‘I’ve never seen heat this bad. It’s not normal’: Italy struggles as temperature tops 40C 118f

nslatz@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 1665 points –
‘I’ve never seen heat this bad. It’s not normal’: Italy struggles as temperature tops 40C
theguardian.com
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Let's be honest, this will end up with only the ultra-rich surviving in the last few strips of livable surface of the planet - and them elated to have finally "culled the undeserving" as they have been hoping for for millennia.

Look at previous violent revolutions and see who died and who lived. I wouldn't bet on the ultra-rich, there are simple more of the rest but a new elite will rule, just like the old one.

There is one massive difference between former violent revolutions and the current ones - the ultra-rich of last century still had to rely on appeasing the military to do their bidding, but the ultra-rich of today now have access to automated weapons of mass destruction at the reach of their fingertips. If they feel like it, they can nuke the planet as a last-resort measure, while they're sipping their champagne in a self-sustainable complex in the middle of nowhere.

they’re sipping their champagne in a self-sustainable complex in the middle of nowhere

well yeah, if a self-sustainable complex was even remotely achievable.

As if they can produce champagne and other stuff out of nowhere. They may have a nuclear fallout bunker somewhere hidden in a desert but they can only rely on existing food / materials they can accumulate now. Most likely cans of food. Their champagne bottle will run dry unless they’re hiding in a massive Amazon underground warehouse that no one can access it. After all we have seen the riots in Paris, riots in Hongkong, if the law enforcement is not strong enough, people will automatically go riot mode, and if there is really a large conflict, there will be no one protecting the wealthy ones property and everyone is going for themselves

access to automated weapons of mass destruction at the reach of their fingertips

They don't. WMDs are far from automated, they require multiple human steps to get deployed, and each one of those can say "no" at any time (then possibly get court martialed, but the WMD stays undeployed).

What's more threatening, is having those ultra-rich promise everyone in the chain of command (and their families) a place at their self-sustainable complex.

Then the ultra rich will perish because they don't know how to survive cause they don't have the "plebs" to do any of the underling work.

"What do I do when my motor makes this sound?!"

That's why the concept of artificial intelligence is so appealing to them - having a compilation of all human knowledge, without actually having to deal with humans claiming "nonsense" like human rights and a livable wage.

that's funny, because if they rely on AI to serve them, they will the first ones to be screwed. the most replaceable human class in the History is not plebs, but tyrants. they are the least prepared, the least talented, the least creative, the least reliable, the least resourceful, and finally, the least willing to contribute something to any compilation. so let them have fun while they can.

Then "what to do, when the motor makes this sound" becomes "what to do when the LLM tells me to eat my children and water the plants with gettorade because it got electrolytes"

You do whatever the LLM tells you, electrolytes is what plants crave...

Nah, the rich will be eaten. Since their power completely relies on society. Taliban in the Mountains of Afghanistan will be fine and will be fighting off a alien occupation in 1000 years.

The fucking irony and probable truth if that is hilarious and frustrating

If you look at the Bronze Age collapse, its the nomadic mountain people that survive.

Funny you say that considering anyone earning more than 40k USD yearly is part of the 2.6 percentile of the richest population GLOBALLY.

Seeing as 90% of us in south America earn even less than half of that, I'd suggest y'all prepare to be eaten by the starving poor masses of the global south

Absolutely, my point was more that the crazy mountain guys will survive best.

it's a snake eating its tail, there'll always be someone at the bottom of the list who needs to be 'culled'.

Nah, history is your best teacher here. They will try that, get murdered, and be replaced by a crude junta while the rest of us starve

It can end in many ways. Some of them more terrifying that your version, others not.

Not quite. Once global economies collapse, being wealthy won't mean jack shit.

You'll likely have the best chance of survival if you know survival skills such as hunting, foraging, and how to build a shelter.

Sort of like how being rich didn't matter when the Roman empire collapsed?

Oh wait we were left with kings and peasants, and far worse wealth inequality than there was before, and there was almost a thousand years of that before humanity started making progress again. Those were called the Dark Ages.

Anyone trying to say the rich won't survive is completely ignorant of history.

Well, it might not be the same rich, but someone will be rich and, by definition, will have the means to live. Your right, but its kind of an always true statement. The wealthy ppl of Rome certainly did not fair well in the collapse of Rome and power moved to new places in that time.

Not If it's unlivably hot outside. Those skill mean jack if nothing can stand the heat.

That's why people will migrate to places where it was once too cold but now it's habitable.

Ecosystems there won't necessarily fare all too well. Trees are drying up because they aren't used to that dryness/heat. New trees will take time to grow and they don't necessarily support the same species.

The mix of species you used to have that lived in a balanced way is being disturbed by various invasive species.

I'm not saying those ecosystems will necessarily collapse, but there is a nonzero risk that they might.

I'm not sure what the future may bring.

I predict a lot of uninhabitable zones will become habitable while habitable zones will become uninhabitable.

Perhaps the biggest barrier to survival will be the ability to migrate to these new habitable zones.

What uninhabitable zones are you looking at?

Tundras, such as in Canada, Russia, and Norway.

I suppose that's true- had kinda forgotten those regions existed honestly.

Tundras aren't going to be all that liveable just because the temperature is a bit nicer. They'll still get very dark in the winter. Like 24-hour darkness, in some of it. Some people thrive, some people cope, some people go batshit crazy when daylight hours drop below about 4 hours a day.

That's actually the easy part. Most tundra is sitting on top of permafrost. I worked on low latitude tundra for one summer and if my experience there is representative, melting permafrost is going to turn a lot of tundra into swampland for a long time.

Even if I'm wrong about the tundra turning into swampland, there isn't really all that much room. Good luck cramming a few billion people above 55 or 60 degrees latitude.

The tree line is moving pole-wards thanks to global warming; the gain is less than what's lost by the desert line moving pole-wards, but it's something.

Good luck cramming a few billion people above 55 or 60 degrees latitude

Realistically, you need less than 1m² of terrain per person if you stack them in high enough buildings. Look at how China is doing it.

I'm glad I'm old enough to not have to consider living at the population density you suggest. I find the population density of Saskatchewan to be quite enough. I lived in a small city (Saskatoon) for 40 years and the last 10 were flat out miserable. The first 30 were tolerable only because we escaped to nature every weekend.

I'd imagine places like Svalbard. Technically it's inhabitable now, and has been for decades but it's the most Northern year round sustained population on the globe.

Further North is Arctic tundra and there isn't a sustained population. Maybe he's referring to areas like that.

Though I will say that back in 2019 I saw an article about how every winter a bunch of Reindeer in Svalbard die due to climate change. As the spring rolls in and snow melts, Reindeer corpses are left behind in the fields 🥺.

The wildfires that will consume the Siberian wilderness when it thaws will likely change opinions on living there

The entire world is heating. The artic/antarctic doesn't have the landmass to sustain population. Everywhere else is already either habitable now but won't be soon or already too hot to be habitable.

Everywhere else is already either habitable now but won’t be soon or already too hot to be habitable.

That's not true. Look at the tundras of Canada and Russia for examples to the contrary.

Any billionaire would be smart to build a massive self-sufficient compound (complete with temperature-regulated indoor farms, solar panels/wind turbines, huge stockpiles of supplies, firearms and a loyal crew of mercenaries or some armed drones to defend from intruders), because I really do think that we are gonna have to adopt the prepper mentality within the next few decades.

We mocked people for prepping for nuclear war, zombie apocalypses and raptures, but soon we are going to see the climate well and truly turn against us.

You'll likely have the best chance of survival if you know survival skills

Funny you say it like that... I know some self-un-survival skills, so that should also work out fine.

Climate collapse will make it more important to be able to move food around the world. The effect will be to strengthen hierarchies capable of managing global-scale food enterprises. The result will be a hyper-wealthy class that transports food, sustains local farmers via trade, and suppresses them to keep power. Farming will be what everyone does, and it will be essential to keep them doing it as yields will plummet.

Why is every comment on here: fuck the rich

Because they're causing this shit for decades now, solely because of their greed. If most of them suddenly have a change of heart and decide to put their power to help the world then opinions about them will improve, until then it's pretty justifiable to want to lynch those responsible one by one like the unhinged murderers they are.

I’ve been campaigning about climate change since I learned about it, all told over thirty years, and those bastards have been gutting the planet the whole time. I’m wholly in favour of the any means necessary approach

Wealth is power.

With great power comes great responsibility.

With great wealth comes great responsibility.

Did the wealthiest take responsibility? No, they used their wealth and power to sell off the future of the entire planet for a tiny bit of personal instant gratification.