That is the opening chapter of Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Ministry For The Future". Scary how fast that became real...
this post was submitted on 29 May 2024
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It hasn't happened this time, but all it takes is a heat dome to persist for a few hours or days with 10-20% higher humidity &/or temp and BAM... thousands to millions dead. Once evaporative cooling reverses and you start absorbing heat from the atmosphere it's only a matter of time. So maybe the next El Nino, or the one after; possibly in between, but less likely.
The embellishment with the ministry for the future is the first wet bulb event was extreme, when in reality they're most likely to start smaller and less intense — only killing thousands — not reaching those types of extremes until we're at 2-3c (in decades). The resilience of the bioshpere, and slow crawl of climate change, is what is ultimately leading to our undoing.
It's not quite there — there is a combination of heat and humidity which will kill some people, but it's not going to look like an everybody-dies situation unless the next day is hotter.
It still scares the shite out of me, we need those ministry black ops folks ASAP!
It was the cult of Kali that got things started by murdering oil executives.
There are no ministry black ops folks; it's down to what you, joining with the people around you, can do to alter policy
What's horrible is what the hell are we going to do? We can't evacuate 2 billion people out of the Indian subcontinent.
what the hell are we going to do?
In the very long term, stop climate change.
In the long term - dig in and design heat shelters, most likely. Because it's cooler underground and heat waves will pass. When a bad one comes, people would stop working and find shelter from it. One can even accumulate cold in a thermal store during cool periods and distribute the cooling effect to premises during heat waves.
In the short term - those who can (there will be an equality and access problem) and those who must (who cannot stop working) would install air conditioners and similar stuff.
You're going to run through your cold storage pretty fast.
Well, a heat wave cannot last forever. And in terms of cold storage - it's +30 C over here currently already for a week, it has been 1.5 months since the last snowfall - and the last pile of snow on the local airport is still melting. Darkened, not recognizable as the substance it used to be, but existing, without people making the slightest effort to protect it. :)
How likely are people going to wait until it's a heat wave. They're going to burn through it on normal 30 to 35 C days.
Nothing and they are going to die. That was the plan all along.
We need the rich to accept making less money, worldwide.
That's really it.
We can probably slow the rate of increase and even begin to reverse it, but we need to convince the rich that they need to accept making less money.
I believe there's a mediaeval device that suitable for convincing billionaires to not be billionaires anymore
Medieval? It was invented in 1789.
Bro its probably too late for that. We might be committed to 5 degrees total warming at this point. Thats like, infrastructure failing levels of heat.
Yup, but it's possible to slow that rate and (if we're smart and motivated) geoengineer ways to reverse it.
Again, though, it would require the rich to make less money.
But yes, in general I agree with you; even if we pull out the stops we're already locked into some kind of increase, but that worse part is that it seems like we're going to do is go hell-for-leather because the rich don't have all the money yet.
Not defending billionaires here, cause fuckem.
But it would also mean complete upending of what everyone "normal" expects out of their lives too.
No more cars, no more bananas, no more Amazon, no more Netflix, etc.
Every normal thing people expect would have to go, and be replaced with whatever local version exists,if it relies on global trade.
Again, I'm not defending anything in particular, but highlighting that getting general consensus will be very, very hard.
I personally believe most humans are good with billions dying if it means they can try to live on in their "normal" fashion.
When it really gets to their doorstep, the option to make changes will be fully, fully gone
I guess i'll die
-India, probably