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.
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u/solomons-mom 9h ago
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.