News

I'm 110% on board with global warming, but this graph is misleading.

The author needs to at least correct for population changes (heat deaths per X residents). Even better would be to account for changing demographics, like age and county. From this random stats website, it looks like there has been a dramatic increase in proportion of older residents since 1970. Old people are more likely to die, so more elders = more deaths.

If I wasn't about to head to bed, I might try to fix it, but.... sleep.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure there has been an increase in small plane crashes in AZ. The hot air is much thinner than most pilots are used to, so they tend to forget accounting for changes in thrust and climb rates. I'm pretty sure a couple happened in just the last few weeks.

Maybe we should burn more fossil fuels about it

Every time I see crazy heat data for Arizona and other places like it in the US, it makes me wonder. When the fuck will we see a reversion of population trends of people moving south? Arizona, Texas, etc. are only going to get worse. Everywhere is going to get worse, but there's a lot of rapidly growing areas that are on track to be non-viable for 1/3+ of the year within 10-20 years.

People should not be moving to Arizona, not with climate change as it is.

If only we had some kind of warning?!? If only there was something we could do about it?!?

Surely we can just pray for it to go away.

1. Build cities in the desert
2. Heat up climate
3. ??????
4. Oh god what have I done

Just thought I'd add this report from the AZ health department. This breaks down the factors MUCH better and comes to a similar, but not quite as extreme, conclusion. Only part is normalized for population, but it gives an idea of how to scale the numbers.

Wake me up when it's guillotine day.

We can thank the boomers for that

Climate change is just getting started and people should start suing cities and design firms for failing to include shade requirements in their standards and for making roads too wide to properly shade

Where natural shade can't be sustained artificial shade needs to be provided.

The single family house on a grass lawn is such a stupid idea in many places

Ironically the oil companies back in the 60’s, did an extensive research into what exactly would happen to the climate and ecology etc, if they kept drilling for and using fossil fuel etc. It’s so accurate that even todays models aren’t that good (I find that fact odd), but bottomline, they knew.. they knew, but kept on doing it anyway.

NGL... First glance at the chart I thought the left hand scale was temperature with a sudden spike to 250°.... no wonder people are dying when your iced tea boils in your glass as you try to drink it!

They're just going to let the homeless die in the streets, aren't they? 😑

You can always count on the right winged politicians and voters to prepare for disasters instead of trying to prevent them.

Is there a source that doesn't require me log into Twitter?

We desperately need regulation for people and workers in extreme temperatures. We'll be dealing with more and more of it as times goes on so the protections need to be in place.

Only another 100 years or so until maybe temperatures come back down.

Maybe.

I just want to say that graphs like this should be contrasted with the number of deaths from extreme cold. I know Arizona probably doesn't have the numbers of say, Alaska, but it's worthy of note to contrast the two.

I'd also point out that it is far easier for an individual to protect themselves against the rigors of cold than it is for heat; in the cold, with warm clothing, you can keep yourself warm, while the environment is very cold; fire is relatively easy to make, even if you have little more than sticks, and thus getting warm or keeping yourself warm is by and large easier to accomplish than staying cold.

When you're in an extremely hot environment, it's not like you can make yourself more naked than naked. You need some outside influence to keep you cool, like a swamp cooler, a misting sprayer, a cool body of water (like a river or lake), or some kind of man-made cooling device like an Air Conditioner, in a relatively sealed enclosure (which relies on consistent access to power to run it). most of these are either inaccessible to people in a city or built-up area; sure, there are fixtures, like fountains that contain water, usually not enough to keep them from heating up, and usually the water is recycled, so the heat stays with the water. all other water access is typically restricted to water lines, which usually someone is paying for, and nobody wants to pay to keep random people cool when they don't have to. All man-made (air conditioner) type cooling is generally access restricted to either workplaces, homes, or businesses/storefronts, where the expectation is that you'll be spending money there (which not everyone has).

I'm just saying, that the limiting factor to reducing death by extreme heat, is a far larger one, than death by extreme cold, where you should only need to hand out sweaters, gloves/mittens, jackets, blankets, etc, to keep people from dying from it. There's far-end extreme cold that almost nothing will save you from short of a heated structure, but generally, places that are inhabited by people who don't have access to safe heat and cooling (like a home), are more temperate than that extreme of cold.... not exactly too many homeless people walking around the arctic or Antarctic circles....

Neither is good, but both seem inevitable; regardless we should be doing all we can to help to ensure the survival of everyone, as a species. Whether that's saving them from the heat, the cold, from starvation or dehydration, we should be helping in any way we are able to.