Heatwave in Banda: A day in the hottest place in India
Posted by RBZRBZRBZRBZ@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 25 comments
A story of how the poorest suffer under the worsening heat
littlepup26@reddit
"Nearby, an 80-year-old woman named Chunubadi sat beside a repaired table fan held together with string and improvisation. The fan worked, but only just. It blew air that was dry and relentlessly hot. "The sweat dries," she said, watching the blades turn, "but these gusts are hard for an old body to bear." Then came a darker reflection. "In my 80 years, I've never seen heat like this. Old people die in extreme cold or extreme heat. I don't know whether I'll be able to endure this one."
Horrifying but important read, thanks OP.
cindylooboo@reddit
We had a terrible heat wave in the Vancouver area where temps were close to 50°. 619 died, 415 were over 70, almost all of them had preexisting health conditions. This was in CANADA. I cannot imagine what disenfranchised impoverished people are dealing with right now. :( horrible.
Stu161@reddit
And what did our Premier say about the worst weather disaster in Canadian history?
"Fatalities are part of life"
adamsoutofideas@reddit
No one can imagine it because it has never happened before. That's what climate change means; you take one climate and then throw a bunch of insulation in the atmosphere so heat gathers and the more heat that gathers, the more insulation is added, so the worse it gets the faster it gets worse.
There has never been and never will be an enemy so vicious, cruel, unrelenting, and fierce as a climate we have no adaptation to survive in, but that's not going to stop us from burning even more oil.
The real scary thing about this quote is that it's one person talking about how this is the hottest it's ever been. That's an individual noticing planetary change.
If a bacterium leans over to another and says "you notice it's hotter than usual?", the animal on the back of which these bacteria live is already dying, falling to the ground, or maybe even dead and decomposing.
People should not be able to perceive planetary change since, for evolution to work, it has to be small and incremental enough for many generations of random mutation to find a phenotype that works. If the change is happening so fast you're noticing it, your species is on the extinction list.
adamsoutofideas@reddit
Is it important? We're 50 years into "raising awareness" and haven't crossed the starting line of actually dealing with the problem.
The "importance" of information is zero if it doesn't change how you behave.
Is this story going to make you burn less oil today? Where do we place the bet?
Raclettegring@reddit
Then you have the typical anti climate change that just say "it's always been like this. Hot in the summer and cold in the winter!!".
The_Nude_Mocracy@reddit
The generative text the BBC used to write that article is only worsening the climate effects they're reporting on
Lanky_Path1601@reddit
"Poor people don't have the luxury of worrying about the heat."
EastTyne1191@reddit
In 2021 it was 115⁰ on my back porch due to the heat dome over the PNW. We reached a temperature above what scientists thought possible in this area. Walking into it felt like an oven, the heat sucks the moisture from your body. It physically hurts, beyond the usual discomfort from high temperatures. I get cranky in heat, this was panic-inducing, as though you'd simply melt on the spot. Retreating quickly into the AC-cooled rooms offers the only respite, and even then it's barely keeping up. Opening the door has to be limited because a moment drives the air temperature up. It's not the usual "I'm not paying to cool the outside," it's more like "you cannot go out there, it's 115⁰!"
Animals get overheated and there are fences between them and the water. You put out bowls of water for larger animals, and dishes of water with pebbles in it for the smaller ones.
It's quiet because the animals aren't making much noise.
My heart goes out to the poor people enduring this relentless heat. The fact that we let it get to this is unconscionable, I cannot imagine how anyone could disagree that climate change/destabilization exists when every year is hotter than the last.
ajax6677@reddit
We lived near Bellingham during that heat dome. We drove up to Mt Baker to escape the heat on one of the worst days and it was still almost 90 up there.
kreiggers@reddit
Came over Snoqualmie pass during that. Was 112F (@ 3000ft) at the pass and 108F at home (elevation 300ft)
RoyalZeal@reddit
I've been in the PNW for a couple decades and that heat dome was the scariest thing I've experienced up here.
adamsoutofideas@reddit
Scariest so far!
Unless you've got terminal cancer, you're one of the lucky members of every species to experience death by planetary change, which only happens to one group of any species because they stop existing after that.
Collecting dinosaur bones has messed up our understanding of extinction. Extinction is the end of a species, forever, and the erasure of its memories.
The ruins we will leave behind will be the same castles that were here when we started making a life out of changing the atmosphere. Everything new is built too cheaply to stand up to novel weather.
DroneOfIntrusivness@reddit
Also experienced that PNW heatwave, it was indeed panic inducing to say the least.
adamsoutofideas@reddit
Is it a heatwave or is this just what the beginning of runaway heat looks like? A house fire feels exactly like a heatwave until it's clearly something else.
And for people who would call me a doomer, how is being too afraid to make sacrifices or address the reality of an uninhabitable planet a position people pride themselves on. Denial doesn't take courage.
filthyheartbadger@reddit
I went through that event too. I had to keep my chickens alive with a fan blowing through a water mist from a hose into the coop’s run. Every time I crept outside from my air conditioned room to check on them, my body temp would be over 99 degrees F after just 10 minutes. Now I have a house with a cool basement to hide us all in. The thought of another heat dome is pretty scary.
cindylooboo@reddit
I remember driving in that heat coming home from camping. Once we were in the city I thought to myself "it's really not safe to be operating a car right now" when it's that hot your brain just doesn't work right.
It was absolutely smothering.
Maxele@reddit
I will not care for 2nd most polluted country on earth, they are a major contributor YoY in increasing global warming. source
Userdataunavailable@reddit
Have a speck of empathy or humanity please!
TannhauserGate1982@reddit
All i can think of is Ministry for the Future :/
PomegranateEvery1412@reddit
There will be a mass epidemic of kidney failure in that region in a few years if there isn't a wet bulb event first.
NiceSupermarket7724@reddit
Sadly due to modern dietary availability kidney issues/ diabetes are already chronic in India
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The following submission statement was provided by /u/RBZRBZRBZRBZ:
Related to collapse by describing the worsening heat waves and their catastrophic effects on the coping capacity of even the most hardened people.
As one resident tells "It feels as if mornings and nights no longer exist"
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RBZRBZRBZRBZ@reddit (OP)
Related to collapse by describing the worsening heat waves and their catastrophic effects on the coping capacity of even the most hardened people.
As one resident tells "It feels as if mornings and nights no longer exist"