[HN Gopher] Heatwaves kill more Americans than hurricanes, torna...
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Heatwaves kill more Americans than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods
Author : hhs
Score : 180 points
Date : 2022-09-05 14:26 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Hurricanes and floods do far more infrastructure damage on large
| scales (tornado effects being more localized) than extreme
| heatwaves do, however - and decaying infrastructure is a huge
| problem across much of the United States.
|
| Why exactly the USA has such a huge infrastructure problem is
| debatable. Maybe it's the concentration of wealth and political
| power in fewer locations, i.e. some regions of the West and East
| Coasts? Maybe it's too much money being earmarked by Congress to
| military-industrial projects in their home districts, leaving
| little for things like rebuilding water supply systems, railroads
| and bridges, improved electricity grids, etc.? A decreased
| overall tax base due to a steep reduction in tax rates
| (particularly on the wealthiest) since the 1960s?
| Financialization of the economy and a resulting lack of
| engineering expertise and interest in infrastructure development?
|
| As far as infrastructure for heat waves, termite-mound-inspired
| architecture would be the way to go. Build bunkers with large
| capacity that people can retreat to, with built-in cooling
| mechanisms.
|
| https://wyss.harvard.edu/news/termite-mounds-could-inspire-n...
|
| > "The team's observations show that thin, outer channels of the
| mound heat up rapidly during the day when compared to the deeper
| tunnels in the mound, which causes air to circulate in a closed-
| loop convection cell. During the day, air moves up along the
| outer channels and down the center. At night, the flow is
| reversed. This reversal flushes out the carbon dioxide from deep
| inside the mound, and the gas then diffuses through the porous
| walls."
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Why exactly the USA has such a huge infrastructure problem is
| debatable.
|
| I thought it's because we didn't build it nearly from scratch
| about 70 yers ago.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Most of the infrastructure in the US was built after WWII,
| including the entire interstate Highway system and almost all
| of suburbia.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| A substantial amount of housing, especially on East and
| West Coast, was built prewar or only just postwar. That
| housing has the potential to have toxic chemicals like lead
| and asbestos, poor plumbing, lack of insulation, and poor
| ventilation. It almost certainly doesn't have AC/central
| heating in places that don't require it year-round to be
| livable.
| Metacelsus wrote:
| >Maybe it's the concentration of wealth and political power in
| fewer locations, i.e. some regions of the West and East Coasts?
|
| Well here in Boston our transit infrastructure is falling apart
| . . . and we don't lack for political influence especially
| among elites.
|
| I am not certain of the cause, but cost disease seems to be a
| related phenomenon.
| Retric wrote:
| Heat waves do cause massive infrastructure damage, it's simply
| less focused. You can model how much faster say a single
| streetlight fails when the temperature reaches 105f vs 95f, but
| it's all abstract without the visceral impact of obviously
| broken stuff.
|
| Further preparing for heat waves is also quite expensive, as
| you need more power generation capacity that sits unused 99% of
| the time etc.
| mellavora wrote:
| only because you've built a society based on air
| conditioning.
| Retric wrote:
| Just the opposite, it's equipment left outside that needs
| to deal with the heat.
| zibby8 wrote:
| You gotta have a better example than lightbulbs. Maybe rail
| lines buckling?
| Retric wrote:
| I was referring less obvious damage rather than just
| lightbulbs/LED's etc. So yes stuff not designed for the
| heat may fail like sagging power lines, but the real damage
| is less obvious.
|
| Even paint degrades faster with heat, as does just about
| everything else. Individual Solar panels don't show any
| obvious issues, but multiply a little damage by 10's of
| billions of dollars worth of panels and it adds up.
|
| PS: Rust seems like a counter example because water and
| salt dramatically speed things up, but all things being
| equal heat does increase the rate stuff rusts.
| zibby8 wrote:
| My point was more that if there was really significant
| damage being done, then you'd be able to provide a better
| example than lightbulbs. For instance, a hurricane taking
| down a street light also destroys the bulb, and a whole
| lot more. Even if it's true that lightbulbs burn out
| faster due to heat waves, it seems like it'd be hard to
| generate a lot of sympathy with a statement like
| "heatwaves are as bad as hurricanes because heatwaves
| cause light bulbs to burn out faster."
|
| Also, society generally designs things with the knowledge
| that light bulbs go bad, exposed metal rusts, etc. Unless
| a heatwave were to shorten the lifespan of things by an
| order of magnitude, it's likely that a slightly shorter
| lifespan is within the designed limits of many things.
| Retric wrote:
| Why would you assume significant damage must be obvious
| at the time? You don't notice the specific genetic damage
| that actually caused cancer, and it's killed vastly more
| people than bullets.
|
| Hurricanes are infrequent and don't inflict devastation
| over nearly as much area as heat waves can. Hurricanes
| are obvious like bullets, but add up the numbers globally
| and average over a decade and they're not that big a
| deal.
| zibby8 wrote:
| > You don't notice the specific genetic damage that
| actually caused cancer
|
| Actually we do notice stuff like that. Which is why it is
| advised that you don't inhale asbestos particles, wear
| sunscreen, avoid smoking, etc.
|
| My point still stands: it's understandable that heatwaves
| aren't considered as serious as hurricanes if the only
| impact of a heatwave you can point to is that lightbulbs
| theoretically burn out more quickly during a heat wave.
| desmosxxx wrote:
| If there are enough lightbulbs impacted then why not. We
| should measure these things and then compare them.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Most regions have good infrastructure for their local endemic
| disasters. If you live in areas with relatively frequent
| hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, etc there
| are plans and infrastructure in place to deal with them when
| they occur. Where I live in the US we have visible disaster
| plans for lahars[0] because there is a severe lahar risk; most
| Americans don't even know what a lahar is.
|
| Parts of the US where heatwaves are endemic rarely have serious
| issues with heatwaves, they've learned how to live with them
| for a long time and the local customs and infrastructure
| reflect that. Like in Europe, much of the human hazard from
| heatwaves is in areas where extreme heat is rare such that
| appropriate infrastructure has never been needed. As an example
| from the US, the extreme heatwave that hit the Pacific
| Northwest in 2021 was bad in part because it is a rare region
| of the US where few people have air-conditioning. It is a
| wealthy region with some of the cheapest electricity in the
| world so lack of air-conditioning was not a failure of
| infrastructure or spending, there was no good reason to invest
| in it.
|
| If you live in a place that has regular heatwaves, no one needs
| to "retreat to bunkers". Almost _all_ of the infrastructure is
| built with the assumption that heatwaves will occur at
| relatively low cost. The only implication for infrastructure is
| that it can stress power generation and distribution systems,
| but that isn 't specific to heatwaves or natural disasters
| generally.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahar
| leaflets2 wrote:
| Interesting about lahars, thanks for the link
| zosima wrote:
| Still seems to be about twice as many dying from cold weather.
|
| https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...
|
| https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...
| baybal2 wrote:
| legulere wrote:
| part of that are infectious diseases which is more an indirect
| effect of staying more inside and not having enough fresh air
| inside compared to with warmer temperatures.
| tpmx wrote:
| Globally: About 4x more dying from cold than from warm weather.
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
| (March 2022)
|
| _Global mortality burden attributable to non-optimal
| temperatures_
|
| _They report that 2.98% of deaths globally could be attributed
| to non-optimal temperatures in 2019; 2.37% of deaths from low
| temperatures and 0.63% of deaths from high temperatures._
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| Yup. No one wants to talk about this though. We need to get
| cheap reliable energy to as many people as quickly as possible
| to help prevent this. Everything should be on the table,
| natural gas, fracking, nuclear.
| vincnetas wrote:
| I would prefer that we consider power efficient housing
| first. Use more insulation and less energy to keep
| comfortable temperatures inside never-mind if it's too cold
| or too hot outside.
| hpkuarg wrote:
| Similarly, a lot of people think it's inherently wasteful (at
| least in terms of climate change-related sensitivities) to
| live in the southern US where it's commonly accepted to run
| air conditioning for many months of the year, whereas nobody
| blinks twice at the number of oil-fired furnaces in New
| England.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Keeping your house at 80F when its 115F outside would seem
| to use less energy than keeping your house at 60F when it
| is -1F out. Maybe humidity makes it closer to even? For me
| one bill was gas and one was electric, so harder to
| compare. I'll ask some coworkers with only a heat pump.
| [deleted]
| dahfizz wrote:
| Yes, but a lot of that heat comes "for free" from
| cooking, your fridge/computer/apliances, hot water usage,
| body heat, etc.
|
| I have a heat pump for heating and cooling, and my
| electric bills are only slightly higher in winter
| (5-10%).
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Maybe humidity makes it closer to even?_
|
| If the humidity is high enough, it can take it past even.
| But you won't find that out by comparing summer and
| winter numbers in the same location, because there aren't
| a significant number of locations that have both summer
| and winter conditions severe enough to push the numbers.
| You would want to compare, say, Canada in winter with
| south Florida or south Texas in summer (or, for even more
| extreme, northern Scandinavia in winter with southeast
| Asia or equatorial Africa in summer).
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Scandinavia in winter won't usually be a heat pump to air
| though right? Don't they heatpump from geothermal?
|
| Even just locally here the 25 degree F differential with
| ~50% relative humidity in summer would be interesting to
| compare to the 60 degree F differential in winter. Maybe
| those ultra efficient hygroscopic dehumidifiers will
| finally enter production.
|
| And heat pumping to geothermal for summer might help too.
| I know some people locally do that. Big investment
| though.
| yesbabyyes wrote:
| Sweden can range from -25 to 35 degC. Heat pumps are
| common, both downhole heat exchangers (rock heat we call
| it) and air source heat pumps, among home owners.
|
| Central heating is also common and often heated by
| garbage.
| bombcar wrote:
| Part of it is everything creates waste heat - so a well
| insulated house can take a looooong time to cool (my
| furnace died in the winter and I didn't notice for over a
| week).
|
| And you can survive "unaided" quite low (sleeping bags
| rated to -30deg?) but there is a heat point where _you
| die_ if you cannot escape it somehow.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Or wood-fired, surprisingly common still in parts of
| Europe. Related, but sad news is e.g. in Hungary, they
| removed protection from basically all forests to be used as
| firewood. We will pay dearly for this hubris. Can you
| imagine chopping up Redwood national park for firewood?
| This is what is happening currently in Europe.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Same in rich Austria. I saw many apartments around the
| million euro ballpark in the older posh city center
| buildings, that are still heated by firewood stoves and
| many countryside houses are still heated by oil. Heat
| pumps? Ha! Never saw them anywhere around here.
|
| It all feels incredibly dirty and inefficient to me for
| such a rich country.
| tpmx wrote:
| Well, oil is cheaper than electricity now*.
|
| *) Depending on time and location of course, but it's the
| case surprisingly often.
|
| As a Swede, the more I learn about about how central
| Europe has been heating their homes the more disgusted I
| become. Like, the way e.g. Germany seems to think of
| burning gas as "clean". I mean, maybe compared to coal,
| but... you shut down nuclear plants with a plan to
| replace with (Russian) gas? You do understand burning
| this causes CO2 emissions, right?
|
| That was the many-billion-Euro German green energy
| revolution your environmentalists wouldn't stop talking
| about a decade ago?
|
| And now our electricity in southern Sweden (which is what
| we generally use to heat our houses, in contrast to most
| of Europe, since it used to be very cheap and clean here,
| just a year ago. Most use an air-to-air/water heat pump
| or three) is insane costly, because of a combination of
| idiotic leftist politicans/voters _also_ shutting down
| nuclear plants while at the same time building export
| power connections to Europe.
|
| It's like everyone is doing the opposite of what's sane.
| /rant over
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> building export power connections to Europe_
|
| Those export connections are there to benefit Germany
| industry who basically shut down some domestic
| production, because "green", and is instead importing its
| deficit from the others, raising the prices for everyone.
|
| Portugal and Spain together are the only ones not
| connected to the shared grid and now have the cheapest
| energy prices in Europe, with Germany mumbling about it
| that this should change. Well done guys.
| tpmx wrote:
| > Portugal and Spain are the only ones not connected to
| the shared grid
|
| (More believable.)
|
| Source?
| ricardobayes wrote:
| We are connected, but were allowed to detach electricity
| prices from natural gas prices. It was dubbed the
| 'iberian exception' at the time.
| tpmx wrote:
| That would be something us in the north would need right
| now. Most house owners need like 1500-2000 kWh/month in
| the 6 cold winter months (november-april). With projected
| prices, we're looking at average family heating costs
| around EUR 1000-1500/month for 6 months. It will be
| extremely tough for homes with a single income. (That's
| about all of the average monthly pension.)
|
| At the moment this is leading to a quite a lot of
| resentment towards the EU (and Germany) here amongst
| people.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Yes, it is insane and it makes clear once more the only
| real solution to this conundrum it to become as much
| energy independent as possible. We heat our house with
| two wood-burning stoves - a 4.5 kW one in the kitchen
| ('vedspis' or wood-burning kitchen stove, another item
| the 'green' party wanted to ban by the way) and a 12 kW
| one in the living room. The large brick chimney warms up
| the second floor together with some venting to release
| warm air to move upstairs at the end of the evening. With
| 15 kW of solar panels on one of the barn roofs we're set
| for the months the sun makes itself known but in winter
| that doesn't help all that much which is why I'm looking
| into developing a combined heat-power system for small-
| scale (domestic, farm) use to solve the power + heat
| problem when there is no sun to be had.
|
| Even if the nuclear plants the 'greens' forced to shut
| down were started again this probably will not bring down
| the power prices very much since the demand from
| neighbouring states will keep them up. As an aside and
| since you're in the south, would you have any idea why
| the wind park at Lillgrund (off the coast of Malmo) is
| not being used [1] when power costs 5.70 SEK/kWh? It is
| not because of a lack of wind as the linked video - which
| is taken from a boat sailing at ~8 knots past the wind
| park - clearly shows.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxOgmXJ5NiU
| ricardobayes wrote:
| This comment reads weird after France just vetoed again
| Spain's proposal to export natural gas to Germany through
| France - the medgas pipeline.
| tpmx wrote:
| I think people here are mostly upset about Germany
| shutting down their nuclear plants. Also Germany is seen
| as nation that controls the EU.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Sorry, I got some facts wrong.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| What would you have Hungarians do? The comment above
| yours seems to suggest that it's ecologically
| irresponsible to live in hot climates where AC is
| required, but also ecologically irresponsible to live in
| cold climates where heating is required. Hungary has a
| temperate climate, but the summers there still get
| dangerously hot, and the winters dangerously cold.
|
| Why did Hungary remove protection for forests to allow
| people to collect firewood? Presumably because they think
| it's necessary. So what would you have them do instead,
| abandon their country?
| galdosdi wrote:
| > Presumably because they think it's necessary.
|
| For people who have studied the history of how countries
| and their leadership make decisions, even just
| superficially (eg, you've followed the news for 20
| years), this is actually a very strange presumption.
|
| It is historically just as plausible that it's not
| thought necessary for society as a whole, but is simply
| profitable for some special interest, such as (just an
| example, not an actual suggestion) a large forest land
| owner.
|
| I thought this was obvious, unless one is very young
| still or one has never taken any interest in history or
| current events.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| How do you think Hungarians should heat their homes this
| winter?
|
| Not, _' What could they have done five years ago?'_ or _'
| What could they do five years from now?'_ I want to know
| how Hungarians can heat their homes _5 months_ from now.
| That 's the question the government of Hungary is forced
| to address.
| jjav wrote:
| Since burning forests to heat homes is not sustainable
| nor renewable (at a timescale that makes sense), it's not
| a rational solution. What will they do 5 years from now
| (or however many years that all forests are gone)?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _What will they do 5 years from now (or however many
| years that all forests are gone)?_
|
| Solar panels and heat pumps seem like a good long-term
| solution, but that can't be done in time to keep people
| warm this winter. So for this winter, what would you have
| them do? Freeze? Travel back in time a few years and come
| up with a better solution?
| d0mine wrote:
| Europe essentially banned cheap energy sources.
|
| The winter is coming. Despite global warming, somebody
| (starts with U, ends with S) will make a pretty penny. It
| will teach those EU socialists (healthcare, education,
| functional public transport) how to do business. Fixing
| somebody's problem that you yourself created--Godfather
| would be proud.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _Europe essentially banned cheap energy sources. The
| winter is coming. Despite global warming, somebody
| (starts with U, ends with S) will make a pretty penny._
|
| Ah yes, the country of Urussias. Or perhaps you mean
| Unorways. Or Ualgerias? Or Usaudi Arabias?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_the_Europe
| an_...
| finiteseries wrote:
| That graphic needs to be updated to reflect an entirely
| different new world, it's from 2016, the same year the US
| lifted a 40 year old ban on oil & gas exports.
|
| It's now the largest LNG exporter in the world in 2022,
| though that hardly benefits the country directly in terms
| of making a pretty penny.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _LNG_
|
| LNG only accounts for a small portion of the EU natural
| gas imports, most of their gas is imported in gaseous
| form.
|
| Main extra-EU partners for imports of natural gas, 2021:
| Russia: 39.2% Norway: 25.1% Algeria: 8.2%
| United States: 7.3% <-- The one you're blaming.
| United Kingdom: 6.5%
|
| All natural gas import, LNG and gaseous combined, only
| account for 24.9% of EU energy imports. In 2021, 61.8% of
| EU energy imports were crude oil.
|
| Main extra-EU partners for imports of petroleum oil,
| 2021: Russia: 24.8% Norway 9.4%
| United States: 8.8% <-- The one you're blaming.
| Libya: 8.2% Kazakhstan: 8.0%
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
| explained/index.php...
| kuboble wrote:
| Though there is a sense of hypocrisy here.
|
| Europe used to be a one big jungle and the western Europe
| was first to chop it all and build their wealth on it.
|
| If now we regret it then those who did chop off all their
| forests should share part of their wealth if they don't
| want others to follow suit.
| 1-6 wrote:
| We can't let politics run the nation's energy policies. The
| decision makers need to be a neutral body of elected
| officials.
| PraetorianGourd wrote:
| An elected official is by definition not neutral. I think
| representative government is as good as it gets, but it
| will never be neutral or bereft of politics.
| hpkuarg wrote:
| Neutral and elected are mutually exclusive. ;-)
| 8note wrote:
| Neutral and decisions are mutually exclusive, even
| pessimizer wrote:
| The usage of the word "politics" has somehow become so
| distorted that people are begging for non-political
| government.
| bequanna wrote:
| Thanks for the sanity. The key word in your post being
| _reliable_.
|
| There are 1001 ways to generate electricity but with no good
| storage options we need to prize reliability over all other
| attributes when considering what we invest in.
| [deleted]
| zibby8 wrote:
| Is it really preventable though? Isn't it pretty much a basic
| law of nature that resources will be consumed maximally? If
| you increase the amount of available energy, it too will be
| used up until a point where people on the fringes are left
| wanting. Not sure how you solve that short of some version of
| population control.
| delecti wrote:
| That is often true, but isn't necessarily always true, and
| certainly not always true for every resource. Total
| electricity use in the US has been fairly flat for the past
| 20 years, and that's despite increasing in population by
| about 50million over the same period.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > We need to get cheap reliable energy
|
| We nees to address social problems too. You energy policy
| won't help a homeless person
| ajross wrote:
| > Everything should be on the table, natural gas, fracking,
| nuclear.
|
| That's a misinterpretation. Those are global numbers. Those
| people dying are dying primarily from exposure due to housing
| shortfalls, it's not an energy distribution problem. And it's
| _absolutely_ not a problem due to (as you seem to imply)
| inappropriate regulation of fuels, which isn 't happening
| anywhere anyway.
|
| If you want to keep these people alive then cut a check to a
| global housing construction NGO. Letting GE build a reactor
| or BP dill a well does nothing.
| OOIE wrote:
| The overall problem with climate talking points is that it has
| become a trendy political topic, which often deduces into a
| battle between two sides instead of a civil discussion on the
| scope of a potential threat and logical solutions.
|
| I admittedly don't pay much attention to it since I live pretty
| minimally anyway. Though, I cannot tell you how many homes in my
| area have "Climate Action" signs in front of their unnecessarily
| large homes. One home in particular has one right next to a gas
| guzzling jeep.
|
| It's sad that so many human issues have fallen into the political
| spectrum where they are weaponized for power rather than resolved
| for the common good.
| kortilla wrote:
| > Though, I cannot tell you how many homes in my area have
| "Climate Action" signs in front of their unnecessarily large
| homes. One home in particular has one right next to a gas
| guzzling jeep.
|
| Better than one next to a Prius that commutes 50 miles every
| day.
| juve1996 wrote:
| Not sure I get this joke. What would you rather them do?
| Commute 50 miles in a gas-guzzling SUV?
| [deleted]
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| It's interesting to observe this moral panic pattern repeat
| itself in so many areas of debate. I wonder if this is an
| immutable part of living in a society, or just an externality
| of the media's business model.
| jliptzin wrote:
| The difference is heat usually kills the weak and elderly, so no
| one cares
| Aachen wrote:
| This is what I'm wondering. How many years of life are really
| being taken by a heat wave compared to a hurricane or flooding
| that can also kill a 15-year-old just as easily? There's a word
| for this, something like disability-adjusted years of life
| expectancy (because living without eyesight or your legs is
| also annoying, and should be taken into account when comparing
| badness of some health-affecting issue).
| progrus wrote:
| Almost seems like the worst thing we can do is compromise the
| durability of our energy grid...
| petre wrote:
| I'm quite sure obesity gives a helping hand as well.
| barney54 wrote:
| Interestingly, cold may kill more than heat (but it's
| complicated) https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Which-Kills-More-
| People-Ex...
| hollywood_court wrote:
| From 4th grade until I left home at age 16, I lived in a single
| wide mobile home in lower Alabama. My mother had a window unit AC
| in her bedroom but other than that, there was no cooling.
|
| Looking back now, I have no idea how I survived. My pet
| chinchilla died one summer because it was too hot in my bedroom.
|
| I could never imagine allowing my own son to grow up on such
| conditions.
|
| I suppose I have regressed and I am now weaker. But I couldn't
| possibly live without AC now.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| The advent of termites put paid to traditional New Orleans
| house designs that would passively cool. It looks like we are
| all in the same boat.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| It's quite a coincidence that you mention passive cooling. I
| moved to the Caribbean after high school, and I never once
| had AC during the 10 years I spent there. But the windows
| were always open and the fans were always on. The Caribbean
| doesn't suffer from the humidity of the Deep South, and there
| was most always a breeze. It was much more bearable even
| though the temps were often just as high as those I
| experienced in Alabama.
| enviclash wrote:
| How comprehensive is the data source? E.g. are all such events
| recorded? And, is there clustering, in relation to weather events
| or lack of response policies?
| IngvarLynn wrote:
| Why look at the very bottom of mortality list? (llYs a s sYt
| @snao@q)
|
| Second-hand smoke kills almost 100 times more Americans.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/seco...
| bequanna wrote:
| We can't talk about one problem because some other problem
| _exists_?
|
| Perfect is the enemy of good.
| peteradio wrote:
| Then what is the point of doing a relative comparison to any
| other causes of death?
| bequanna wrote:
| For context.
| IngvarLynn wrote:
| It would be quite unwise to talk about spoiled food when your
| house is on fire.
|
| >Perfect is the enemy of good.
|
| Agree. Looking at the bottom of mortality list is
| perfectionism.
| bequanna wrote:
| Wrong and somewhat naive.
|
| If you have a list of problems you don't only focus on
| solving the one with the largest impact. You need to
| balance resource allocation between how the problem
| negatively impacts AND ability to solve.
|
| If we followed your logic, we would stop trying to cure
| cancer and just focus all healthcare resources exclusively
| on developing life extension drugs.
| ejb999 wrote:
| wasting limited resources on initiatives that save less lives
| per dollar spent vs other initiatives that save more lives
| and/or cost less per lived saved IS the enemy of the good.
|
| my own example - I live in a tiny town at about 1700 ft
| elevation, nowhere near the ocean, no bodies of water than
| can flood, not anywhere near the ocean, just 1 tornado in the
| past 80+ years, and no hurricanes above a cat 1 in a century
| (which caused almost no damage)- i.e. almost zero immediate
| 'environmental threats' - the town was given a $120K
| state/federal grant to "prepare" for climate change effects.
|
| What do you think would save more lives in my little place in
| the world? - giving out free car seats to all newborns, free
| smoke detectors every few years to every residence, free CO2
| monitors, and tackling obesity and unhealthy lifestyle
| choices such as drugs thru more education or recreational
| opportunities for kids etc - or 'studying' the possible
| effects of climate change in nowhereville USA?
|
| My money is on the former.
| juve1996 wrote:
| Unfortunately arguments like these are meant to deflect and
| then nothing gets done. It's almost always a tactic to
| undercut, not advance meaningful measures.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _giving out free car seats to all newborns, free smoke
| detectors every few years to every residence, free CO2
| monitors, and tackling obesity and unhealthy lifestyle
| choices such as drugs thru more education or recreational
| opportunities for kids etc - or 'studying' the possible
| effects of climate change in nowhereville USA_
|
| There are already government programs and charities that
| give out free car seats, and car seats are required by law
| for infants in every state. There's not much more the
| government can do to get more babies in car seats.
|
| Most areas require hardwired smoke detectors in new
| construction, as well as in rental units. The Red Cross and
| other charities (and some fire departments) provide free
| smoke detectors to those that can't afford them.
|
| Spending money now to prepare for worse climate in the
| future sounds like a good investment since many mitigations
| can take years or decades to fund and complete. (like
| building generator backed community cooling centers,
| building or improving levees, etc).
| bequanna wrote:
| We should be continuously discussing and evaluating how to
| solve all real problems humanity faces.
|
| Your criticism of the Federal Grant you mention is valid.
| It would have been great if you could have expressed that
| thought _before_ they wrote that check, right?
|
| That's what this entire comment section is: People
| discussing a specific problem. Not the other problem, this
| one.
| drdec wrote:
| Part of discussing the problem is placing it in context
| with similar problems.
| VLM wrote:
| Obesity has a large effect on heat wave damage but the tornado
| will kill you just as effectively thin or fat, so its no surprise
| there's been an intense coordinated media push on the dangers of
| heat as obesity rises death rates will rise.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I'm guessing climate change is also on most peoples minds.
| metadaemon wrote:
| Down at the lake with my family one year, we watched a guy mowing
| his lawn collapse. My dad went to go help, but the guy ended up
| dying from heat exhaustion. Over exerting yourself in the heat is
| never a good idea, please remember to always stay hydrated.
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>"Yet some local governments are still not taking extreme heat
| seriously"
|
| Given that extreme heat is not even close to being at the top 50
| ways that Americans die on an annual basis, it seems to me that
| there is much better bang for the buck having federal state and
| local governments focusing on those things that kills the most
| people first - if the goal is saving lives (which it should be),
| than attack those societal/public health problems that kill the
| most people first.
|
| Basic triaging is necessary - if you don't have unlimited
| resources, and you can't save everybody (both of those things are
| objectively true), then the best benefit to society is to attack
| the problems that will save or extend the lives of the most
| people.
|
| The top ten causes of death alone account for 1.5 million USA
| deaths per year; extreme heat is less than 1/10 of 1% of just
| those top 10 - I want the government to prioritize making
| progress on those things first.
|
| Just having a healthier population alone would probably cut way
| down on # number of people that die from extreme heat - a
| healthier person will almost certainly fare better in extreme
| heat than someone that already has 2-3 comorbidities.
| swader999 wrote:
| Cold weather is probably worse. Lot of heart attacks that don't
| necessarily register as cold related. It is more difficult for
| the heart to pump the blood.
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/12/14/fac...
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| Not probably, certainly. Way more people die from cold than
| from heat, it's not even close. There is no dispute the data is
| very clear here.
| dagmx wrote:
| What percentage of America has to deal with freezing weather
| versus heatwaves though?
|
| Also, it's much easier to warm up in cold weather than it is to
| cool down in hot weather.
| [deleted]
| bluejekyll wrote:
| One thing I was surprised to learn, mostly because growing up
| I always thought of AC as extravagant, it's more energy
| efficient to cool a building than it is to heat it.
| bugbuddy wrote:
| If you flip your windows AC unit around, then you get the
| exact amount of heat energy removed by the AC in the form
| of hot air going into your room. This is called a heat
| exchanger. It was just cheaper to use gas furnace heater
| when most home was built and it is still true in many
| places.
| [deleted]
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| That's both a function of technological efficiency (direct
| heating vs heat pump), and the temperature deltas we need
| to achieve. Using my Southern Ontario reference point,
| typical cooling needs are only 10-20 degrees C, while
| typical heating needs would be closer to 20-30 degrees.
|
| As use of heat pumps increase, and average temperatures
| continue to climb, the balance between heating and cooling
| costs will shift (this is obviously a very regional
| phenomenon).
| throwaheyy wrote:
| A reverse-cycle air conditioner is equally efficient at
| heating a building as cooling one.
| drivers99 wrote:
| This map shows the average annual low temperature (in zones
| divided by 10 degrees F). It's designed for plants but should
| give you a good idea of where it reaches freezing temperature
| (like, all of Florida until you get to Palm Bay or Tampa but
| only on the coast, for example; and all of Texas except the
| tip by Brownsville, and the coast by Corpus Christi).
| https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/
| hpkuarg wrote:
| > it's much easier to warm up in cold weather than it is to
| cool down in hot weather
|
| May be true for the human body, but when you're talking about
| heating a living space to a comfortable temperature versus
| cooling the same, in the majority of places (at least in the
| US) it takes way less energy to accomplish the latter.
|
| Even in a hot place like Dallas, TX with an average daytime
| high of 97 degrees Fahrenheit in the hottest month, it's only
| a 20-degree differential to bring it to 77 degrees indoors,
| vs. an average overnight low of 38 degrees in the coldest
| month, where you would need to bring it up 30 degrees and
| might still feel cold inside.
|
| This is not to mention how much more energy-efficient air
| conditioning (which just moves heat around) is compared to
| furnaces (which generate heat from fuel).
| pdonis wrote:
| It's not the heat, it's the humidity. For typical summer
| conditions in Dallas (even more so in, say, Houston or
| Brownsville), if I'm remembering the numbers from my time
| as an automotive HVAC engineer correctly, it takes 5 to 6
| times as much energy to dehumidify the air as to cool it.
| And those are by no means the worst conditions on the
| planet: try southeast Asia or equatorial Africa.
|
| It's true that you can claw some of that back from the fact
| that A/C can have a coefficient of performance greater than
| 1, but COP also gets worse (i.e., closer to 1, less of an
| advantage) as the conditions get more extreme.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes, because dehumidification involves a phase change
| (water vapor to liquid) and the heat of vaporization is
| much higher than needed to effect a simple temperature
| change in dry air.
| irrational wrote:
| No idea. I live in the PNW where we have freezing
| temperatures about as often as heat waves (not very often),
| but grew up in south Florida where we never had freezing
| temperatures but everyday felt like a heat wave.
| ghaff wrote:
| People do acclimatize to greater or lesser degrees. But
| what I'd call a heat wave in New England is pretty much
| just "summer" in a big chunk of the US.
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| Something that affects the cold north where only idiots and
| moose live is boring and nobody cares.
|
| But if Silicon Valley gets slightly uncomfortable for a week
| it's the end of the worlds.
| ghaff wrote:
| Clearing snow, especially from roofs, is probably also one of
| the more energetic things that a lot of people do.
| peteradio wrote:
| Wet sloppy snow is known as "heartattack snow" around these
| parts.
| blablabla123 wrote:
| This makes me actually wonder how the daily peak temperatures
| changed over the years
| SoftTalker wrote:
| The headline doesn't really quantify the problem.
|
| Lots of things kill more Americans than hurricanes, tornadoes,
| and floods. Hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods can be quite
| destructive, but they don't really kill a lot of people in the
| grand scheme of things.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| https://archive.ph/xwKRl
| exabrial wrote:
| Tornadoes don't kill many people to start with... and nearly all
| of them are preventable in this day and age... but that point
| withstanding
| immmmmm wrote:
| latest paper on the topic:
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01092-9
| bena wrote:
| This feels like one of those things that sounds interesting until
| you take a minute and think about it.
|
| Hurricanes don't come from nowhere. You can evacuate for a
| hurricane. And the actual hurricane is over relatively quickly.
| I'm also not sure how knock-on deaths are counted. Hurricanes
| cause flooding, spin off tornadoes, and can disable services
| during some of the hottest months of the year. So a hurricane
| will make you susceptible to floods, tornadoes, and heatwaves.
| But still. We know what to do when hurricanes come.
|
| Tornadoes are violent, but quick. You usually have some amount of
| time to clear out of the path if necessary.
|
| Floods come in many forms. A lot of them are less lethal. Water
| slowly rising 4 feet over several hours is a different scenario
| than water rising 4 feet over several seconds.
|
| Heat. Heat is different. There's no real indicator that there's
| too much of it. Yeah, you got hot, but you get hot a lot of
| times. It's fine. "Just got to finish this lawn, this run, this
| game, etc." And heat usually covers a huge area, enough that it
| could take over a day just to drive out of the affected area.
|
| We respect violence, and heat is not violent.
| mellavora wrote:
| > Hurricanes don't come from nowhere. You can evacuate for a
| hurricane.
|
| Actually, we can't realistically evacuate Miami/Dade county.
| There is only one highway leading north, and no other direction
| to go.
|
| Ask Pakistan about floods.
|
| But yes, you are right about heat. My theory is that it is the
| fourth rider of the apocalypse. Covers a huge area and just
| kills everyone.
| bena wrote:
| We're given a lot of warning with hurricanes. The biggest
| hurdle with evacuation is that a lot of people don't have the
| means. Either a lack of transportation or lack of funds to
| secure shelter.
|
| Yes, that's why I said there are different types of floods. I
| explicitly acknowledged that floods come in several
| varieties. Pakistan is notable for a lot of reasons. It's
| also notable because even for a flood, it is out of the
| ordinary.
|
| You tried to pick edge cases to try and say the typical
| doesn't apply. It still does. The issue is that the typical
| heatwave is different from the typical variety of other
| disasters.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Alligator Alley is not an evacuation route?
| olalonde wrote:
| Makes me wonder if this is also a problem in countries that get
| those kinds of temperatures much more frequently (e.g. Qatar). Or
| have they learned to deal with this?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It's a problem because so many Americans are unhealthy and more
| easily succumb to environmental conditions. It doesn't help
| that these same people flock to areas where they're more
| vulnerable.
|
| There's lots of bad reporting on the increase in heat related
| deaths since the 1950s which glosses over the fact that few
| people were fat back then and air conditioning was exceedingly
| rare. A fraction of the people were living in the hottest areas
| of the US and those that were could handle it.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| They have learned and forgotten due to western influence.
| During heat waves, cross ventilating wind allows for cooler
| temperatures indoor. Building architectures in a lot of middle
| east is designed for cross ventilation. Newer modern buildings
| appear to have forgotten this ancient technology though.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Do they have termites in the Middle East?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I feel like we need a better metric to use when something "kills"
| people. When heat waves kill people, the vast majority of the
| time it means these people already had major health problems that
| (a) let the heat do more damage and (b) prevented the person from
| seeking help in the first place. To be clear, I'm not saying that
| heat wasn't the final cause, but I think it's a fair assumption
| that most of these people didn't have much healthy life ahead of
| them regardless.
|
| Compare that to, say, a tornado that wipes out a family with 2
| young kids and 2 middle-aged adults. That to me feels orders of
| magnitude worse, both in the violent manner of death, and the
| fact that these people had years and years of healthy life left.
|
| And, to hopefully kill this anticipated straw man, I am _not_
| making the assertion that "it's no big deal" if elderly or sick
| people die. I am only commenting on the _comparison_ to other
| forms of death, and arguing that I think it 's fair to think
| those other forms are death are much worse if you look beyond
| just "number of people killed".
| serial_dev wrote:
| One more, pretty sad, reason that extremely hot and extremely
| cold weather don't get that much attention that (at least my
| assumption) it mainly kills the poor, whereas hurricanes and
| tornadoes do not "discriminate" based on income to that extent.
|
| If you and your family are well off, you can be reasonably sure
| that hot or cold weather will not affect you so dramatically.
| robertn702 wrote:
| We do have a better metric. It's "years of life lost" (YLL) and
| it is a commonly used metric for the exact reasons you
| mentioned. My guess as to why you rarely see it being used
| outside of the scientific community is because "number of
| deaths" drives more clicks.
|
| https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr...
| umvi wrote:
| I remember COVID deaths being compared to WW2 deaths by the
| media a few years ago. If YLL were used instead I think (but
| don't know for certain) that WW2 would be much more
| egregious.
| watwut wrote:
| WW2 happened to kill significantly more civilians then
| soldiers. And among those, old, sick, poor and weak died
| the most. Babies and small kids too, so it is not entirely
| clear how exactly it would cut.
| bombcar wrote:
| The majority of covid deaths would be toward the elderly
| range.
|
| Almost every soldier death would be 18-25. I suspect the
| civilian would lean older but I don't think it would
| entirely offset it.
| watwut wrote:
| > Almost every soldier death would be 18-25.
|
| Absolutely not true. The age at which countries recruited
| were up to 45 normally (united states) or even 60
| (Germany UK) and in Germany every able bodied male
| eventually ended in some kind of unit - if only home
| defense. Starting with 14 actually.
|
| The ration of civilians to soldiers killed is 3:2 to 2:1.
| bombcar wrote:
| British average was 27in ww 1. I was off by a few years.
|
| http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/greatwar/ages-of-the-dead/
|
| Certainly lower than 55+, though ww2 could be moderately
| higher than 27 I doubt it.
| watwut wrote:
| Average being 27 and almost all being in 18-25 range are
| massively different statements.
|
| The civilian to soldier death ration in wwi was
| different. The civilians were not directly targeted the
| way they were in wwii. The ideologization was lower and
| population itself was not the enemy the way it was in
| wwii.
|
| Also, both Amrica and UK sent soldiers away to fight. UK
| was bombed, but did not had large displacement of
| population or ethnic cleansing or retaliation for those
| going on in their territories.
|
| Modern wars kill more civilians then soldiers.
| dasudasu wrote:
| The average age of an American soldier in WW2 was 26.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Is that just combat soldiers or is that all military
| including the officer ranks?
| watwut wrote:
| I would guess all given those two options. Officers are
| involved in combat situations. More importantly, huge
| amount of soldiers is needed for logistic - it can be
| over 50% or even more for logistics.
|
| Excluding officers and keeping in logistics would not
| make much sense. (Tho logistics does not mean safe
| either).
| kirse wrote:
| I was recently in one of these hot climates at peak times and did
| a lot of research on this while pushing my limits as an athlete.
| So many factors play into human adaptability to heat even
| including things like how exposed your veins are (phlebotomists
| love you!). People think areas like Vegas are hot, but cities
| like Dallas can have higher wet-bulb temps (WBGT) due to
| humidity. WBGT is the gold standard for performance
| considerations in hot climates:
|
| Current WBGT - https://www.weather.gov/tsa/wbgt
|
| Fahrenheit - https://arielschecklist.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2017/01/CHART...
|
| Celsius - https://arielschecklist.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2017/01/CHART...
|
| WBGT Work Recs - http://blog.mesonet.org/agriculture/wp-
| content/uploads/sites...
|
| These are good guides but don't let this info plant anxiety in
| your mind either. Heat can kill you over time, but if you get
| into a situation where you feel heat exhausted, stay calm and
| stick to a single plan to unwind and rest. Carry around a frozen
| water bottle or two if you're headed somewhere hot for awhile.
| Neck + palms are one of the best ways to cool core temps [1].
| Pre-hydration is also important, water + electrolyte intake days
| before exertion affects performance.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_cooling
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