European heatwave death toll soars above 1,500 as temperatures soar across continent

Discussion in 'Latest US & World News' started by Bowerbird, Jul 19, 2022.

  1. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    BB, this is going to sound mean but it's true.

    My grandmother did that also. I actually started to include it in my earlier response and deleted it because I reminded myself that some people ingested disinfectant because an idiot said the word during a press conference on COVID.

    I didn't want anybody coming back here claiming I killed their loved one because their dumbass got the motor on the fan wet. ;-)
     
  2. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    One note - unmitigated hatred.
     
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  3. Polydectes

    Polydectes Well-Known Member

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    I live in Texas and we call that a mild summer day here
     
  4. VotreAltesse

    VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I live in northern France. Nobody own an AC. And with the crisis more and more people won't be able to offer one.
     
  5. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    I hope you are able to stay cool and well in your part of the world.
     
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  6. VotreAltesse

    VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Thank you. I didn't had a lot of troubles, my elderly relatives are fine too. I hope you and your family are fine too.
     
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  7. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    Very glad to read that.

    Yes, we're doing okay. Thanks. I'm in the Midwest (USA) so we have A/C. My electric bill is doubled but it's worth it.

    I don't know if you've ever heard about the south out here, but there *regular* Summer temps are crazy. I have a friend that lives down there and I told her that I am never visiting again when their temperatures are on "cremate". I can't even conceptualize it being even hotter than that. What would that be "hell"? LOL
     
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  8. VotreAltesse

    VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm living in coastal area, so we tend to have soft winters and soft summers and enjoy fully the gulf stream. Globally, the two dominant climates in France is a very temperate one, mediterranean and a few places which are more continental. A large part of France is very temperate with soft summers and winters, mediterranean is have hot summers with hot winters, there is a few regions which are more continental with hard summers and hard winters (Auvergne, Alsace, Jura). People who live in germany or Poland tend to get a little bit harsher climate. It's not very surprizing that this territory attracted a lot of different kind of people (romans, germanic tribes, vikings), France is a little garden of eden, a lot of rivers and plains with a soft climate. The ideal place for farming.
     
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  9. Buri

    Buri Well-Known Member

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    just fan yourself with your phone, it’s fine. You don’t need AC.
     
  10. Same Issues

    Same Issues Well-Known Member

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    From what I read places like the UK are having high humidity with along with high temps? Is this true?

    Just curious being from southeast Texas in Houston. I don't mind a higher temp here than normal if the humidity goes down, something like high 90's here with a high humidity is brutal, your gonna break a sweat quick. Temps in the 100's with a lower humidity is not as bad to me personally.

    Sucks they have no AC there, if you are at risk, go somewhere that has it if possible. Some large retail places ect. have them. Local government should also provide cooling centers, they do down here anyways when it gets extreme.
     
  11. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    maybe you could not snip my posts and finish reading them and find out, learn something
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2022
  12. Pixie

    Pixie Well-Known Member

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    Muslims are part of the culture they live in.
    In the UK they play football, eat fish and chips, learn about Shakespeare and trigonometry, are often seen on TV or onstage. They play music, go to music festivals and shop for pretty underwear.
    Why should they have less problem with the heat?
     
  13. Pixie

    Pixie Well-Known Member

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    It is a pretty big issue when someone's compost heap catches fire from the heat and burns down half a dozen houses as happened yesterday in London.
    Not à daily occurrence...
     
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  14. Joe knows

    Joe knows Well-Known Member

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    I believe in global warming, but I don’t believe there is a darn thing we can do about it. The earth has been known to go through warming and cooling cycles. I’m sure we play a small roll but nothing will be done about it in a democratic world. People will not vote for themselves to go through economic pain with bills like the green new deal, nor will they support an uncertain energy grid that can collapse from too much charging.

    The only type of government that will be successful at this type of effort is a dictatorship.

    that said… I still don’t believe we will ever make a large enough effect to stop a natural cycle. So as for me… I will never vote for it as well
     
  15. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It was probably dry, because the heat. It's not an extremely rare phenomena for compost heaps to catch fire in America if they are big enough and are no longer moist. Plenty of desert areas in America have these temperatures, but then again people don't have big compost heaps there because there is usually not much organic matter to be able to compost.

    This site even warns about the danger
    Can Compost Catch Fire? How To Prevent Compost Fires – Backyard Sidekick

    I think it probably had more to do with it drying out than the hot temperatures outside, even though the hot temperatures probably are what led it to drying out.

    A difference between 80 to 100 degrees outside is not really significant when the temperature inside the compost has to get up to 400 to start a fire.
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2022
  16. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    That is very poetic. Are you a writer?
     
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  17. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    Wow. I have online friends everywhere and it's just awful. I'm fortunate in that I live in the Midwest (US) so almost everyone has heat and A/C. I have always been heat intolerant but it's become much worse since I had COVID in 2020. Fortunately, I don't have to be out and about all the time.

    I lived in a southern state for about 7 years and our subdivision had a 2 hour time range in which we could water our lawns. I would guess that's an issue now because the high temps will dry out everything making what happened in London a real possibility.

    I hope you and yours are safe and well where you are, Pixie.

    The stuffed animal is lost cause. He said the men that received settlement from the Catholic Church because they were molested by priests as boys deserved it because they got paid. The rest of his posting history is <on par with that>.
     
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  18. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    When threads complaining about deaths from heat come up I always like to point out a warming planet is saving lives. Of course as always, this is not my opinion, but the conclusions of large scale long term peer reviewed studies.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.do...res-kill-5-million-a-year-20-year-study-77875

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext


    Here is another huge study of all temperatures, not just extreme temps.

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0/fulltext


    So we see temperatures that are cooler than optimal for humans kills Seventeen times as many people as temperatures that are warmer than ideal.

    The CDC/NIH has studied the subject in the US and comes to this conclusion.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25073563/

    And.

    Isn’t real science amazing? Real science shows your narrative is patently false and diametrically opposed to empirical evidence. A warming planet will save MANY lives by decreasing the massive death loss from below optimal temperatures.

    Between 2000 and 2019 the warming trend has decreased temp related mortality 0.3% already!

    That’s just a FACT. And a fact virtually unknown in the demographic posting about deaths from global warming.

    To be clear, deaths from heat are serious business and the advice in this thread on remaining hydrated and using evaporative cooling techniques are spot on. I just think it’s important to keep this in perspective and remember cold and cool temps are still killing orders of magnitude more humans than excess heat and will do so for the foreseeable future. A warning planet is a blessing if human deaths are the actual concern here.
     
  19. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    remember what happened when it got cold there, freezing.... it's the weather that is not the norm that gets ya
     
  20. CKW

    CKW Well-Known Member

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    I remember reading about France's terrible 2003 heatwave. Hopefully things are better then that one.
     
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  21. CKW

    CKW Well-Known Member

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    For where I live....every 10 years we get an extreme something.....blizzard...or 20 days of 108-110.....all well remembered.
     
  22. Melb_muser

    Melb_muser Well-Known Member Donor

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    Bold: while the papers present facts I believe that's your conjecture. I'm not saying you're incorrect, however let's consider that (from your paper):

    "Risk increases slowly and linearly for cold temperatures below the minimum mortality temperature, although some locations (eg, London and Madrid) showed a higher increase for extreme cold than did the others. By contrast, risk generally escalated quickly and non-linearly at high temperatures."

    Plus global warming might result in other extreme weather conditions, including floods, fires, hurricanes, cold etc.

    Plus the papers seem to reference acute exposure. What about reduced life expectancy due to repeated exposure?

    Also, and I haven't read great detail (unwell in bed) but the papers seem to focus on raw data. Do they control for other factors, such as poverty?

    Finally, what about all the other negative effects that don't necessarily result in death but result in reduced life enjoyment, health, work challenges, etc?

    Nevertheless, your general points are worth integrating.
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2022
  23. Polydectes

    Polydectes Well-Known Member

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    Well yeah if course I was just engaging in friendly banter.

    Lighten there mood you know.
     
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  24. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    Good questions. I’m going to be brief here because of the hour but am willing to flesh it all out more later if there is interest. Risk from heatstroke is going to escalate quickly. Whereas risk from prolonged exposure to below ideal temp is going to take time to manifest. Different physiological causes of death from different temps and exposure times.


    There are certainly more recorded extreme conditions. There is much debate whether the increase is from climate change or more reporting resulting from technological advancements. It’s generally assumed disasters are increasing in frequency. However, deaths from such events have plummeted over the last 100 years. Of course the reason deaths have decreased is mostly based on the leveraging of fossil fuels in a twist of irony.

    Nobody dies of acute exposure to temps slightly below ideal. Most of these deaths would be explained by a thought experiment. If you had all your clothes removed and you had no energy source except food, would you prefer to be in an environment at 80°F, or 68°F? If I removed or restricted your food source, would you live longer at 68°F or at 80°F? That’s the simple answer.

    Acute exposure deaths are from extreme cold and extreme hot temps and made up only a small portion (around 11%) of deaths in these studies.



    Since the object of the studies is to determine mortality at the global and regional level, not the personal level, I’m not sure that is of main concern. To control for variations among countries and regions the methodology of the second study included these controls:


    Simple physics dictates that mortality from temperatures deviating from ideal will have vastly greater negative effects on poorer regions and individuals. Less expenditures on clothing and heating/cooling as well as caloric intake are huge factors.

    Well, when someone complained about how climate change made them “feel” in Florida the other day I had to remind them of this :


    I suppose that’s all a bit subjective. I hate being cold. I much prefer a warmer quality of life.

    My question would be why are we assuming warming only has negative effects on enjoyment, health and work? It seems like conditions that lead to life instead of death would also be positive in other ways.


    Thanks. A response that doesn’t dismiss my post as conspiracy theory is a nice change of pace!

    More food for thought. This is not novel information. It’s been documented for decades.

    https://web.stanford.edu/~moore/HealthBenefitsofWarmer.html

    Back in the 1990’s people looking at actual data predicted the drop in mortality I pointed out in the studies I presented.

    The predictions in the above link are pretty accurate.
     
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  25. VotreAltesse

    VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I write only for political discussions. I just like music with texts !

    It is as far as I know. I hope the government isn't just hiding things.
     

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