‘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 – 1667 points –
‘I’ve never seen heat this bad. It’s not normal’: Italy struggles as temperature tops 40C
theguardian.com
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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.

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.

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.