What Happens to an Economy When It’s Too Hot to Work?
3d 4h ago by slrpnk.net/u/silence7 in climate@slrpnk.net from www.bloomberg.com
India is becoming a case study in how rising temperatures can undermine productivity and growth in nations that still rely heavily on physical labor.
We're going to find out soon enough.
Almost half of the global population will be living with extreme heat by 2050 if the world reaches 2C of global warming above preindustrial levels, according to a University of Oxford study published in January. India will have the largest affected population, says urban climatologist Radhika Khosla, an associate professor who co-authored the study.
People shift to working indoors, and for outdoor work at night. I’m sure economies like the Middle East and Palm Springs already have this sort of thing worked out.
Yeah, that's great ... I went out last night after the sun went down, and it was only 36° with 100% humidity.
30 mins of gentle walk, and my clothes were soaked with sweat.
yup. the killer here comes when the low temp doesn't go below 100f - heat simply builds higher and higher and there's no respite; this causes hvac systems to begin to struggle and power systems to collapse as infrastructure like transformers blow (expensive and slow to replace, with low production rates to boot) or transmission lines to sag under the heat x the transmission loads, often causing wildfires.
have been to places like death valley and central texas near Killeen - once it was 110+ for an entire week, highs reaching 117f! and at night it wouldn't get below 100.
It's like breathing burning air, it's exhausting and on top of all of this, people aren't made to work in these kinds of conditions and as temps rise, will asphyxiate as their lungs struggle to pull oxygen out of humid hot air while their core temps climb, unable to dump the heat through respiration or perspiration.
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-identify-the-maximum-heat-limit-the-human-body-can-take
Yup, weekend before last I was halfway round the supermarket when the power cut out because everything was overloaded between the HVAC and lots of extra fans. The tills worked off UPS, but lights, fans, and aircon were gone ... by the time I got through the checkout I had trouble putting things in my bag and handling money because my hands had gone numb!
Partly my fault, because I walked there and planned to let their aircon cool me down, so I was too hot before the power cut. The locals avoid unnecessary movement, and they cope with the heat much better than my pasty white arse.
Next weekend I'll be taking a bike taxi there, not walking. Thus, producing more greenhouse gasses just to exist :-/
shopping is hell, and then....
If the humidity really were a 100%, the dew point was at 36° and water was condensing on your clothes. With a relatve humidity of 100% the Wet-bulb temperature is the same value and thus well above the level where sustained exposure (multiple hours) is lethal even to young and healthy people. Wikipedia lists only three instances where such conditions have been measured (so far).
The weather forecast said at that time of bight it would be 36°, so I guess it was the humidity that was lower.
I sat still for a while at the mid-point of my walk, and I'd guesstimate I was sweating at about the same rate it was evaporating. The moment I started walking again I was getting wetter.
I’m sure economies like the Middle East and Palm Springs already have this sort of thing worked out.
uhh...
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(23)00045-1/fulltext
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/21/nx-s1-5013582/hajj-heat-deaths-saudi-arabia
I mean, imagine an extreme scenario: imagine it's 300F every day, all the time.
We would all be finding ways to survive REAL fast, or dying. Things would get actually scifi basically instantly... You saw what happened to the world when an actual global pandemic happened like six years ago, and that was just a sickness that killed like 1-5% of the population and permanently brought down everybody's iq by 5-15%.
So "what happens when it's too hot to work?" Society changes REALLY FUCKING FAST in accordance with survival needs.
The solution is of course to fire more scientists.