Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

https://www.wired.com/story/extreme-heat-tolerance/

by Brajeshwar • 2 years ago

148 254 2 years ago

cromulent3• 2 years ago

A friend of mine who lives in Queensland (Sunshine Coast) was talking about a recent spell of 32° and 100% humidity and how oppressive it was.

My understanding is that such weather is not survivable long term [1] without air conditioning. A power failure would be disastrous.

[1] https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/humans-cant-endure-t...

lstodd• 2 years ago

Try living in Goa in the monsoon season. Or even rewatch Apocalypse Now or basically any Vietnam war movie.

I assure you, even 36C/100% is survivable.

bowsamic• 2 years ago

Survivable for many, but still dangerous. 36C is at the limit though. 35C is already dangerous

pcthrowaway4• 2 years ago

The science says otherwise, but specific populations are likely better adapted to higher temperatures than the average.

An extended period of 36C/100% is going to pose serious danger for most people

llamaimperative• 2 years ago

The average daily high for Goa in July is like 30C. No, 36C at 100% for an extended period (6-8 hours) is extremely, extremely lethal. Could some people survive it? Probably. But yeah, exaggerating how hot Goa is to dismiss the problem is sort of exactly the problem.

coldtea5• 2 years ago

I assure you, even 36C/100% is survivable

Survivable is a pretty low bar.

Also, "survivable but kills babies, the elderly, and the sick in much greater numbers than they die today" doesn't have the same shine as survivable for everybody...

rokkamokka• 2 years ago

It is a guaranteed death if continued for more than a brief while. With evaporative cooling not functioning and the temperature too high, you have no effective way to cool down. Any burning of calories, even without exertion, will heat you up.

elzbardico• 2 years ago

People need sometime to build tolerance to a given temperature. Someone who lives in Manaus or Belem do Para, Brazilian Amazonia would have a hard time getting used even to daily averages around 40F, and vice-versa.

throwaway290• 2 years ago

You say long term... I have walked 10 minutes or so in ~35/90, closer to the end of that was not certain if I will pass out on the street at any time. The body is unable to sweat off.

It's one thing in cloudy weather with wind and rain but in sunny clear weather it felt deadly

pcthrowaway4• 2 years ago

Much of Queensland's population lives on the coast, so those who can tolerate the sun could at least seek some reprieve in the ocean.

As long as cold water is running, people can also use tap water to cool themselves down, though it will turn into a swampy mess when none of it evaporates. Perhaps public shaded pools with a cool water source will become critical public infrastructure to help people survive heat waves if the electricity goes out.

If it's above 32 degrees and 100% humidity at all hours though, it would be pretty miserable as you wouldn't have anywhere to sleep (unless you have a car with A/C, and masses running their cars overnight will just contribute that much more to the climate change)

LilBytes3• 2 years ago

Brisbane checking in. Wish we were near the coast. :(

defrost• 2 years ago

We had a run of five days at 45 C and near 50% humidity here in W.Australia last month - bit unpleasant.

Later in the month the days that were 30 C and 90% humidity felt worse when working.

cqqxo4zV46cp• 2 years ago

Unpleasant? Ken oath. It started to push the limits of my AC.

nicbou4• 2 years ago

I've experienced 30-35 degrees at 70%-90% humidity while cycling. It's totally unlike 45 in a dry climate.

The former makes you feel like the activity ceiling is much lower, and cooling down through natural means is much slower. Sweating just doesn't work that well. That was at a wet bulb temperature of ~28 degrees.

leoedin• 2 years ago

It is scary - but I suspect the headline temperatures/humidity aren't the only story. We can build passive structures to regulate peak temperatures - caves and windowless insulated boxes with high thermal mass, for instance. As long as the average temperatures (day and night) over a few days or a week are survivable, active cooling isn't strictly necessary.

coldtea5• 2 years ago

We can build passive structures to regulate peak temperatures - caves and windowless insulated boxes with high thermal mass, for instance. As long as the average temperatures (day and night) over a few days or a week are survivable, active cooling isn't strictly necessary.

Survival is a consolation, but if we need to start living in caves and windowless insulated boxes, then those are not very reassuring news...

twelvechairs• 2 years ago

Generally areas of high humidity have low diurnal variation (its just as hot and wet at night as it is during the day), so unless you have A/C or similar, insulation/thermal mass will not do much as the heat and humidity will find its way in over time.

Its hot-dry climates where it gets cool overnight where thermal mass is most important (the thermal mass warms up during the day and radiates heat at night, when outside cools down).

In hot-wet climates, if you want passive comfort, your best bet is to make a big roof and then encourage cross-ventilation so the wind provides some cooling.

greedo• 2 years ago

Not really sure most will want to live like the folks in the Silo TV series.

sgu999• 2 years ago

This is the plot of the Ministry for the Future [0]. Power failure during a prolonged wet bulb temperature above 35°C, millions of dead.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future

FrustratedMonky6• 2 years ago

Also. Termination Shock, Stephenson.

In Texas there was AC failures, and people needed Earth Suits (like a space suit with air conditioning) to survive.

netsharc5• 2 years ago

Is it a plot? It's an event that happens in chapter 1 and paints a "this is what will happen" scenario. The whole chapter is available here: https://www.orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts/the-ministry-for-t...

AtlasBarfed4• 2 years ago

Which is why we need a home solar revolution.

The grid is going to have to undergo huge evolution, but increasingly corruption and political gridlock make that unreliable.

Plus home solar empowers you from centralized control and functions as the only free market alternative to the regulatory captured grid infrastructure.

Home storage with sodium ion and hopefully in 2-4 years sodium sulfur will drop costs 50%.

Also, your car an function as a secondary battery storage.

renegade-otter3• 2 years ago

That's a typical summer night in NYC. We did not have AC one summer, it was VERY unpleasant. I couldn't sleep, but - probably not fatal if you chug tons of water.

tapland• 2 years ago

At that humidity level you can't cool by sweating.

We've had days like that in southern Sweden, near the coast with very high humidity.

I'm starting to go crazy over us not having ACs, and windows that are really hard to get working well with a portable ac.

Retirement homes celebrate getting ice cream machines, but still lack AC and the deaths during summer are significantly higher =/

nicbou4• 2 years ago

I'm from Montreal. The heat you have experienced is completely unlike humid heat. Your sweat cools you down. I've spent two weeks in 45 degree dry heat and did just fine with a wet shirt and a twist of the throttle.

Wet bulb temperature is the lowest temperature to which air can be cooled by sweating. Evaporative cooling does not work well if the air is nearly saturated with humidity. Humid heat feels a lot hotter because of that.

If the wet bulb temperature is 28 degrees, it means that drenching yourself in water in front of a fan will only cool you down to 28 degrees.

If it exceeds your maximum body temperature, you slowly die from heat stroke, no matter how much you sweat.

donatj2• 2 years ago

I grew up poor and without AC in Minnesota where we regularly get spells of 100°F+ (37.7°C) at VERY high humidity thanks to all the lakes. It’s survivable, it’s absolutely not pleasant though and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Fans and wet rags help some. I used to fill a 2-liter bottle with cold water and hold it against my chest. A lot of sleepless nights. When we got a local second run $2 movie theater, it was a literal godsend.

brazzy2• 2 years ago

The point is that at some sufficiently high humidity, fans and wet rags do not help any more, at all! Combine that with sufficiently high temperatures, and it's not survivable. And will kill people with weak circulatory systems (i.e. the elderly and babies) quite a bit earlier.

jijijijij9• 2 years ago

You do not understand the issue at hand. Whatever you experienced was way less severe, because evaporative cooling obviously was still possible. There is a point where you simply cannot cool yourself passively. That's the point where survival is at risk regardless of health.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

nicbou4• 2 years ago

Wet bulb temperature is the lowest temperature to which air can be cooled by the evaporation of water into the air (sweating, evaporative cooling).

If that temperature exceeds the body's max temperature, the clock starts ticking. If you stay, you die. It's not just very hot.

whycombagator• 2 years ago

I don’t think of Minnesota as a place where 100f+ occurs with regularity or for sustained periods. A brief search confirms my assumptions, but I’m happy to be proven otherwise.

There are parts of the US where 100f is reached by midday and persists past sunset for over a month, with high humidity.

AuryGlenz2• 2 years ago

For what it’s worth, it turns out a most of our humidity is from corn fields, not our lakes. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/07/22/feeling-sweaty-minn...

It’d be nice if they could genetically modify corn to pump out less water, though I don’t know if that’s feasible.

dreamcompiler3• 2 years ago

You are talking about Minnesota but your description is identical to that of Atlanta, Houston, and any number of other southeastern US cities during the first half of the 20th century. A/C became widespread in the US first in the South, because it made indoor work possible in the afternoons. During that time (first half of 20th century), Northerners still considered A/C optional because the hot season was relatively short. A/C has been considered non-optional in the American South for the last 50 years. (In fact, I often find that when I visit the South in the summer I need to bring a sweater because it's not uncommon for indoor spaces to be ridiculously cool.)

Those days are over. Now Minnesota is like Atlanta in 1950, and Atlanta in the summer is now dangerous. Phoenix in summer is now deadly. A/C is a life-and-death issue in the southern half of the US (unless you're on top of a high mountain). A long absence of A/C in those places will kill you, and I don't mean figuratively.

mr_person• 2 years ago

Can confirm. Its disgusting.

I am also a grumpy fart right now because the night time temperature has not dropped below 20degrees since, like, November[1]. If I tried to aircon that like I do most of the day time, I would wake up a sinusy coughing mess...

Sure, 30degrees and 90+ humidity is survivable, but only just.

[1] https://7news.com.au/news/brisbane-set-to-break-record-of-da...

bloomingeek3• 2 years ago

<Sure, 30degrees and 90+ humidity is survivable, but only just.>

And how could you get any work done? I worked in the oilfields when I was in my early twenty's, if the temp was over 100F, less work got done because we didn't want to die. I knew men who got heat stroke, they were never the same again. I myself got heat exhaustion several times, it took a few days to recover. Our bodies can only take so much, no matter how tough you are, wet rags and frequent breaks don't always work.

bongodongobob3• 2 years ago

You're allergic to air conditioning? I don't understand.

jijijijij9• 2 years ago

The thing to think about, is how poorly developed, rural places, without ACs or stable grids, are much more likely to experience heat waves with universally fatal wet-bulb temperatures. Places like parts of India or Bangladesh with high population densities, too.

Further more, I think, we also need to consider how non-survivable conditions to humans, may play out for other animals we depend on. The cows, chicken, sheep and goats? All dead. But consider also the impact on ecosystems, when birds and predators may die in large quantities in a short time - these ecosystems may completely collapse. Great impact on food security in affected regions. Not to mention disease dynamics when pathogens experience body-like conditions outside the body, and all the decay and death around. I am not sure all plants would make it either, since they need evaporation of water from their leaves, too, to transport nutrients from the soil upwards - and with halted transport, may not be able to fight fungi and so on.

Now, this threat may not come as a gradual trend, but may introduce itself as single (first) freak heat-wave killing hundred thousands of people all at once. A whole region may get the message their land is not habitable for humans anymore. Imagine the migration pressure as a consequence. I don't think a poor country could ever properly adapt to frequent non-survivable temperatures sustainably...

huppeldepup• 2 years ago

The 2003 heatwave killed 70.000+ in Europe. But nobody seems to remember/know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heatwave

chasil• 2 years ago

As opposed to our current icehouse phase, plants have thrived during intense greenhouse periods of global climate.

"Earth has been in a greenhouse state for about 85% of its history... Earth is now in an icehouse state, and ice sheets are present in both poles simultaneously."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Eart...

safety1st4• 2 years ago

Millions of people already live in these conditions (temperature in the low 30s, constant high humidity) in the tropics so I am skeptical about that study.

It sucks for me in those conditions but a lot of locals say they're used to it. The general strategy without AC is to minimize activity during the hottest part of the day and keep a fan on you.

darkerside3• 2 years ago

With high enough heat, a fan will only make things worse, no?

safety1st4• 2 years ago

So do any of the people who downvoted this into oblivion actually live in the tropics? I mean I don't know about 35 at 100% humidity, but like 32 at 75% humidity is the daytime average for some months where I am, and it gets higher when there are heat waves, and many people don't own fans. None of this is new. No mass heat deaths yet. But hey there's one study so the apocalypse is around the corner right

osigurdson• 2 years ago

Interesting as large swaths of humanity would die if utilities (electricity, water, gas) shut down for long periods of time. I would have died at least twice this winter for example.

onlyrealcuzzo• 2 years ago

Good thing the problem is as easily solved by going 6 ft underground, or getting in a cold bath.

Patna India typically has weather like this for two months a year and probably a million people live there without A/C (just fine): https://weatherspark.com/y/111069/Average-Weather-in-Patna-I...

richrichie4• 2 years ago

32 deg C is a mild summer in many parts of the world and most of that world does not have 24/7 electricity, even from coal.

Incidentally, pro tennis players descend in Melbourne during the peak of Australian summer and play best of 5 sets (men) in the heat where temperatures reach high forties (deg C) and even fifties.

cromulent3• 2 years ago

Of course, high temperatures on their own are fine. The temperature is not the only factor, it is the humidity. Wet-bulb temperature is the key indicator.

tzs• 2 years ago

If you've got a well and your well water is always significantly below body temperature one thing that might be worth considering is installing a hand pump. You could then at least draw a bath and sit in the tub to remain cool.

That works by contact with something colder than you. It does not rely on evaporation and so is not affected by high humidity.

hintymad• 2 years ago

is that such weather is not survivable long term [1] without air conditioning

I seriously doubt it. I grew up in an area that frequently hit 35C with close to 100% humidity, and I didn't even have an electronic fan before 9 years old. And multiple cities with 10s of millions people had the similar condition too. It was not pleasant but let me assure you, more people died of cold than heat, orders of magnitude more. In a poor country, or an Asian country more than 100 years ago, 10s of thousands of people in a single city would die in a snowy winter. Not having air conditioner? Seriously, that's a first-world problem.

seoulmetro• 2 years ago

I don't believe the Sunshine Coast ever reaches 100% humidity unless it's raining, which cools the region.

The sun does a great job at making sure humidity is at least always below 80%.

Also, those temperatures are very tolerable for most people, in most of Australia. It's just that they're uncomfortable.

jjav2• 2 years ago

32° and 100% humidity
is not survivable long term

32C is only 89F, which isn't hot at all.

Coming from the tropics where 90s(F) with very high humidity is common, I can't see how that is not survivable. I walked to school and back home in that weather every day and it wasn't a big deal. We never had air conditioning, too poor for that.

seiferteric8• 2 years ago

This is why I think we should be seriously considering atmospheric aerosol injection already. Not sure why there aren't more large government funded studies of this.

ponector2• 2 years ago

Who should pay for it? No one really wants to spend money on something like that.

People don't want to spend 0.1% of GDP to help survive people in Ukraine and you think they care how hot is there for the people of Australia?

seiferteric8• 2 years ago

Don't we collaborate on things like LHC, ITER, international space-station etc?

adrianN5• 2 years ago

Aerosol injection is not very expensive.

ImHereToVote4• 2 years ago

Is there any evidence to support the case that sending more weapons to Ukraine will spare lives?

If so. Shouldn't we prioritize sending weapons to the people of Gaza first, since their casualty numbers are much higher?

infotainment2• 2 years ago

I believe this was the plot of the movie Snowpiercer.

I would be a bit worried about accidental side effects; atmospheric alteration on a large scale seems like a dangerous game.

FrustratedMonky6• 2 years ago

And book Termination Shock. One Billionaire took it upon himself to seed sulfur in upper atmosphere.

And Not for global warming, but in The Matrix, humans darkened the skies to fight the machines.

seiferteric8• 2 years ago

atmospheric alteration on a large scale seems like a dangerous game.

Were already doing that...

gadders• 2 years ago

I have zero confidence in that working without side effects worse than the disease.

seiferteric8• 2 years ago

This is why we should study it...

moffkalast5• 2 years ago

Why? It's relatively well studied. Volcanoes erupt all the time and we've done it extensively ourselves as well: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shippin...

_heimdall9• 2 years ago

Before we start filling our atmosphere with theoretical solutions, shouldn't we reduce as much of emissions and consumption and possible?

We humans consume an insane amount of natural resources. We have built many of our societies around global interdependence. We produce a constant flood of stuff that is consumed quickly and discarded.

We could make a big impact simply shifting to more local economies. For example, a recent lead poisoning issue in the US was tracked back to apple sauce pouches sold at the dollar store. Little could be done legally because of how complex the supply chain was. I don't remember all the details, but multiple countries were involved from growing the apples, processing the apple sauces, packaging, etc.

We don't need such insane systems all powered by energy consumption. We just need local sources of damn apples for our kids to snack on.

MandieD• 2 years ago

It was apparently intentionally-tainted cinnamon in apple sauce pouches, but confirms your point about the complexity of food supply chains making it more likely for bad stuff to get in: https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/investi...

moffkalast5• 2 years ago

Frankly it's not one or the other, it's both at the same time as much as possible because we're extremely late to this party.

seiferteric8• 2 years ago

This would take decades at least, we need something else in our back pocket in case millions start to die from heat exhaustion. Even if somehow we stop all CO2 emissions today, the earth will continue to warm for like a couple more centuries.

mcculley• 2 years ago

Who do you trust to determine the right amount of aerosol? Some areas will be harmed by temperature increases, some will benefit. Who decides who benefits? This is a classic Tragedy of the Commons. We are underequipped to cooperate.

lm28469• 2 years ago

"Sir you should stop drinking and smoking or your liver and lungs will die"

"It's ok I'll get a liver and lungs transplant :)"

We'll really do everything before we consider stopping the root cause lol. And heat isn't even the only issue we're facing

seiferteric8• 2 years ago

I think it's more like, you have a viral infection and it's causing a high fever, and that fever is about to kill you. Should the doctor try and bring the fever down or go and research a cure for the virus? Sometimes you have to treat the immediate symptoms first because curing the underlying condition will take too long.

coldtea5• 2 years ago

Fun fact I remember reading in some studies: increased heat increases tendency for violence.

Ah, not the ones I had in mind, but these will do:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/16/two-new-s...

https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/308Readings/Anderson2001...

whywhywhywhy• 2 years ago

Entirely obvious for anyone living in a city that both heat and the full moon have a tangible effect on that.

amelius2• 2 years ago

Explanation?

Server6• 2 years ago

Its hot during the day, so people come out at night and can see if there's a full moon. Considering that it's still night, people may be drinking and can be generally up to no good.

stephenitis• 2 years ago

full moon?

citation needed please

wiz21c• 2 years ago

fta: "Our best hope in the face of inevitable rises in heat? Cooperation. “We’ve built forecasting systems that will warn us when disasters are incoming by working together at enormous scale. We must continue to do the same.”

This sentence basically says "we don't need to make less disasters, just better handle them".

wolfram74• 2 years ago

Well, the global system has a lot of mass. It'll take time to fix the things we've messed up. To survive in the interim while we do that, there'll need to be some harm mitigation measures.

marcinzm• 2 years ago

To me it says "we'll never succeed at making fewer disasters given how we've done so far, so we better learn to handle them better."

Panzer04• 2 years ago

It's pretty clear attempting to get numerous bad actors to fix their polluting behaviour isn't going to make things happen any faster (and is in any case a monumentally different task). So we must deal with the problem after it occurs, instead.

humansareok1• 2 years ago

Or we can't make less disasters so we better handle them.

FrustratedMonky6• 2 years ago

I've heard this argument used to say climate change isn't happening, because there are less deaths.

Hurricanes aren't getting stronger, because there are less deaths.

But ignores we are getting better at predicting land falls and evacuating.

Responding to disasters 'better', doesn't mean disasters are not getting worse.

And there is some diminishing return, eventually the disasters will overwhelm the ability to respond.

tvbv2• 2 years ago

The scientific litterature and IPCC’s summaries warned about these phenomenon. When 2 billion people will be living under wet bulb temperature that can’t be tanked by the body it’s going to be a mess worldwide.

hackerlight3• 2 years ago

People who live in the humid tropics are already on a knife's edge. A small increase makes the heat intolerable and you will see either mass death or mass waves of immigration. "Just build aircon" doesn't work when you're talking about people with intermittent (or no) electricity and who have an annual income equal to a single aircon unit.

beAbU2• 2 years ago

Smol nit: immigration means moving into a country. In your example we'll see a lot of emigration, people moving out of the country. You emigrate from one country and thereafter you immigrate into another.

Mnemonic: IN=IMmigrate, EXIT=Emigrate

tvbv2• 2 years ago

Exactly.

thworp2• 2 years ago

All the more reason to urgently develop the world to at least the level of Malaysia / Thailand (or ~Western Europe ca. 1950). If we quit fossil fuels cold turkey it is those very same people in the tropics that will starve. But making that connection requires thinking about second order effects, a tall order for the degrowth cult.

nedrylandJP• 2 years ago

Don't worry, our lawmakers will save us.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/08/florida-bill...

infotainment2• 2 years ago

Can we just declare political entities who push climate negative policies an existential threat to humanity and neutralize them?

wwilim2• 2 years ago

If only everybody everywhere voted for left-wing parties instead of right-wing populists...

wwilim2• 2 years ago

Sleep underground during the day, crawl out at sunset and work through the night

cute_boi• 2 years ago

This assumes we don't need any ecosystem like farming etc in that area.

bell-cot3• 2 years ago

And it doesn't work longer-term, because "cool ground sandwiched between hot lithosphere and hot atmosphere" ain't gonna remain cool.

triceratops3• 2 years ago

Do you think everyone already has basements?

nrvn2• 2 years ago

People from Middle East and Northern Africa who have been living in harsh conditions for the last several THOUSAND years send regards to all climate change researchers.

miramba• 2 years ago

...and the rest of Africa, Indonesia and northern South America too. Talk about eurocentric...

silverquiet• 2 years ago

Can we make the conditions for them even harsher? Does that not seem like a problem?

Qem• 2 years ago

They face dry heat, not humid, extreme heat. These are different problems. Dry heat easier to solve.

nicbou4• 2 years ago

People in Southeast Asia, on the other hand...

nrvn2• 2 years ago

coastal regions face high heat and high humidity. Think of Persian gulf countries and southern Iran, or the likes of Djibouti.

genman• 2 years ago

You mean the desert people, like the people living in complete opposite conditions to high humidity?

lp4vn• 2 years ago

I used to live in a subtropical region when I was a child in the 90s and it's pretty remarkable how hot the winters are today over there. That experience alone taught me that no way the climate change is not real. It's a bit like with the economy, you feel something is pretty wrong, but a lot of people for one reason or another will deny and try to brush it off, then after many years you get to see articles about how tough times have been in the last X years.

jessekv• 2 years ago

Countries stock up on masks to prepare for future pandemics.

What can/do they stock up on to prepare for extended heat waves? Ground water reserves? Generators and fuel? Underground shelters?

tejohnso2• 2 years ago

I don't know about countries, but I'd look into a ground source off grid heat pump.

bell-cot3• 2 years ago

's/look into a/look into an extremely reliable/'

(At least in my part of America, HVAC equipment failures under season-maximum loads are extremely common. And if failure = death...)

And maybe keep kinda quiet about it, too. If your nice & friendly neighbors are facing death by heat stroke, they could grow considerably less nice & friendly.

JumpCrisscross3• 2 years ago

What can/do they stock up on to prepare for extended heat waves?

Power.

slashdev• 2 years ago

Cold kills more people according to the literature [1]. Heat deaths are rising, cold deaths are falling. Not in the same places though. Countries near the equator are going to suffer more than countries at higher latitudes.

Demand for air conditioning is expected to more than triple by 2050 (consuming as much electricity as all of China and India today). [2]

[1] https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/hot-cold-and-deadl... [2] https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/hotter-climat...

tejohnso2• 2 years ago

Demand for air conditioning is expected to more than triple by 2050

Which further exacerbates the problem. Another unfortunate feedback loop for us.

petrocrat• 2 years ago

Though demand for heating should be falling simultaneously, no? I wonder what the net CO2 tradeoff is there. At least historically with burning fuels to create heat, that likely contributed more per unit of degree-change than AC, however with Heat pumps now that's probably either a wash or reversed, if I had to guess.

flightster2• 2 years ago

Cooling by a degree takes less energy than heating by a degree (not to mention it's electric). Cooling a house from 35 (outside) to 23 (inside) takes is better for "the environment" than heating one from 11 to 23.

api_or_ipa• 2 years ago

Why wouldn’t running a heat pump in reverse to heat a room be ~same energy as running it in forward to cool a room?

I suspect you’re comparing an airconditioner against a resistive heating unit.

flightster2• 2 years ago

Yes with heat pumps you're 100% correct but right now most of the US north does not use heat pumps to heat their house while the vast majority of the south US does use A/C which is way better per degree of temperature change than say heating oil which the vast majority of New England still uses.

jameshart5• 2 years ago

What’s the basis for this claim?

Maintaining a fixed temperature difference across a wall with a fixed thermal conductivity takes the same amount of energy no matter which side of the wall you want to keep the heat.

On the other hand, any inefficiencies in your heat transfer capability, any incoming solar radiation, and any other activity going on inside a space (like lighting, cooking or refrigeration, or just people metabolizing their breakfast) tend to add heat to it.

So maintaining a cooler temperature on the side where you’re trying to do stuff seems likely to be more inefficient than heating it.

amelius2• 2 years ago

We're basically boiled frogs, except we're the ones applying the heat.

chiefalchemist2• 2 years ago

Humanity? Really? If so, it's because of such newspeak. To be clear, it's primarily The West and primarily greed (i.e., profits at all costs) that are conducting this experiment. What is this? A reprint of a press release from Big Oil and Big Ag? And Big Gov?

Most of the billions didn't choose it. A good chunk of the billions aren't even aware.

Shame on you Wired for diluting the accountability and giving those who should be blamed a free pass.

Sheeshhhhhh. Humanity? My arse.

chiefalchemist2• 2 years ago

Classic HN irony, down voted...which only proves the point being made. That is, from too early a biased \ distracting narrative has been rolled out; most just feel in line and parroted that mindset as good zombies do. Yes Virginia, they even roam the sacred intellectual grounds of Planet HN.

In short, we can't solve a problem, when we can't even have The Problem properly described, scooped, attributed to, etc. To blame "Humanity" *is* a step in the wrong direction. It is naive, at best.

lakomen• 2 years ago

We all know this, but what's the point when not enough is being done to make our habitat better or at least not make it largely inhabitable. And in some cases, looking at Australia, it's gone full throttle CO2, like it's not sitting in a glasshouse already.

Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

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