“… followed by a ‘fireside chat session where speakers will reflect on key challenges and opportunities for advancing extreme heat governance globally.’”
A conference on extreme heat includes a “fireside chat.” I know what they mean, but it still seems an odd phrase to use, considering the topic.
Not to make light of a very serious situation but it’s only high 80s low 90s in London it’s not even that hot… there’s places on earth that have literally become uninhabitable with some deserts reaching into the 170s! What’s Europe going to do once it starts getting actually hot?
Meanwhile I have to still work in this heat. Which I’m doing right now, and not on my phone.
Nature speaks first. Point made
Yeah the billionaires don’t care. We need to address that problem first
Why do you think billionaires are agitating to go to space?
People in Europe are in a very bad spot because they’ve never really invested in cooling systems because they didn’t have to. It’s going to take a massive effort to address.
and that massive effort, unless based on renewable energy supplies, will only exacerbate the issue.
Window AC units exist, and are extremely easy to install. They’re nowhere near as effective as a central AC unit, but they don’t need to be. Just strategically cool the small rooms where you’ll spend a lot of time, like the bedrooms and office. The rest of the house can stay hot, because you’re intentionally not spending a lot of time there (because it is hot). That’s how lots of people in the US live, because lots of places in the US don’t have central AC but have been dealing with the high temps for far longer than Europe.
“But my windows don’t work with a window unit” I can already hear some people typing. Great, heat pumps and mini-splits exist. A single hole drilled to the outside, and you now have the ability to independently heat and cool each room.
It’s even more complicated than that. Firstly Europe is a bit very big place, it’s comparable to the size of United States but with much more temperature fluctuation because it’s slightly further north as a unit.
At least for a lot of countries in Northern Europe the UK Germany Poland etc our houses aren’t built to be air conditioned, we don’t have air ducts, and we don’t have the slidy windows that are in US buildings so we couldn’t install window units. So even if I can find an engineer who knew how to install an air conditioning unit there wouldn’t be a lot of point anyway. Going forward houses are going to have to be re-engineered so that they can support air conditioning, I have no idea what we’re going to do with all the old stock.
If it must change it might be cool to have a blade runner vibe where old buildings are retrofitted with futuristic technology.
It’s really not that complicated though. Our houses easily support air-conditioning, what the hell are you talking about? If anything, our houses are better suited as they are insulated really well. Just cut a damn hole through the wall and install a split unit.
We’re just not used to it and until now it was considered a waste of energy. That’s it.
The house I live in is cold as fuck by the way. And I don’t have an AC unit. I just don’t open the doors and windows during daytime. At night I let the cooler air in. I do live in the northern part of Germany though. That may not be viable for you.
You drill a single hole into an exterior wall and you mount a mini split system. You don’t need to do central air systems to have AC, in fact I think the consensus is they’re less efficient for individual homes and flats.
In Germany, and I assume everywhere else, the largest issue is landlords have no incentive to take care of their properties past maintaining it from a sellable perspective. Never in my lifetime has one of my landlords voluntarily made the living conditions of their property better. The moment it goes into law that homes have to be cool able down to 24° (like we mandate for heating in the winter) or landlords are outlawed (thus allowing everyday citizens to improve their homes) AC becomes a very solvable issue. I’d have installed AC in my last two flats if my landlord had let me even just take it out of rent. But no, absolutely no reason to reinvest in a home you don’t live in and plan to use to supplement your income.
One of the people I follow posted about something similar on Mastodon yesterday. They happened to be on the same plane as someone who was speaking at a climate conference they were attending, and they saw the person through gap in the seat working on their remarks and using ChatGPT in order to do it.
Sad stuff.
i do have to point out, the plane trip itself was far worse, climate wise, than the vibe writing.
That said, yes I agree, it is of course an extra load, that could be easily avoided.
It’s too late to do anything about the extreme heat. But I guess it was worth it
Think about the glorious profits we made for the shareholders! Truly beautiful. Now excuse me while I die a preventable heat related death.
The only thing we can take to the otherworld is the shareholders’ satisfaction
It’s too late to do anything about the extreme heat already here plus a bit more, but we can prevent it from getting MUCH WORSE!
If that current collapses you guys get another ice age, so it won’t be so bad!
Don’t worry, once the ocean currents collapse we’ll get a nice cooling ice age in the higher latitudes!
Probably. Although there’s actually at least a few climate models out there that suggest that things would just start heating up. Because the high temperatures would melt the ice caps.
Let’s just try to enjoy the new Younger Dryas while we can, eh?
we can prevent it from getting MUCH WORSE!
Just make sure to wear gloves and a mask, park way the fuck off site, and leave your phone at home.
Exactly
Population statistics says otherwise. It appears we cannot.
For some reason
Shareholder profits largely. Won’t someone think of the shareholders!?
I think about shareholders all the time
If only humanity was aware of their effects on the environment sooner.
It is odd how we have science, the most unreasonably successful mental constructs of mankind ever and we perpetually ignore it like if we plug our ears enough the information it finds we dislike will just go away. It’s a bit like a child cleaning their room by closing their eyes so they don’t see the mess.
We’ve been aware that we negatively affect the environment since at least the 1800s.
But money and power is more important than the environment we need to produce said money and power as well as survive. This will be the second time an organism has caused a mass extinction but the first time the organism self proclaimed that it was intelligent.
I come back to Taoism, that is suffering becomes possible when one becomes separate from the Tao aka the way things are, aka the truth. Like if I lie that I can fly unassisted and jump off a building then I have removed myself from truth and when I go to test this I will experience suffering. Humanity has separated itself from truth for a long time and now the bill is coming due.
Homo Sapiens have existed for around 300,000 years. The earliest know use of currency was around 30,000 years ago. Assuming, when you say ‘power’, you mean mechanically created energy ie steam power, or electrical power, the first know use of steam power was about 2050 years ago.
So, as humans managed to exist for 270,000 years without money or power, I would say the environment is probably the most important factor.
So, as humans managed to exist for 270,000 years without money or power, I would say the environment is probably the most important factor.
Not 8 billion humans though.
More so political power as money alone does nothing. There’s always been that type of power and money is a representation of value and there’s always been value and power so long as there’s been minds. The first organisms to cause a mass extinction was photosynthesizing microorganisms. They poisoned the atmosphere with oxygen and nearly killed everything, including themselves. Of course they didn’t do so for money or power or really out of any will but they are the first organisms to cause a mass extinction.
the problems don’t exist if i don’t think of them
That title is the definition of laughing to avoid crying.
Also because I need water to sweat, can’t afford tears rn.
