functioning democracy (let's imagine it without the elite consent manufactured by the media) people would indeed choose a complete change to their lives (before it's too late)?"
No, we're not sure, or at least, I'm not sure. But I think it's the only choice. People are slow to revolt, despite recent events to the contrary. And the recent "revolt" (one can characterize it in many ways) is rapidly being isolated and confined/defined to a certain unlikable group, to the group that stormed the Capitol, not the larger group that gathered.
(BTW, revolt takes many forms; murder and bodily harm are only two of them and unacceptable. Anything that applies force is revolt. Had AOC and her pals truly hard-balled Pelosi, that would have counted as revolt, and a powerful one.)
Anyway, I hope that clears any confusion.
Thanks --this does clarify what you were trying to say. I agree that serious change is our only option forward --but what I meant is that a lot of work needs to be done to make sure it takes a more productive shape than the one we witnessed recently.
This is one of the best written newsletter articles I've read: concise, to the point, and incredible clear in its assumptions and its conclusions. Thanks very much (and thanks also for the clear explanation of wet-bulb temperature, and for the references to the studies and maps --that ProPublica article is also excellent).
I am not so sure about the final question, though: "is civic revolt a valid/only option on the table?" It reminded me of Kim Stanley Robinson's latest (and great) book, The Ministry for the Future. Both the book and this article seem to assumes that, were it not for our current ruling class, most people would choose the necessary change. If I understand it correctly, the argument is that the popular will clearly leans towards a massive transformation of our lives, but elite violence and control makes that choice impossible --and therefore civic revolt, to resist that control, is the only option. But are we sure that that's what people want? Are we sure that in a well functioning democracy (let's imagine it without the elite consent manufactured by the media) people would indeed choose a complete change to their lives (before it's too late)? Or is a lot of convincing still needed? I am not sure...