I love it when OP adds their own clarification in the square brackets to de-clickbait a title
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2026
101 points (100.0% liked)
Climate
8517 readers
314 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Anything that doesn't kill you brings you closer to death in some way if it is hurtful.
Heatwaves push EVERYBODY closer to the edge and for many elderly and people with health issues the edge was already right there.
I don't care if a city can claim technically zero heat deaths in the immediate aftermath of a heatwave, people die indirectly from the pure body stress of it excaberating other pre-existing issues and the impact doesn't disappear the next day.
In lieu of trees and shade, I've been told (by a woman that was almost 100 years old) that during a really miserable heat wave, (she hated being too hot) get into a basement or anyplace that has a first level that is in - not on - the ground.
Unfortunately, that’s just not possible everywhere. For instance, where I live the water table is like 6 inches below the ground. Pretty much every house here has a crawlspace foundation. The few that do have basements pretty much all have mold issues and need sump pumps, etc.
Sounds like a good source for water cooling! Dig a small well and pump the water around you to cook your room.
Not sure how effective this really is, should get some amount of cooling and have been curious to try it sometime.
That's the issue with high wet bulb conditions: they are too hot and humid to allow for evaporative cooling to work.
to cook your room
I could think of better uses lol
This summer I may sleep in my smelly basement since I work nights. I'll get a cot so I don't have to be on dirt, but it's better than a room where the temperatures are over 30°C even on smelly wet dirt.
Careful, when I mention this I get downvotes and called a Doomer.
look just think positive thoughts!
humans have survived all previous challenges, we’ll be fine
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
/s
That's the spirit!
heatwaves have always wiped out people haven’t they?
This is talking about the weather conditions at which a person is guaranteed to die if they are outside for six hours in the shade (or at night).
Previously climate scientists said this would happen at a wet bulb temperature^1^ of 35 Celsius, theoretically enough to prevent a sweat-drenched human body from overheating. However, research has demonstrated the threshold is lower and doesn't perfectly follow a single wet bulb temperature. And the scientific article that the news article is about shows these conditions have already occurred several times, when it was previously thought this threshold had not been breached yet.
Of course people can find shelter in an air conditioned buildings, underground, or under a forest canopy. But billions of people do not have access to these options. At some point they can either die or migrate, and this research shows that point requires less climate change than previously predicted. Combined with climate change occurring at a faster rate than the median expectation, mass climate migration is coming a lot sooner than expected.
^1^: the temperature a thermometer indicates if the bulb is wet. If the air is dry, evaporation will cause this temperature to be lower than the air temperature, which is also the temperature a thermometer indicates if the bulb is dry.
Yeah, when they happen, and above a certain threshold.
The problem is that the "when" is becoming far more common and the baseline is rising ever closer to that "certain threshold."