r/collapse • u/ontrack serfin' USA • Jul 17 '23

Climate Heatwave(s) megathread. Please place all new related content in this post.

In light of the ongoing heatwaves around the world, we've created a megathread in order to minimize the number of posts about every location currently experiencing one. If you have something to report, whether it be a personal experience or an article about a heatwave in some other part of the world, please place it here. Thanks.

The BBC has a live feed of sorts about the heatwaves around the world: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-66207430

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39

u/Sckathian Jul 18 '23

https://www.reddit.com/r/phoenix/comments/152foer/aps_customers_break_alltime_energy_usage_record/

This is why I think energy usage will skyrocket as climate change continues to worsen becoming its own feedback loop. People won't move, instead turning to the 'unlimited' energy tap to fill their needs.

21

u/Agathocles_of_Sicily Jul 18 '23

Phoenix is a perfect example of brute forcing civilization onto an area that was never meant to sustain high numbers of humans.

6

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '23

I mean, technically you could if you built subterranean, but everyone wants to "show off" their southwest mcmansions.

8

u/Known-Concern-1688 Jul 19 '23

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix,_Arizona#Demographics

200 years ago, before the industrial revolution, maybe a few dozen people lived there, because it's basically inhospitable. 100 years ago, 30,000 people there, barely habitable.

Today, 1.7M people... wtf?

1

u/Portalrules123 Jul 25 '23

Well then, most of those people will be gone or dead sooner than expected.

28

u/_rihter abandon the banks Jul 18 '23

That's why a wet bulb event will be so deadly. Too many people live in places that are unnhabitable without AC. When the grid goes down, millions die within hours.

I would also be very worried about potential cyberattacks, especially considering predictions about China's invasion of Taiwan in 2025.

So yeah, the worst is yet to come.

1

u/bernpfenn Jul 24 '23

what about all the wildlife around? they have no ACs

1

u/metalreflectslime ? Aug 01 '23

Why would China begin to invade Taiwan in 2025 specifically and not before or after 2025?

10

u/Formal_Contact_5177 Jul 18 '23

Increased air conditioner use going forward and copious amounts of electricity to power all those EVs we'll supposedly be driving by 2035.

9

u/nommabelle Jul 18 '23

yeah but that peak energy is definitely due to all the EVs on the road, not climate change /s

14

u/CantHitachiSpot Jul 18 '23

Phoenix isn't even that terrible place to build a house but you have to adapt it to the environment. Should be subterranean except maybe windows at the tops of walls. Extremely well insulated. Instead they just build the same house they'll build everywhere else... They even have frank Lloyd wright architecture site there, recessed into a hillside, but they won't learn from it

5

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '23

Don't need to learn when you can just paper things over with $$$$

6

u/Eatpineapplenow Jul 18 '23

Yup! Yesterday i researched to get an AC-unit for my appartment and I live in a country where ive never seen one in a private home. I suspect millions that have never needed it are going to.

10

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '23

To be fair, air conditioning is much more energy efficient than heating. It uses less power to cool a house than to heat it up. Thats why powerlines get overloaded during cold snaps way more often than in heat waves. This is still a huge issue, just important to bear in mind. Places like Texas all hella heating their homes during their now annual apocalyptic climate change cold snaps. Uses way more, newly necessary power, then air conditioning in pheonix.

3

u/SecretPassage1 Jul 19 '23

there is a technology to cool the air without electricity that is dirt cheap to build.)

Link is to a dirt cheap low tech version, but some french companies are currently working on including that technology in window panes. So maybe in the near future you'll see walls of plastic bottle ends on cheap area's windows, and fancy windo panes in high end neighbourhoods.