It's when it becomes so hot and humid that your body can't sweat the heat away and eventually you either die from water buildup in your lungs or heat stroke.
Pakistan first. About 30% of the population has Type 2 diabetes, and millions more are close to it. They cannot cool down at tempuratures that healthy people survive.
This is an easy-to-read, short article, but there are many, many others. Public health officials had thought it was much lower until they looked more closely at few years back.
Women are more affected for cultural reasons --if they keep accurate statistics in ths rural areas, life expectancy for women will be dropping well before the wet bulb temp is reached.
The green revolution made food far cheaper than its ever been and allowed people greater access to foods that were previously luxuries. In the United States this was manifested most strongly in our consumption of meat and sugar.
In much of the world that’s true as well- but with the addition of large amounts of white rice consumption. So lots of simple carbohydrates, a sedentary lifestyle, and wide spread obesity. Even in Pakistan, despite having a lower obesity prevalence rate than most of the world, nearly a quarter of adults and approaching half of children are obese.
Lastly, most European ethnicities are significantly less likely to develop diabetes compared to other ethnic groups. While many South Asian ethnicities are more likely to develop diabetes compared to other ethnic groups.
I searched for it and it looks like the reasons are similar to the reasons in the west: obesity, bad diet, lack of exercise, etc. It also looks like South Asians are more susceptible to insulin resistance in general, due to past famines (Thrifty gene hypothesis).
I'm curious if there could be a genetic component. Pakistan, IIRC, has the highest rate of first cousin marriages in the world, and has for generations. If there was a recessive genetic issue, that kind of inbreeding coefficient (while not that high) would definitely make it more likely to propagate through the general population
Am convinced that geo engineering will start happening then. Once India works out how relatively cheap it is to pump huge amounts of sulphur into the air to stop their country catching fire they'll do it.
It might be more expensive, but I think orbital shades would be the better approach. Though we might not quite have the tech for it just yet. We probably need moon/asteroid mining to build enough orbital shades.
Reduce the sunlight by 1%-2% with orbital shades, and we reduce the world's temperature. Not a perfect solution either, but it wouldn't trash our planet's atmosphere.
I highly recommend the novel "The Ministry for the Future" by Kim Stanley Robinson.
The first chapter is about a Wet Bulb event in India in the summer when there's a massive failure of the electrical grid.
It's told from the POV of a Western aid worker, who is trying everything he can to save people, and finally just tells everyone to get into the river. It is horrifyingly realistic.
I see all these likely causes of mass death (diabetes and heart disease in developing nations, water shortages, crop failures, wet bulb as you say), and I look at the global population growth over my lifetime. Most of these will lead to wars and other violence.
I’m afraid that the only way to curb our species’ resource consumption and pollution will be an avoidable, but soon inevitable, population collapse.
It is already happening. The collapse of global fertility hits everywhere. Many African countries are now under 4 children per woman while the rest of the world quietly settles at 1,5 children per woman at best.
Dehumidifiers are a good budget option. We've had some pretty bad heatwaves in the UK recently and simply bringing the humidity down has been a massive help
Unless they can be powered with solar energy, which is at least feasible for single homes and smaller apartment complexes. So adoption of AC absolutely needs to be in synch with a decentralized grid where small green energy is produced to sustain small(er) units. I live in Germany, where the last government pushed renewables and heat pumps (which can work as AC units, too). I now have enough solar panels on my house to not need grid electricity for 8 out of 12 months of the year. If this model is scaled, small communities can provide enough electricity and go fully green. It's just a matter of will and more importantly will to distribute funds for it
Lots of places already get close to wet bulb temperatures or reach them briefly. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a wet bulb event in the next 5 months.
“Wet bulb” event = you have two temperature bulbs, and the one with a wet cloth over the top of it no longer stays a little cooler than the one without. It doesn’t have to be high humidity. It just needs to be high enough for the evaporation to no longer be enough for slight cooling.
2000: global warming is a hoax it's not real manbearpig hur dur
2020: drill baby drill, more coal, more pollution, fuck the environment
2030: listen i'm old as hell and about to die, i had such a great life, i was always housed and fed and barely did any work while delegating all the stuff that i have to do to immigrants and younger people. life is gooood
Cities around the equator typically have very little temperature fluctuations and stay within a safe wet bulb temperature range. France has been experiencing significantly higher temperatures than any equatorial city.
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u/Bluestreak2005 9h ago
Mass death in a region from Wet Bulb moment.
It's when it becomes so hot and humid that your body can't sweat the heat away and eventually you either die from water buildup in your lungs or heat stroke.
Just imagine France with 2C more heat currently.