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  1. washingtonpost10/16/1921 min
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    washingtonpost
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    • sjwoo3 years ago

      I can actually say that I have felt this very heat -- I visited Doha almost ten years ago. No doubt it was slightly cooler then, but it still felt like I was walking in an oven. It is a strange place -- never have I felt more like a foreigner than in that city.

      The future: https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a22927/diy-air-conditioned-suit/

    • thorgalle
      Top reader this weekScoutScribe
      3 years ago

      Wow. I'm sweltering from the heat of this article.

      Qatar emits a lot of greenhouse gases. About 60 percent of the country’s electricity is used for cooling. By contrast, air conditioning accounts for barely 15 percent of U.S. electricity demand and less than 10 percent of China’s or India’s.

      While climate change inflicts suffering in the world’s poorest places from Somalia to Syria, from Guatemala to Bangladesh, in rich places such as the United States, Europe and Qatar global warming poses an engineering problem, not an existential one.

      Boom.

      Also:

      “With the coming global environmental collapse, to live completely indoors is like, the only way we’ll be able to survive."

      Yes sir, that was October 16 last year. Hopefully corona will fade out (or blend in) in the next few years. The same can't be said for climate change.

      Personnel conducting patrols or aircraft maintenance work for 20 minutes, then rest for 40 minutes and drink two bottles of water an hour.

      I guess this way of life is coming to most cities worldwide, for varying lengths of (summer) time, in the next 100 years. Let's flatten that climate curve as much as possible.

      No wonder this series won a Pulitzer. Need to read 'm all!

      1. Update (6/12/2020):

        Pro-tip: do open the article in a different tab too to see the full-res images, graphs & interactive visualization. There's also a ℉ <=> ℃ switch!

      • bill
        Top reader of all time
        3 years ago

        I'm sweltering from the heat of this article.

        Let's flatten that climate curve as much as possible.

        Yes and yes.

        Powerful article. Makes me feel the same way I felt driving across the desert (southwest United States) and hearing on the radio that they’re closing military bases across Arizona and New Mexico because they’re >100 degrees F for huge chunks of the year and they can’t keep people safe in conditions like that.

        In addition to “move indoors” I think it’s going to be “move north” (or south) but basically just get away from the equator and don’t settle down near flood/famine risks. And, of course, be near fresh, clean water.

        Damn - these next 100 years are gonna be bonkers.

        • thorgalle
          Top reader this weekScoutScribe
          3 years ago

          True... and an area's climatic properties will have an ever greater influence on its cost of living.

          One interesting dynamic there I read about recently in The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh : seaside properties are now for the rich. But soon they will be less desirable (floods, storms, erosion). Real estate agents are trying to hide this risk information, but that's not possible forever.

    • jeff3 years ago

      This is crazy! I get anxious when a refrigerator door is held open for longer than a few seconds. The outdoor cooling seems pretty wasteful but I also couldn't imagine living in such a climate. Being confined to the indoors for entire seasons sounds really miserable.

    • Pegeen
      Top reader this weekReading streakScoutScribe
      3 years ago

      Excellent article about Qatar, one of the hottest places on earth. The pictures are beautiful but the global warming statistics are frightening.