Cain't Live There No Mo'

Sure, people adjust to increases and decreases in overall average climate changes; some were born and live in regions where others could never survive. Ask people born in the American South who migrated to Alaska for job opportunities how they do it, and they’re likely to respond somewhere between “you just get used to it” to “I have a new wardrobe.” Hordes of Canadians and New Englanders retire to Florida, eschewing snow and ice forever. But even with that proclivity of human beings to adapt to a fairly wide range of temperature and humidity variables, there are limits.

Even in regions where high temperatures are totally abnormal, where air conditioning, for example, has never been needed, the “new normal” suggests otherwise. Temperature extremes are showing up in major cities (like Seattle and London) at unprecedented levels, and even “hot” cities are hitting intolerable higher temperatures. Fortunately, most of those “hot” regions have long since found architectural or technological (normally air conditioning) coping solutions, but even those regions may well hit intolerable limits. Further, many of those regions are also facing severe water shortages, which is only getting worse. Additionally, the spread of air conditioning where it has never been needed before adds pressure on our power grid and electrical energy generating capacity just when power conservation is most needed.

It's not normal “summer heat” anymore or part of a self-correcting traditional climate cycle. These temperatures are only going in one direction: up. Even the winter super-cold polar vortex is actually driven by rising temperatures. As polar regions warm, the air expands and pushes that cold northern air (and the Gulf Stream) into areas not used to those “Canadian winters” now pushed down into the United States. Warming actually causes the movement of what is viewed in the southern reaches as “bitterly cold.”

All this is further complicated by escalating regional and perhaps global conflicts that should scare us all. As is particularly true in Europe and Asia, as temperatures rise and agricultural land desertifies (rendering the once productive land incapable of growing crops), the indigenous populations are forced to migrate… running into discriminatory walls, cultural rejection and dangerous journeys to countries where they are simply not welcome. More conflict is the result.

This loss of habitable land is further exacerbated by rising coastal waters, claiming land mass at an accelerating rate. Writing for the October 27th Los Angeles Times (and AP), Daniel Vecellio, takes a realistic look at those “tolerable temperature/humidity levels” hitting human limits: “The 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome, the Central Plains’ summer from hell the following year and this year’s Southwest sizzler are the most familiar recent examples in this country. But extreme heat has touched every continent over the last few years: Temperatures have regularly exceeded 122 degrees (50 Celsius) across the Asian subcontinent, and London’s thermometers reached 104 (40 C) for the first time last year, much earlier than climate models predicted.

“But will such extended periods of heat and humidity come to regularly test the limits of human tolerance in places where much of the world’s population lives? It could happen sooner than we think… We can study this question using the wet-bulb temperature, which combines the influence of heat and humidity on the human body. It denotes the temperature to which a parcel of air would cool by evaporating water into the environment, analogous to the cooling effect of sweat evaporating from skin. Scientists previously theorized that a wet-bulb temperature of 95 degrees — equivalent to an air temperature of 95 at 100% relative humidity — was the highest at which humans could cool themselves without the aid of fans or air conditioning. But lab testing of young, healthy, non-heat-acclimated people at Pennsylvania State University indicated that the wet-bulb limit was closer to 88.

“Using this lower threshold based on actual experimental data, I and other scientists at Penn State and Purdue University examined when and where these conditions would appear in future climates using the latest models… Unfortunately, the hot spots for exceeding this wet-bulb temperature threshold include some of the most populous parts of the world: the Indus River Valley in India and Pakistan, eastern Asia, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. These regions comprise many low- to middle-income countries with vulnerable populations that will bear the brunt of climate change even though they contributed relatively little to its causes.

“If global warming, currently at 1.2 degrees C (2.2 F) above the preindustrial baseline, is kept to 1.5 C (2.7 F), the extent and duration of temperatures exceeding the threshold can be limited. At 3 C (5.4 F) of warming, however, the duration of exposure in the world’s hot spots begins to increase exponentially, and physiologically intolerable conditions also begin to appear in the Americas… Breaking the wet-bulb temperature threshold once, it’s worth noting, does not inherently make a place ‘too hot for humans.’ Chicago, for example, would experience an average of one hour a year above the threshold at 2 degrees of warming, but one has to be exposed to these conditions for six continuous hours without taking precautions to reach dangerous core temperatures.

“On the other hand, at the same 2 degrees of warming, the city of Hudaydah, Yemen, with a population of about 700,000, will experience an average of 340 hours a year of physiologically intolerable heat and humidity, putting the entire population at increased risk of dying. Divided into six-hour increments, that’s equivalent to 56 days a year of these extreme conditions… Other populous global hot spots at 2 degrees of warming would include Aden, Yemen, with about 34 days a year of such conditions; Dammam and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with 37 and eight days, respectively; Bandar Abbas and Ahvaz, Iran, with 29 and three; Lahore, Pakistan, with 24; Dubai, with 20; and Delhi and Kolkata, India, with six and five.

“Even in our current climate, extreme heat is already associated with dire health consequences. A Midwestern heat wave killed 700 people in Chicago in 1995. More than 70,000 died in Europe in the summer of 2003, and in 2010, 55,000 perished due to heat in Russia. More recently, an estimated 1,400 died across Oregon, Washington and British Columbia during the 2021 heat dome, and about 60,000 lost their lives due to extreme heat across Western Europe last year.

“Thousands more have probably lost their lives in the heat waves that have afflicted the Global South, where the lack of public health capacity and reporting obscures the toll. Vulnerable populations die not only of heatstroke but also of complications related to cardiovascular, respiratory and renal illnesses… The results of our study suggest that we need to prepare for, adapt to and mitigate extreme heat right now.” And if you think that rising temperatures reflected in the picture above are bad, try looking at the great deserts of Africa, Asia and Latin America where tens of millions of people still live… for now. You ain’t seen nuffin’ yet!

I’m Peter Dekom, and too many Americans have resorted to conspiracy theories or beliefs where God won’t let this happen, even as the evidence is mounting daily, irrefutably proves that nothing is stopping global warming… yet (if ever).