[Lore]

It would have to be a mini series like "Life After People" to have any real effect. Even at that there is already too much thermal momentum in the system to stop the train anytime soon.

[onlooker]

It would have to be a mini series like "Life After People" to have any real effect. Even at that there is already too much thermal momentum in the system to stop the train anytime soon.

True the effects of runaway global warming seem poised to affect Earth for thousands of years. That is the greatest legacy we will leave as a species. How unfortunate.

[dohboi]

I think triggering a mass extinction event will be our even more long-lasting legacy.

This is the story, the 'narrative,' we must face for ourselves--we, one species, triggered one of the greatest mass extinction events since the evolution of complex life, perhaps/probably the greatest.

It will take millions, tens of millions... of years for the earth to regain the rich diversity of just a few decades ago, if it ever does.

[onlooker]

Your quite right D. Check out this article about how

Life After Death: 'Great Dying' Recovery Took 10 Million Years

http://www.livescience.com/20598-mass-e ... overy.html

[Ibon]

Something to consider.

We are causing severe imbalances but let's not give our species so much credit. Copernicus knocked us off of being the center of the universe. Darwin certainly helped by gently pointing out we were not made be a creator but evolved from apes. Some of you are still insisting that humans are the center and the givers and takers of biodiversity on the planet. Are these dire predictions that humans will cause a loss of biodiversity that will never ever again be recuperated just another anthro centric orientation of seeing the destiny of our planet revolving around us?

Do some of you fear the consequences coming not only how this affects your personal survival and those of your offspring but perhaps also because it will threaten the self importance you relegate to our species. For this reason the belief that when we go down we take the rest of the biodiversity down with us.

If consequences disproportionately affect humans and nature heals it kind of relegates our species to its proper place of insignificance. For some of you this is a hard pill to swallow.

Yes we are a keystone species but we do not hold the keys to the biodiversity on the planet.

[dohboi]

Someone, can't remember who, suggested that what we are effectively doing is giving the earth back to the microbes, which will likely be about the only life forms that survive us (not that we haven't decimated a good portion of them as well).

They were the exclusive life forms, after all, for over two billion years before complex life came along. They eventually would be the exclusive life forms before everything gets too hot from the sun expanding anyway. We are 'just' hurrying that process along by a few hundred million years, perhaps.

[ritter]

Yes we are a keystone species but we do not hold the keys to the biodiversity on the planet.

Not a keystone species. We most certainly are not the glues that holds the weave of the web together. We are far more akin to an invasive species, wreaking havoc where ever we take root. Or a metastasis, if you prefer.

I for one am sad to know just how many of the lifeforms I wonder at we take down with us. Humans will not be missed and life will go on without us. But we sure have soiled the nests of others we presently share this rock with.

[dohboi]

One analysis (again, can't remember whose just now--am I getting older, or...oh, well I forgot what I was gonna say... ) claimed that we are a keystone/top predator species that hasn't learned how to be one.

Top predators usually spend most of their time just hanging out confident in their position at the top of the food chain. It is species further down the chain that feel the need to work hard all the time securing a their precarious place in the food chain.

We achieved top predator status, but went on acting like non-top-predators, extracting as much as we possibly could from other species (and ultimately even from the lithosphere).

I found this approach kind of interesting, though I don't quite know what to do with it.

[onlooker]

I like ritter take. This is basically what Dohboi just stated somewhat differently. We have acted like an invasive species completely overwhelming and disrupting the environment and food chain.

[ritter]

All,

Keystone species refers to a certain species that acts like a glue to keep its ecology healthy and functioning--it is not necessarily an apex predator. The term was coined from Roman architecture where the keystone at the top of an arch keeps the entire thing from crumbling. We are the antithesis of a keystone species. For more brief reading:
http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/keystone-species-15786127

[dohboi]

"Keystone species ... is not necessarily an apex predator"

True, but apex predators are often keystone species.

[Ibon]

It's easy to just google these ecological terms and educate yourselves. I was going to write a post explaining the differences. We all probably recognize that since humans left their HG past and invented their own living arrangements we fell out of any specific role in the ecosystems we lived in. We actually created our own. Take a typical urban dweller today on any continent and the shelter they live in, the food they eat, the energy they consume, the water they drink is all constructed and distributed through conduits that are far removed from the streams and meadows and forests that held their tribal ancestors. It can be argued that humans have been and are, sometimes at the same moment, keystone species, top predators and invasive. In times of human overshoot when we are almost 8 billion strong and our accumulated biomass represents a tempting resource for a pathogen, we can add a forth term to who we are or have become; PREY. Ripe for the picking.

There is something relevant about having become prey. You live in Fear. You become honed to watch out for predators around any corner. You live life like a fearful mouse always looking skyward for raptors, around corners for serpents or weasels. Today we live in a world with many threats and we spend a lot of time writing about them here on this website. At the doorstep of consequences, almost 8 billion strong, and so dominant on the planet, we are increasingly looking at the world like fearful mice.

Kind of ironic isn't it?

[onlooker]

To me the most ironic of all things, is we have set up the circumstances and environment of being responsible for being our own worst enemies. We are both the predator and prey of each other. The ultimate irony is that by being so successful we have paved the way for our own demise from natural circumstances. We cannot defeat Nature.

[ritter]

It's easy to just google these ecological terms and educate yourselves. I was going to write a post explaining the differences.

Ibon: I know you know what a keystone species is. The hubris of referring to ourselves with that term turns my stomach!

[vox_mundi]

Workers feeling the heat as climate change slashes productivity

Climate change is exposing millions of workers to excessive heat, risking their health and income and threatening to erase more than $2.0 trillion in annual productivity by 2030, a UN report warned Thursday.

More than one billion workers in countries hard-hit by global warming are already grappling with increasing severe heat, according to the report: "Climate Change and Labour: Impacts of Heat in the Workplace."

"Already in the current situation, several percent of working hours can be lost in highly exposed regions," said the report, a collaboration between several UN agencies and international unions.

The global productivity loss is expected to top $2.0 trillion annually by 2030, as sweltering temperatures force outdoor workers and manual labourers to slow down, take longer breaks or even move to find work in a cooler climate.

"When workers are put under these hot-house conditions, their capacity to work is dramatically impacted," Philip Jennings, head of UNI Global Union, told AFP.

Working in temperatures over 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) is considered health hazardous.
Some labourers exposed to such conditions have no choice but to continue working, sometimes without access to drinking water or shade to cool off in.

"Those who work in the fields may ruin their health just by trying to put a meal on the table," Saleemul Huq, head of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, warned in a statement.

Workers face 'epidemic of heat-related injuries' due to climate change

[Tanada]

Rather than have several threads competing on the same topic I merged them together before adding this post.

It always strikes me that academics write information down, then it gets filtered through sensationalist media before the average person ever even hears of it.



Take a good look at the chart. If you live in the tropics you might be in trouble, however most of the members here do not. Pause a moment and consider how much things would have to change in Oregon or Minnesota or New York or Maine to make the dangerous portion of that chart a regular occurrence. Generally it is either humid, or it is hot. Where most of us live the two conditions do not generally coexist. The reason is actually science, the warmer an air mass becomes the more the molecules spread out and the lower the relative humidity becomes until it absorbs more water vapor from all the available sources.

You know this to be true, that is why dew and frost form when air is cooled, the molecules get closer together and 'squeeze' the water vapor out as droplets or crystals on cold objects. If their are not enough cold objects for all of the water vapor it forms airborne droplets we call fog.

Also take a really good look at that chart and ask yourself, does a healthy person working or playing outside really need to exercise caution anywhere in that yellow section of the chart? Those are routine summer conditions in most of the Temperate zones around both the northern and southern hemisphere. I don't recall ever hearing of large numbers of people having heat stroke or death at a heat index of 89 degrees.

Now look at the 'extreme caution' beige-orange block of the chart, ranging from 91-104 heat index. Extreme caution? I dunno about the guys who made this chart from their air conditioned ivory tower, but I have done physical labor outside over that entire spectrum of temperatures, with no ill effects. In that range you might occasionally hear about old man Smith who dropped dead while mowing his lawn, or Ms. Jones who collapsed while playing tennis on an asphalt court in the direct sun, but those incidents are very rare. It is only when you get into the 'danger' section of the chart that you have to start taking extra caution. You move slower, hydrate more frequently, and try to get into the shade as often as possible to avoid ill effects. Only a fool goes out and tries to do heavy labor for long periods in those conditions, because in general your body will tell you pretty quickly that its too hot for heavy labor. However walking around is not a death sentence, and for those who live in regions where these conditions become common walking to a different climate may be a necessity, if the conditions are semi-permanent.

I must point out however that something like 3 million people live in Phoenix, AZ. From mid May to the first week of October every year the daily high averages 100+ degrees. The record high for the city was set in June 1990 at 122 degrees. Despite many opinions to the contrary expressed on this thread, only a few people died. Why? Because it was an extreme weather event, not a regular new climate.

When all those unfortunate people died in France a few years ago it was because of a confluence of factors. Even then most of those who died were elderly. This is not to say we should just let the elderly die from heat stroke, it is to point out that young healthy people in general came through the heat wave with few substantial issues. Younger doctors and emergency workers managed to transport and treat thousands of those heat victims around them and saved many of their lives despite the weather conditions.

Will WBT be a factor in the future? Sure it will. Is everyone going to die because of it? Extremely unlikely. Maybe the Great American Grain Belt will have to move from Kansas to Alaska, but if that is the case we will find a huge farming boom in Alaska starting in the next couple of decades. There have been quite successful grain farms in Alaska even under today's cold climate, however they can not compete financially with the uber cheap Kansas grain crops where conditions today are nearly ideal for growing Wheat and Corn.

[vox_mundi]

Actually the report was more about dehydration and resulting kidney disease than high WBT

Mysterious kidney disease may be caused by chronic dehydration tied to global climate change

A mysterious kidney disease that has killed over 20,000 people in Central America, most of them sugar cane workers, may be caused by chronic, severe dehydration linked to global climate change, according to a new study by Richard J. Johnson, MD, of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

"This could be the first epidemic directly caused by global warming," said Johnson, professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and a world-renowned expert on the underlying causes of obesity, kidney disease, diabetes and hypertension. "Some districts of Nicaragua have been called the `land of widows' due to the high mortality rates occurring among the male workers from chronic kidney disease."

The epidemic was first described in 2002 and has been dubbed Mesoamerican Nephropathy. It's most prevalent among manual laborers on sugar cane plantations in the hotter, lower altitudes of Central America's Pacific coast. The disease has also been reported among farmworkers, miners, fishermen and construction and transportation workers in the region.

His research team studied sugar cane workers in Nicaragua and El Salvador. They found that the laborers routinely worked in conditions exceeding the recommended heat standards of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). And even though some of them drank up to one to two liters per hour, the researchers found they still suffered serious dehydration on a daily basis.

One of the major side-effects of this dehydration was hyperuricemia or excess uric acid levels in the blood. In one study, sugar cane workers in El Salvador had uric acid levels of 6.6 mg per deciliter in the morning which increased to 7.2 mg in the afternoon. And 21 of 23 people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) had hyperuricemia.

Dehydration also activates a pathway in the kidney which generates fructose that, when metabolized, produces uric acid. This may contribute to the kidney damage. Workers who rehydrate with drinks that contain high fructose corn syrup or sugar may be exacerbating the problem due to the high fructose content present in the drinks.

Johnson's team also found that these dehydrated workers had high concentrations of uric acid crystals in their urine. This `sandy urine' is associated with signs of dehydration, including light headedness, elevated heart rates and headache. The uric acid crystals are thought to trigger tubular damage and fibrosis in the kidneys.

Johnson said that this kind of CKD is now also being observed in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and Egypt.

Increasing water shortage in the Tropics isn't going to help the situation.

[jedrider]

It's easy to just google these ecological terms and educate yourselves. I was going to write a post explaining the differences.

Ibon: I know you know what a keystone species is. The hubris of referring to ourselves with that term turns my stomach!

Maybe, the 'Tombstone species' can better describe us.

[dohboi]

T, you are wrong to think that places like Minnesota would not be at risk from deadly combinations of heat and humidity:

One might assume that the highest dew points measured in the United States would be those observed during in areas along or near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico during the summer months. Although for the most part this is true the other region that occasionally seems to record extraordinary heat and humidity is the Upper Midwest.

I have not been able to discover just why the dew points in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin sometimes are higher than anywhere else in the United States during exceptional heat waves...

Highest Dew Point Measurements in the United States



Last summer (2010), Newton, Iowa recorded an 88° dew point on July 14th. Chicago, Illinois’s highest dew point was 83° at 8 a.m. on July 30, 1999 as was Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s with an 82° the same day.

But it was during the July heat wave of 1995 that the highest dew point of all was measured in the Upper Midwest: 90° at Appleton, Wisconsin at 5 p.m. on July 13th of that summer. The air temperature stood at 101° in Appleton at that time leading to a heat index reading of 148°, perhaps the highest such reading ever measured in the United States.

https://www.wunderground.com/blog/weath ... mperatures

"Is everyone going to die because of WBT?"

Nice attempt at a strawman. Since no one made that claim, and no one likely would make such a claim, it is pretty easy to knock it down. But it is also essentially irrelevant to the conversation.

The point, again--and it is merely stating a physical and physiological fact--is that:

A) Anyone spending more than a few hours in ambient conditions that are at or over 35 degrees C (~95 F) at 100% humidity (or the equivalent wbt) will die.

B) Those condition, not yet seen reliably recorded on the planet as of yet, will start to occur, and then become more and more common on more and more places.

Sure, the first place this is likely to happen is probably somewhere around the Persian Gulf or elsewhere in South Asia. But it will start to happen more and more often in more and more places. India, Eastern China, and Eastern US are places that will be eventually strongly impacted, some of the most heavily populated areas currently on the earth, though it will take a while for things to get that bad in those places:



This map shows the maximum wet-bulb temperatures reached in a climate model from a high carbon dioxide emissions future climate scenario with a global-mean temperature 12 degrees Celsius (21 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than 2007. The white land areas exceed the wet-bulb limit at which researchers calculated humans would experience a potentially lethal level of heat stress

http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research ... imits.html

"Only a fool goes out and tries to do heavy labor for long periods in those conditions"

Yes, those cane workers in El Salvador in the article that vox just cited certainly were very foolish--

they should have just told their overmasters that T had informed them that it would be silly to work in those conditions.

But I'm sure that no one will ever be forced to work in intolerable conditions anywhere in the world ever again, because overmasters are such sweet gentle creatures, always looking out for the best interests of the little guy!!

[vox_mundi]

Parts of India ban daytime cooking as hundreds die of heat

With sizzling temperatures claiming more than 300 lives this month in India, officials said Friday they were banning daytime cooking in some parts of the drought-stricken country in a bid to prevent accidental fires that have killed nearly 80 more people.

The eastern state of Bihar this week took the unprecedented step of forbidding any cooking between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., after accidental fires exacerbated by dry, hot and windy weather swept through shantytowns and thatched-roof houses in villages and killed 79 people. They included 10 children and five adults killed in a fire sparked during a Hindu prayer ceremony in Bihar's Aurangabad district last week.

"We call this the fire season in Bihar," said Vyas, a state disaster management official who goes by one name. "Strong, westerly winds stoke fires which spread easily and cause great damage."

Much of India is reeling under a weekslong heat wave and severe drought conditions that have decimated crops, killed livestock and left at least 330 million Indians without enough water for their daily needs.

Rivers, lakes and dams have dried up in parts of the western states of Maharashtra and Gujarat, and overall officials say that groundwater reservoirs are at just 22 percent capacity.

In some areas, the situation is so bad the government has sent tankers of water for emergency relief. Monsoon rains are still weeks away, expected to start only in June.

At least 300 people have died of heat-related illness this month, including 110 in the state of Orissa, 137 in Telangana and another 45 in Andhra Pradesh where temperatures since the start of April have been hovering around 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit).

That's about 4-5 degrees Celsius (8-10 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than normal for April, according to state meteorological official Y.K. Reddy. He predicted the situation would only get worse in May, traditionally the hottest month in India.

The southern state of Andhra Pradesh is running ads on TV and in newspapers urging people to stay indoors during the hottest hours. Construction and farm laborers are advised to seek shade when the sun is directly overhead.

Huge numbers of farmers, meanwhile, have migrated to nearby cities and towns in search of manual labor, often leaving elderly and young relatives behind in parched villages.

This is the second consecutive year southern India has suffered from a deadly heat wave, after some 2,500 people died in scorching temperatures last year.

Though heat waves are common during Indian summers, authorities have done little to ensure water security or prepare urban populations for the risks.