[HN Gopher] Heat Wave and Blackout Would Send Half of Phoenix to...
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Heat Wave and Blackout Would Send Half of Phoenix to E.R., Study
Says
Author : crazygringo
Score : 24 points
Date : 2023-05-23 19:19 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| crazygringo wrote:
| https://archive.is/L7Sg6
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Electricity is critical infrastructure and the same thing could
| happen anywhere. If you had a multi-day electric or gas outage in
| New York in mid-January, you'd see exactly the same thing happen.
| lemmiwinks wrote:
| > If you had a multi-day electric or gas outage in New York in
| mid-January, you'd see exactly the same thing happen.
|
| No:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_...
|
| Multiple weeks without electricity for some, but only 34
| deaths. (And in Quebec, most people heat their houses with
| electricity)
|
| "Fun" fact: In Montreal, more people die in heatwaves than of
| cold. Unless you're a drunk hobo that is: because they are
| shelters in winter, but old people die in summer in crammed
| apartments without AC.
| chrismcb wrote:
| Washington Post send to think that child is far more freaky.
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-
| environment/interacti...
| [deleted]
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| Maybe not?
|
| People could use things like blankets to stay warm and light
| things on fire for heat. I think they did this before
| electricity...a relatively new invention.
|
| What is the equivalent for cooling off that doesn't require
| electricity? In Phoenix, specifically...
| nradov wrote:
| Texans literally froze to death during a utility outage in
| 2021. Most modern homes have no place to light a fire for
| heat, and blankets only do so much.
|
| https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/great-texas-
| freez...
| fooker wrote:
| People have lived in hot and dry places without electricity
| for thousands of years.
|
| You drink a lot of water, don't go out in the sun, cover your
| body with proper clothes (counterintuitively), hang wet
| fabric in small ventilators, use hand fans, stay in a
| basement/underground/lower floors of a building, cover your
| roof with thick organic material.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| And shutters on your windows that actually close and block
| out the sun. One day the USA will adopt such technology.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| The vast majority of the extant housing in the US was
| built for a world with cheap energy and air conditioning.
| Take away the AC and it needs extensive refitting to even
| be _kinda_ habitable.
|
| [EDIT] OK, that's overstating it in the North. Newer
| houses & apartments _sans_ AC up there would just mean a
| couple dozen nights per year sleeping outside, and having
| to be _way_ more diligent about fighting mold and mildew.
| Tolerable, but not great. The South, though....
| gdubs wrote:
| I'd be curious to see a side by side comparison, but I've
| always found it harder to cool down than to warm up.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Nope. I was in Austin during the winter storm in 2021 and lost
| power for a fair chunk of it plus was stranded in my apartment
| with little food. There was nothing I could do as the roads
| were filled with snow and ice and the city had no
| infrastructure for clearing the roads or dealing with the
| problems.
|
| In comparison if something happened in my home town of
| Bellingham on the west coast, they'd be prepared by having the
| roads salted, making it reasonably clear and that I would've
| still be able to get supplies even in the case of a blackout.
| syngrog66 wrote:
| The fragility of US infrastructure and its vulnerability to the
| accelerating effects of climate change is a minor theme in a sci-
| fi post-apocalyptic game I've been building. [Slartboz: see my
| profile if curious]
|
| On one level its goal is to entertain but its also designed to
| educate about the likelihood and consequences of the carbon
| climate crisis causing crazy weather and ecosystem collapse.
| Especially if we dont Go Big soon enough.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| There's an odd two-sided dynamic around resistance to
| implementing adaptation measures as a response to fossil-fueled
| global warming.
|
| One group (representing fossil fuel-linked economies) doesn't
| want to admit that adaptation is necessary, as that entails
| accepting that the scientific understanding of our current
| climate trajectory is robust, and another group (representing
| politically-minded climate activists) seems to think accepting
| the necessity of adaptation means 'giving up' on stabilizing the
| climate and getting off fossil fuels.
|
| Neither of these are rational viewpoints - the tipping point for
| the climate transition has come and gone, and even an immediate
| cessation of fossil fuel use would still entail 100+ years of
| warming at rates comparable to the past 40 years (likely greater)
| due to the lag in the system (ocean response times) as well as to
| permafrost thaw. Claiming this isn't the case is really just
| another kind of denialism.
|
| On top of that, existing fossil fuel infrastructure and
| production appears set to continue for the next 30 years at
| current rates (just look at all the new fossil-fuel burning cars,
| trucks, jets, etc. coming off the production lines each year, or
| at the business model projections of all the major fossil fuel
| producers) and despite the political posturing of some
| politicians in the USA and other fossil fuel producers, there's
| no real interest in replacing fossil fuels with renewables on an
| accelerated timeline, except in those countries that have to
| import all their fossil fuels from abroad, and even there
| progress is fairly slow.
|
| The only response that makes any sense is a massive nationwide
| infrastructure development project designed to mitigate heat
| waves, wildfires, droughts, floods, extreme storms and seawater
| incursion.
| gmuslera wrote:
| Dealing with the symptoms without addressing the disease won't
| work, specially when things will keep becoming worse, far
| worse, than what you imagine.
|
| Feedback loops and tipping points will make things to change
| far past what it did in the last 40 years.
|
| The past emissions will remain in the atmosphere for at least
| another century (and will remain in the carbon cycle, so they
| will be a new stable), you will have more nature emissions (the
| permafrost thawing that you mentioned, more forest fires, more
| activity from microbes in wetlands and so on), and more things
| that will increase warming (like ice melting, and incoming blue
| ocean event, and more). And all of that, even if we stop all
| civilization emissions by tomorrow.
|
| We may not survive with mild measures, you are ready to
| prioritize economy or even civilization over full extinction?
| wizofaus wrote:
| It's hard to see how adaptation won't end up being far more
| disruptive to the lifestyles we currently take for granted than
| if we'd actually put in place measures 20+ years ago to
| gradually phase ourselves off fossil fuels. It's hard to
| imagine that in 30 or 40 years areas like that around Phoenix
| will be capable of supporting large populations at all for a
| start, so adaptation is going to look a lot like mass migration
| away from such regions. That, or living underground...
| molticrystal wrote:
| The Hohokam tribe lived there for at least 2000 years and
| westerners have been established there for over 150 years. Since
| only 10% of the people are over 60, does this mean the
| constitution of adult's have become very much poorer?
| morgango wrote:
| A simple answer is that there was more surface water and helped
| keep it cooler 150 years ago.
|
| For example, I lived in Tucson, AZ and there was a road nearby
| called "Silverlake" that at one time led to a silver lake with
| enough power to support a flour mill (see
| https://tucson.com/news/blogs/streetsmarts/street-smarts-
| sil...). Now it leads to apartments and houses and an Air Force
| base.
|
| More people + less water = hotter environment, even before
| climate change is factored in. A huge amount of the water in
| the area goes to agriculture as well.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| More paved surfaces too. Roads, driveways, highways, parking
| lots, etc.
| gdubs wrote:
| The indigenous people of America had a much more intimate
| understanding of how to live on the land and survive. Kind of
| precisely the point is how our way of living relies on
| technology and infrastructure that we take for granted.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| Even then major loss of population seems to have occurred in
| the southwest at various times possibly connected to climate
| and droughts. Even with newer technology I suspect many
| houses built in Phoenix are dependent on AC, rather than
| being designed to have AC as a supplement.
|
| A number of years ago we had an HVAC issue at work on a sunny
| week. It was shocking how much harder it was to focus and
| work in the afternoon as the air got stuffy and hot. Our
| office had some options for airflow, but not many. I've been
| meaning to look into what ti would take to put some tints on
| the windows to reduce the heat in the summer.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Any window covering really needs to go on the outside
| (anything on the inside is too late, the energy is already
| heating up your room), so I'd recommend sunblocking fabric
| roller shades (Coolaroo is a popular Australian
| manufacturer, I have one, it's worked well for me on a
| west-facing deck).
| TheChaplain wrote:
| People adapt. When I moved to south asia the heat and humidity
| really strained me, but after almost a year my body had adapted
| and I could easily wear a full suit without sweating liters.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| If 30% of Arizonians are fat, and many others are above 65
| years of age, then maybe Phoenix is fucked.
|
| Source: https://patch.com/arizona/phoenix/how-obesity-rate-
| arizona-c...
| yamtaddle wrote:
| There's also such a thing as acclimatization.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_and_heat_adaptations_in_h.
| ..
|
| If you're living in a hot area but used to AC, you're far
| less able to cope with loss of AC than someone who's been
| living without it the whole time.
|
| Further, modern dwellings are build with AC in mind. Older
| ones--by which I mean 50+ years ago, let alone dwellings the
| native people of the area lived in--were built with airflow &
| cooling in mind. They might be situated to take advantage of
| local conditions like shade or prevailing wind. Building for
| AC means some of that's less important, so gets ignored, and
| other aspects are deliberately broken to improve AC
| efficiency (window sizes shrink and there are fewer of them,
| maybe with none at all on some entire exterior walls, open
| paths to attic areas that allow up-and-out airflow are
| avoided, et c). Modern houses become traps in extreme heat if
| the AC is off, not shelters.
| nicenewtemp84 wrote:
| I think this is fear mongering. Last summer my father was saying
| it was too hot to function and we should put off the interior
| house project we had planned.
|
| It was 108.
|
| As he said this, we were at a stop light next to a Speedy Oil
| Change facility. Shop doors rolled open, guys in long pants,
| thick shirts, changing oil and rotating tires.
|
| People that don't work physically underestimate what the human
| body can do.
| chomp wrote:
| Your logic is faulty, unless the population of Phoenix is
| comprised of 1.6 million (presumably able-bodied) mechanics.
| nicenewtemp84 wrote:
| Well I sure didn't think it was comprised of 1.8 million weak
| ill people, hence why I thought saying HALF of the population
| would need medical care was fear mongering.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| People who spend all their time inside with AC would not do
| well if suddenly they had to deal with 108. But people who
| spend more time outside can adapt better and learn methods to
| help cope. Of course that has a limit, the discussion about wet
| bulb temps in India and Pakistan last year was about the limit
| of where healthy people can function. But it doesn't take that
| much heat to make life hard for old people.
|
| I have family in a place that is ususally above 100 in the
| summer. When I go there from a temperate location I struggle.
| But after a week or two I am more able to help with yard work,
| or taking the kids out to the park. If I spend a month the high
| temperature becomes fairly normal.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Spent a couple hours in 95 degree heat full humidity. Had
| partial but not full shade. Full heat stroke. Took hours to
| get my heart rate below 130. Many days to recover.
|
| I've done more time in the sun working out (moving) and been
| totally fine. Difference is I drank huge amounts of Gatorade.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| It's funny to see people normalize increasing temperature
| extremes. It's not going to help you when summers become longer
| and hotter over time and people become physically unable to
| work as a result.
|
| The limits of the human body and our ancestor's ability to
| survive in these heat waves were dependent on the waves being
| far shorter and less intense.
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(page generated 2023-05-23 23:02 UTC)