Wet Bulb Temperature (critical). Understanding and monitoring for this can save you and your family.

[@SeekingBeautifulDesign]

There might be 4 addendums on the topic of "Interpreting life threatening heat conditions for the lay person" 1. Swamp coolers Many people especially in the south use evaporative coolers (basically machines that sweat) to cool more cheaply than straight up vapor compression (standard) air conditioners. But like humans when wet bulb temperatures hit lethality, swamp coolers don't do much. However people may just assume that air conditioners cool and not pay attention to the mechanism. A false sense of security...people may die after they realize that the swamp cooler isn't working and they don't have a plan to cool in another way. 2. Dehumidifiers Some commented that they'd run a dehumidifier to help with wet bulb lethality conditions. Portable dehumidifiers do reduce humidity, but pump that heat straight back into the air + the heat created by the dehumifidier mechanics. I'm guessing that 40C 95% humidity isn't any safer than 35C 100% humidity. I've also seen that a proportion of KZbin commenters on other channels don't understand the mechanics of our consumer thermodynamic machines. Some might try and exhaust the humidifier outside. That's the same as pulling hot, humid air from outside inside while slightly increasing interior temperature (humidifier itself giving off heat). Although you do get some distilled water, unless you have a RoHS certified dehumidifier (certifies no heavy metals in manufacturing. I've never found one in N. America) and a ceramic filter or similar, it's not the best idea to drink the condensate. If you're handy and know basic dehumidifier mechanics, you could hack your dehumidifer to water cool the heat rejection. Or reject the heat outside, but then it's an AC unit, and you might as well use that. 3. Ghetto geothermal/ground source cooling I didn't see this mentioned. Well water effectively comes from below 21ft/7m below the earth's surface. At that point the temperature is the yearly surface average. Toronto might have 55F/13C temperature well water. City water will be coming through the earth and be a bit warmer. Either way, a shower or bath in such water will keep your body temperature in a safe zone. But you still need power to pump for a well, and the city needs power to provide water pressure (unless you have a nearby water tower). 4. Heat stroke symptoms Might be worth mentioning these while on the topic.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

This is a fantastic post and is 100% accurate, all of it. I'm going to pin this for exposure. Also, the real danger comes with power outages during heat waves. This isn't also a random isolated event, because they have inter-causality. Heat waves make people turn everything on, and the power grid gets stressed to the max, and is the most likely to fail at this time. The dehumidifier won't work without power. Backup generators are super important, along with backup gas. The sunken earth cooling is a great comment and I should have mentioned it. Building a cold room storage area is a really good idea, and can pay off big time in a heat wave event.

[@doinacampean9132]

You could also jump in your car and crank the AC to the max. Pray that the gas station has electricity.

[@PaleGhost69]

I got caught in one of these in '21. I didn't even know it was happening. It was just a hot day but i didn't think anything of it because "i wasn't hot enough to sweat" even after planting 2 trees and pulling weeds for an injured gardener. MAJOR RED FLAG! I became so dizzy on the way home and had to stop to puke water twice. I was very close to passing out.

[@usnyder1]

Thank you very much for this discussion. It's the most vulnerable in our society who will suffer first, whether or not they believe in climate change. They are the group who are at greatest risk of facing food insecurity/proper shelter and many/most live in dense urban areas or the least desirable rural areas. So, they are more likely not to have access to air conditioners, generators, forests, etc; and to rely on highly processed food ---not only because in many cases there aren't conveniently located grocery stores, but food prices as we all know are skyrocketing. [Aside: Even the relatively inexpensive Florida orange will likely no longer be such or not this coming year. Florida will not have many oranges for sale this coming year due to crop failure ("worst citrus failure since the Great Depression").] The more vulnerable are also the ones who are more likely having to work outside as labourers or drivers (whether by truck, dangerous e-bikes (re- recent battery fires), cars etc). Urban community gardens are crucial, but there aren't so many of them--or not nearly enough. If the people who can (in all senses) grow vegetables and food forests and guerrilla garden and share, that would be lovely, but as we all know it has to be a massive shift in collective responsibility to the environment and each other for serious change. I wish I could see more evidence of movement on a meaningful scale, but I don't really; maybe it's just the overwhelmingly depressing violence going on all over the world on so many levels and scales and massive misappropriation of monies. That said, your work and the community following you and trying to do something gives me some small sense of something somewhat positive. Not hope at this point. Don't know what I'd call it. Individual, small collective/local action of some sort is a positive something though. Anyway, I (try to!) grow food and native species, love bullfrogs and foster the wildlife, etc.; On hope, I hope I will be in a position someday to share with my community. I so appreciate all your work on this channel--I've learned much and put it to use, and I also appreciate reading and learning from all the comments of your followers. Thank you and all.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

What a kind comment. We certainly have a wonderful community here 😀 I'm very proud of the kind of people who show up here. It tells me I'm in the right path.

[@debbiehenri345]

I'm not sure that those of us in heatwave zones will have enough produce to share with others. I've just been counting the cost of the recent UK heatwave. The fruit yield is very much reduced compared to what I'd expected. It was very hard work trying to keep plants watered in that heat and I have lost quite a few despite my efforts. The 'June drop' was absolutely savage this year. For example: 5 apples between 20 trees. And it's not just me either. My 2 neighbours have nothing at all to show on their usually very productive apple trees. I'm now making more annual vegetable sowings to counter the loss of fruit yield. I'm hoping it's not too late to raise more beans in time, and to get more peas on the go (as the dozen pea plants I sowed in Spring are doing well).

[@shannonspage9360]

So far where I live I have noticed an increase in vegetation this year, perhaps a side effect of all the smoke that was dimming the sun last year from the Canadian wild fires. We had several days of orange sky and high particulates in the air.

[@debbiehenri345]

Thank you for this. I have no AC units (UK, we never needed them before), but do have 3 dehumidifiers. However, the old generator has broken down (age), so will have to discuss getting another in case we do have a breakdown in mains electricity. I know full well that I 'will' be a victim of a wet bulb event. I had difficulties coping with the early June heatwave, and that was only about 31 Celsius. What makes the difference is the fact we live in a very high humidity area - in a forested valley surrounded by rivers, streams, springs and bogs. Over the past few days, rainfall has been reloading all of these water sources, which had dried up in the heatwave, so they will be a source of humidity when the temperatures ramp up for high summer. It's not that I'm in particularly bad shape, I have been a gardener all my life (just a few joint problems), so I 'had' been very adaptable to different weather conditions and temperatures in the past. However, that all stopped about 6-7 years ago. I now find heat extremes intolerable. So, tolerance levels can just change like that, and I have heard that if your body is pushed to these extremes once, that still causes some sort of damage and you are less tolerant next time such an event occurs. What really annoys me is the way the media continues to 'welcome' the prospect of 'sizzling summer temperatures' with pictures of people in swimsuits stretched out on beaches, as if it's a good thing. They have been criticised for this (in the UK at least) some weeks ago, but I've noticed they're doing it again as they forecast another heatwave. They also treat the much-needed cooler temperatures and rainfall we're getting as if it's some sort of nuisance, one or two of them even calling it 'terrible weather.' Some truly stupid people out there.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Additionally, ocean temperatures around the UK have been some of the warmest in recorded history this year, leading to increased evaporation. El Nino tends to do this, and it doesn't do it evenly, it always magnifies it in smaller localized regions who end up bearing most of the brunt.

[@mike-me7om]

I think this is one of the reasons warming oceans are so concerning. Not only is it the heat but the warmer water is supercharging humidity.

[@CharlieLemmink]

Thanks a lot for this. I'd never even heard of wet/dry bulb temperature, so this is great to know. Now I'm a little freaked out that we don't have an air conditioner or generator--but better to be freaked out now than when it's too late!

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Exactly. It's better to worry about this and solve your exposure to a threat when you aren't under threat.

[@Skylark_Jones]

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Knowing about it won't reduce the though, will it? What if there is nowhere to evacuate to?

[@teagoldleaf4137]

A person like you who can break it down for us lay people is very important. I haven't heard about this before, and that's a bit alarming, seeing how serious the matter is. Thank you 🌷

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

❤️

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

❤️

[@catherinewilson1079]

Thank you for posting this! I almost cannot believe we have to worry about dying from the heat now! I am in eastern Ontario and cannot believe how hot it is today! Thankfully I just moved here in April and now have a daylight basement that is relatively cool! Am also in the process of turning my small treed back yard into as much of a food forest as I can!

[@huck3108]

Thank you. I used to just watch your videos about your plants but I have been appreciating these uploads as well more and more. I also love that you do it outside with the frogs.

[@thehillsidegardener3961]

Thanks for this explanation, I finally understood the role of air humidity in determining the "real" impact of temperature, and plus I'd never actually heard the terms wet/dry bulb. Pretty scary. We don't tend to get high humidity in my part of the world but I am sure that is changing.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

El Nino also tends to evaporate a lot of ocean water, so it is going to get worse this year. Also, if the AMOC (Atlantic Ocean current) breaks down, it will accelerate rapidly. (one of the cliff edge runaway effects).

[@sapientisessevolo4364]

One thing I'm going to add, is that beyond a certain C02 concentration (depends on thr plant) photosynthesis goes down. Plants need Oxygen to breathe too. And that's not even getting heat and dryness

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Exactly. Tomato growers for example will boost CO2 to 600-800ppm. Any higher hurts plants. But also, what a grower does in a controlled environment of a greenhouse isn't what humanity should do on earth. In the real world, doing the same to CO2 would melt all ice on earth, release all trapped methane, and send the Earth hurling towards a Venus environment.

[@wildrangeringreen]

We're getting to the point where the tropics are increasingly hostile to human life, and even subtropical and temperate regions are having more bad days (it used to be rare that temperate climes had days over 80 on a wb, but now it seems like there's at least a handful every year in many places. I've been out, and worked in conditions that are up above 85 on a wet bulb, and I will tell you, it feels nothing short of suffocating. The sweat just sits there and you feel like you're being cooked from the inside (and you kinda are). It's not just bad for humans, plants stop photosynthesizing (because they can't transpire) (look at corn fields in the middle of the day during the peak of summer for an common momentary example), and animals die. We are literally going to kill ourselves, and everything else if we keep going the way we're going.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Yeah you are literally being Sous Vide cooked alive.

[@julie-annepineau4022]

This is pretty scary. I know last year we hit 38C with over 90% humidity a few times. Humidex got up to 42C I think. And we are surrounded by the atlantic ocean (PEI) This spring has already been much warmer than typical here. I have a in ground basement, a generator, and a stream with moving water on the property. Hopefully that and proximity to ocean will help keep me safe.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Scary temps indeed! Just for clarification, humidex has a slightly different calculation than wet bulb. You can plug the numbers into the wet bulb calculator to see what the wet bulb was. For those numbers it's 36.5C, that would be in lethal range if power was lost and AC went out. Extremely dangerous.

[@BloodMoonFT]

We’re gonna see a lot of people saying this isn’t real and as a result they’ll be dying like crazy, and what’s even worse is others who believe in the conspiracy theories will just say the deaths of their fellow weirdos are just fake. I hope everyone who understands this is a real threat stays safe.

[@naeberli9120]

This was illuminating. Never in my life could i imagine having to evacuate due to heat. 😮

[@isabelladavis1363]

Thank you for this I’m a 70 year old woman as well as a landscape gardener in the very hot southern Georgia area and this year has been a test of my endurance actually the past 4 years have been. great information and the one thing we DONT HAVE is a generator looks like that’s next in the necessities list …stay cool stay blessed

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Yeah having a generator could be a life and death thing this summer if there is a large grid failure at the wrong time. Definitely a good buy.

[@DJ-uk5mm]

Anyone living in these areas needs to dig out a basement or root cellar. When these temps come. Get underground also make sure you have a bath tub down there and a couple of IRC’s. Then if someone has overheated you can cool them with the cool water

[@jcriverside]

Kim Stanley Robinson used Wet Blub temp very effectively in his book Ministry for the Future. It's an excellent (and likely somewhat predictive) read. Thanks for this, it's such important information.

[@ShadowTheFosterCat]

This is a really helpful and important video. Thanks for putting together this information.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Glad it was helpful!

[@tovarischluna]

Im glad youre talking about this. Fellow canadian here and worried about climate change, the potential for food shortages is what got me into permaculture. We are lucky to live where we do for whats coming..

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Indeed and that will bring some of its own challenges. Ontario is slowly becoming known for not only great weather (which will gradually warm with climate change to slightly better weather), but also energy security with all the recent nuclear announcements for refurbishments and SMRs new builds. It is becoming very attractive to live in Canada. The only really bad thing here is the housing market is ridiculous.

[@tovarischluna]

@CanadianPermacultureLegacy yeah according to the canada climate atlas map thing the great lakes area of Ontario is looking like it will be okay. I'd like to go further north but I'm afraid of wildfires. it's going to get hot but not totally uninhabitable unless you believe the people that think we will hit 4c by 2050 then idk 😅

[@johnrockyakarambobalboa8898]

very good teacher.

[@grcooley]

Very useful and helpful video. Thank you! By the way I love the frogs!

[@growshakephil]

I wasn't aware of wet bulb temperature until I read Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future. I recommend that if you want to see a future that's both terrifying and optimistic if we take action on what's necessary.

[@lynsac]

I really like all your videos I’m learning a great deal. What I have heard from some scientific sources (including a neighbor who was doing a fellowship on the subject) is that in the spring as ice over swamps melts, the fermenting swamp releases way more methane than our entire population produces. Meaning the fermenting swamps are always producing methane. It is just much more obvious when massive amounts are released in the spring. I’m very interested in your thoughts. Our human population contribution is comparatively a-drop-in-bucket. And our efforts to reduce methane are totally insignificant.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Yes it's true, and these are the baseline emissions that we cannot do anything about. Because methane is so bad, it's really really really important that we don't add to it. What matters is balance. Even if most GHG energy is stored in water vapour and methane, we have balance at the natural rates of emissions. So when we then emit much more via human endeavours, we can tip the balance significantly. It's extreme misinformation to then say that human emissions don't matter because natural emissions are high. Because without natural emissions, we'd cool to an ice planet. However, with human emissions, we can heat to venus and kill all life on earth. Perspective matters.

[@james_chatman]

You know what really scares ne? That a bunch of hucksters politicians and business-as-usual types will simply like about the effects or use it as an opportunity to encourage some horrible outcomes.

[@fx622b]

a refreshingly thorough, calm and collected explanation. But I wonder how you can root for nuclear while a significant proportion of the power plants (in a global perspective) are cooled via rivers which are disappearing (or becoming prohibitively warm)

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

I suppose I should preface that as a support for well designed nuclear. Good point. Ours here is on Lake Ontario, which is going to have water for aa long as it needs it.

[@fredfchopin]

What about underground as a place to go to get out of the heat? My entire basement is underground almost up to the ceiling, and no matter what the temperature is outside my basement will maintain a temperature of somewhere around 60 degrees or so (unless I'm doing something down there that generates excessive heat, which is rare). Seems like that might be a potential option if it's available, and it's not exactly difficult to prep a basement to live there for even an extended period of time

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Yes, this is a great thing to do. Earth temperature is roughly 55F

[@ninemoonplanet]

Exactly, going just a few feet (1-2 metres) will be much better. The way I managed to get through a heat dome that killed hundreds was putting a tray filled with ice in front of a fan at full speed, day and night.

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Many places do not have basements, and in the chart shown in this video the homes often don’t have basements because it could very well flood. I used to live in Texas and AC was a requirement and there are no basements in homes. I moved to the Great Lakes region of Ontario too, and now have a basement in our home which does stay significantly cooler.

[@sgath92]

Half of my place is underground. I used to think it will never get above X degrees "no matter what" until a couple years ago when we went through our first real heat dome incident in my part of Pennsylvania. The normally 55-65 degree underground area got to 85 degrees (!) because one wall (of 3) is not underground, has a garage door opening and the garage door doesn't seal well enough to keep the hot air outside from slowly leaking in. Now 85 is not going to kill me, but if the heat dome had been 20 degrees hotter it would have gotten interesting. I saw one study claiming for every 1C of climate change, heat dome extreme-hot events can be 10 degrees F hotter. We're already at 1.5C, so a 20 degree abnormal hot event is in the pipeline. Just a matter of when.

[@Reignforest87]

When your thirsty it's too late to start digging a well. Building an underground structure would work great in an event like this. However they are still susceptible to flooding and ventilation issues. They are also not ideal in the unlikely event of a mudslide, tsunami or earthquake.

[@SpaceSailor-tu3vl]

A note in order for a true wet bulb temperature and dry the Instruments must be housed in a Stevenson screen weather shelter placed in a specific location. Most data now days are not meeting these conditions

[@ninemoonplanet]

At this moment it's 23°C, 74°F and the humidity is fairly good. If it gets higher, the humidity will make moving around difficult. I'm on the Pacific Northwest and the humidity rarely drops below 30%, even in winter. It's "moderated" by the Pacific Ocean, but that is getting warmer too. That's what happened in the heat dome that killed hundreds of people, caused fires from tiny sparks to burn down an entire town, killing 2 people. Because we get the breezes off the ocean, oir night temperature does drop, UNLESS it's a high pressure "dome" and then the night temperature stays higher. I lived through the heat dome, but the people who were stuck in condo towers without any way to keep cool (windows open 4 inches) the people ended up either in hospital or the morgue. Pets, small children CAN'T sweat enough to cool their bodies. DON'T allow them outside without shade, water, and especially NOT on cement or asphalt. Burned paws, feet can go to third degree burns quickly.⚠️🔥

[@ninemoonplanet]

Current humidity is 84% plus the temperature I mentioned. I decided to get a "power station", basically a dense version of a battery with multiple outlets. That's my backup if power goes out, plug in fans and keep the air moving.

[@ninemoonplanet]

Use these figures if you want to.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

At that temp/humidity, the wet bulb temp is 21C. That humidity is probably so muggy, but its cool enough to not worry too much.

[@ninemoonplanet]

I thought the wet bulb Temp would be lower, so that's something to keep in mind. It's ok, breezes finally showed up, but without them it's muggy, almost stifling.🥺

[@mario312]

thanks for this, so many trees being list in the canadia fires wondering how this affect long term

[@guillem4630]

Thank you for the work you put into all your videos. In this one you mention that part of the homesteading space is in denial of climate change and I agree completely. One only has to watch some KZbin channels. I know it may me controversial but I think it would be interesting to hear your take on this issue.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Unfortunately a lot of it is just strait up the political environment they live in. A huge swath of homesteaders come from red states, and these tend to be very anti climate change, just due to political lines. It's insane to me that something as important as our future has a political spin to it, but thats just the reality of modern politics unfortunately.

[@guillem4630]

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I agree, thank you.

[@Reignforest87]

Another good point to mention is that most people don't have underground structures capable of housing livestock.

[@rileynicholson2322]

Idk about a pool, but a body of water could definitely save your life in a temporary heat wave, since it will usually be cooler than the surrounding air temperature. It takes weeks of energy transfer with the air to raise the temperature of a decent sized lake or ocean. Convection current and wind disturbance within the water is also cosntantly moving the heat around the system, keeping the surface cooler than the air. If the wet bulb temp is high, but humidity is low, a fan could increase your evaporative cooling rate and you could survive, you just need to drink lots of water.

[@gerrywalsh6853]

Another good one 😊

[@mikelovesbacon]

I don't understand your last point. If you've reached wet bulb temperature then humidity is not low

[@pineywoodsurbanhomestead4988]

Dang. I'm in east Texas, with plans to move to west Michigan and one of the biggest drivers was climate change predictions. It kinda looks like I'm leaving one bad area for another borderline bad area. I know I'm priveleged to have the ability to relocate, but man it's stressful trying to figure out the best place to go for my family longterm.

[@caseymarion2494]

As long as you have a basement in your home you should be okay in Michigan, where it's unusual to NOT have one - vs many areas of Texas, where they're rare.

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

We also moved from Texas to the Great Lakes area, it has been a positive move for our family.

[@AnteaterRae]

I'm in MI and I had planned to "escape"/move up north in my state. But w the fires and predictions I've seen showing that Canada and Northern areas may heat faster once the ice has melted has me unsure of what to do now. This is horrific and we must take action!

[@Big-Government-Is-The-Problem]

im in the red zone of Missouri and its 96F and 45% humidity today.

[@ChaletSuisse]

Kind of off topic. I'm a huge sauna user and I've always found steam rooms to be so much more difficult than dry saunas, even with hours and hours of experience. Seems obvious now, but cooking yourself in 100% humidity is so much more effective!

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

LOL Sous vide human

[@boonstein9949]

is there something comparable to a psychrometric chart or calculator wherein you could enter temperature (dry bulb)and humidity and determine wet bulb temperature? there are thermo-hygrometers that have a wet-bulb mode, but the more 'popularly priced' ones do not

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

I linked one in the video description :)

[@zanewalsh1812]

Thank you for sharing 🙏🏼 🌏🌍🌎🕊️ For all of us This probably impacts LOTS of other mammals also 😕

[@spsmith1965]

One tip for staying cool/alive: When I am outside in Summer, I wear wicking material and wet myself with a hose when I get too hot. Water draws heat away from the body very efficiently. I believe tap water will be much cooler than body temperature in most cases, so take a cold shower if you must.

[@vitalvisionary]

That might not work in a lethal wet bulb event. It's more likely the tap will be hot or your area could be in a drought condition

[@spsmith1965]

@@vitalvisionary Water running over the skin would draw heat away as long as the water temp is less than body temp. Does not matter if it is evaporating.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

This is the point of this post. That only works if humidity allows for evaporation. Sure if you have cold water, you would get direct thermal conductivity that would help a very very tiny bit (much less than you would think). The reason this works well normally is the evaporative component.

[@annburge291]

I certainly use the evaporative method in the desert. First I work outside very early dawn or close to sunset and into the night when watering. If it's hot, above 37C, I wear two shirts and wet the outer shirt and I wet my hat when outside. Middle of the day, I watch Permaculture Legacy videos and don't plan to be outside.

[@RickLarsonPermacultureDesigner]

Forests condense humidity so start planting trees.

[@sararichardson737]

I did not enjoy the video but I did appreciate it. Thanks

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

True!

[@Avalaxy]

Question: what good is it to save ourselves inside our house with AC if all the animals are still outside and will die? If all wildlife dies from a heatwave, you have an instantaneous food chain collapse.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Exactly

[@mikelovesbacon]

It's not going to kill all animals everywhere all at once

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Mike, I think their point is that we all just shrug this heat wave off and turn on our AC without fixing the underlying cause, which is going to kill most of the living world if we don't fix it.

[@MrEborel]

Ah shit Im in the black :( S. La; Ive been concerned about this for some time, its currently 98F with 117 heat index…only 50% humidity. Last night it was 90f with 88% humidity…we are one loss of electricity away from a bad time. Fortunately many have gennys, but this is “ne c’est pas bon” as it were. The holy grail down here cooling by alternate means.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Be careful! Make sure you know of places that have backup generators, like hospitals. Power is going to be very important, and if yours goes out, don't delay, get somewhere. It would even be prudent to pack an overnight bag just incase you need it, so you can get there quicker, and avoid any traffic and such. That's always a good idea though :) It also may be worth getting a few Jerry cans of gasoline, so that you can use your cars AC in a pinch and also have backup gas. The only real danger is a power outage , so if your power stays on, it's nothing to worry about. But these heat events put a huge strain on the grid. I'm really concerned about Texas, because they "freedumbed" their grid.

[@janice8695]

Great video. How close does the heat index (Feels Like) get to the wet bulb?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

They are doing the same thing, but in an opposite way. Heat index and dry bulb are the same at zero percent humidity, and as humidity increases they diverge. Wet bulb and dry bulb are the same at 100% humidity, and start diverged at 0% humidity and converge at 100% humidity. Humidity index gets life threatening around 130F. Wet bulb gets threatening around 88F.

[@yLeprechaun]

So... I've always found solace/comfort in a shaded space with misters. Basically treating myself like a young plant in a greenhouse. Thoughts? You're saying that we can reach a point where adding moisture into the immediate space is no longer a benefit, correct? I love my mist nozzle and box fan on the porch.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

That's super comfortable for sure. If humidity hits 100%, the misters won't cool as much. You will lose the evaporative cooling but would still get direct thermal conductivity cooling from it. But yes, these are really nice, especially the dried that your heat is, because they are super effective in that environment.

[@nickdmartin]

Love your videos. So it sounds like there are two options: 1) move and 2)AC / dehumidifier. Is that right?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Exactly, those are the only 2 options. And dehumidifier maybe doesn't even work, because it would lower humidity but pump out heat, so for wet bulb, it's likely the exact same effect.

[@hvacdesignsolutions]

I live in Ireland. It was only 65F dry bulb here the other day, but the relative humidity was 86%. I was sweating most of the day 🥵🥵

[@wakeup6759]

in hot weather i always carry a bottle of water so i can pour on my neck and chest and feet to cool me off and prevent a heatstroke.

[@therewasoldcringe]

carrying water everywhere no matter the weather is common sense

[@VanillaAttila]

If your AC's were knocked out with EMP and this happened, would you just chill in your pond to get through the wet bulb heat wave?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

It depends on how localized it was. If relocating didn't make sense, yeah. If relocating makes sense, I have a few fallback areas that I could go to. If it looked really bad and relocation wasn't possible AND I knoew the conditions would last a very very long time, I would probably start dragging into the north facing hill and making a sunken shelter, and filling it with stone for walls.

[@Skylark_Jones]

Thanks for this video, it is very informative. I am aware of the growing threat of wet bulb temperature. I live in the UK. Because of government policy many ordinary people in Britain are becoming increasingly poorer, many live in ordinary flats and houses therefore not everybody will be in a position to afford generators or have access to air conditioners - only the very wealthy. Ironically, it is mostly the wealthy in the global North contributing most to CO2 emissions. We also have a government that is encouraging more fossil fuel excavation (!) despite the growing protests. Our prime minister Rishi Sunak is a very rich man with two children, his family are billionaires. I expect he is therefore not losing sleep over wet bulb temperature. But I am. Short of me sharing this video with his govt (it will make no difference to his views) do you have alternative simple ways for individuals like myself to deal with this problem when it arises?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

One thing you can do is try to talk to local governments and get more resilience in the community, in the form of emergency cooling areas. For example, a rainwater storage tank on top of a roof, can provide enough natural passive pressure (gravity) to push that water through some nozzles and aerosol it, to provide some cooling areas in a passive way in an emergency.

[@gailaiken3310]

In a situation where the wet bulb temperature is becoming critical where should people evacuate to? What about going into the forest where the temp feels much lower? Or a really well insulated room (food store) that passively cools using from air from the forest? Or into a natural pond that is quite deep and significantly cooler? Would any of those things help?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Those are all your best options, outside of getting out of the high temp geographic location. If that's not possible, these are your best bets. For me, for example, my artesian well water comes from 500 feet underground, and is always about 60F (15C), so sitting in the stream, somewhere in my woods, would be perfect.

[@Alex_Riddles]

Could you provide a link for that map?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

There was a link in the video, on the map, right at 0:15

[@Interests97]

I am in Southeast Asia where we are having a heatwave. I have a son. I don't know how I am going to save him.

[@Jtk0001]

I really need a source for your preservative and body temperature statement

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

There are many. After a Google search, there are hundreds. Here's an example www.healthline.com/health-news/forget-98-6-humans-now-have-lower-body-temperature-on-average-heres-why#:~:text=The%20body%20temperature%20of%20men,0.05°F%20every%20decade.

[@Jtk0001]

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thanks

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

I shpuld also mention, there is a really good podcast on Nate Hagens Great Simplification that brings on a doctor who discusses this in excruciating detail. The podcast is related to the declining health of society.

[@MsCaterific]

is the "wet bulb" measurement shown as the humidity index on the weather app?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

The humidity is trying to convey the same idea - that humidity matters for human comfort, but is a Canadian invention, and I'm not sure if the rest of the world uses it. Scientists and the rest of the world's meteorologist use wet bulb, or wet bulb globe.

[@VicNorth777]

Greenhouse growers target up to 1600 ppm CO2 for optimal plant growth. We're still a ways off (another 4x?). From another though... apparently this ability of plants to consume CO2 is dependent on temperature. Each plant has their ideal temp, and as temps rise beyond that their CO2 consumption drops off. This will continue until the plant can no longer consume CO2 and it actually starts consuming O2.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Close but they actually target 600-800. Weed growers may target higher, but commercial veggie crops target about 600-800. 800 is the upper limit where it actually start breaking down chloroplasts in these plants. And while we are still far away from 600, that also doesn't mean we should go there, and it doesnt mean that a greenhouse controlled environment is representing a global ecosystem. Why? Because if we went there globally we would melt all the ice on the planet, release all the methane under the ice sheetd, and we would be at 4000ppm in one year due to irreversible cliff edge runaway effects, and this would cause earth mean temperature to boil the oceans. I.e. we would 100% transition to Venus. So that's a great plan you have. So again, this is one of those areas where people take one piece of information, don't understand what it means to extrapolate it, and suggest that it's okay because a greenhouse grower optimizes for co2, without thinking how that change would propagate across all other ecosystems at play. In short, listen to the damn scientists.

[@VicNorth777]

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy The planet has spent most it’s time at higher levels than now and even 600. The problem with extrapolation, by scientists or mere mortals, is that it doesn’t account for dynamic complex systems. We can study the geologic / fossil record, but we can only speculate on the mechanisms involved. There’s plenty that still confounds the brightest of scientists. And there’s been lots of new “discoveries” (speculations?) lately. All interesting stuff, but not necessarily factual. Imagine if all the prior extrapolations had come true! We wouldn’t be here on what would be a barren wasteland (either ice as predicted decades ago, or a boiling Venus as predicted more recently). There have been so many errors that a simple bayesian approach would seriously discount any future “model-based” extrapolations. Maybe they are the best we can come up with so far, still doesn’t mean the forecasts are any better than the weather person talking about a few weeks out. Glimpses of a trend, maybe, “seasonal patterns” perhaps. Regardless, I do take your point on veg vs pot, massive range, and no, I don’t think most people would opt for living in a greenhouse, although lots of people do live in the hot humid tropics (on an Amazon trip I recall the European contingent “melting” for the duration). There are plenty of voices to listen to, while science is always advancing it’s never settled (unless death and taxes are scientific 😀)

[@VicNorth777]

Update: Nate Hagen’s latest video kzbin.info/www/bejne/o2q5d4yKjbiqhNk goes to some lengths to describe the current state of modeling. It’s quite funny I get “insulted” for spurious extrapolation meanwhile it’s the main analysis technique even for those “damned scientists” I’m urged to listen to. Notes: greenhouses, even for veg get boosted past 800 ppm. There are several sources claiming warming oceans lead the rise in CO2. In other words, CO2 is not the driver and therefore not the boogeyman nor the bogie. So while we might be right about temps we might just have some the models, assumptions, and causes a bit off. All I’m saying here is be careful of investing your life in something that’s very much in flux. Let’s keep working on the science and set scientism aside.

[@proactivex]

What app do you recommend for wet bulb ?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

I linked a wet bulb calculator in the description.

[@JoelKSullivan]

I never heard of this before. Thanks for the great and valuable info once again I sent you an email a while back. I'm not sure if you got it

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Oh maybe not. It might have gotten swallowed by emails... I get about 50-100 a day now, and it's almost always someone trying to get me to sell their product >

[@reedbetweenthelines1385]

Does this info stay the same in regards to our pets or will they need to be evacuated sooner?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

In general pets are susceptible much much sooner. Dogs for example not only have fur but also cannot sweat. The human ability to sweat is one of the things that made us become the most fearsome predator, because it let us chase through heat for far longer. We aren't fast, but we are relentless, and have incredible thermal regulation. Your pets do not, and they are in trouble at much lower temperatures.

[@reedbetweenthelines1385]

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thank you so much for such a quick reply. Our family and pets do spend time in a part of Arizona that gets to 120 F regularly in the summer so this info is important to me.

[@nancystafford3216]

so what if your house has solar panels? Hope this isn't a stupid question.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

If you have power, then you should be okay. The problem is heat wave + loss of power to AC.

[@Thrash230723]

What if you lit a fire in your fireplace during such an event? In the winter time when I do this the humidity in my house gets extremely low.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Definitely not something you want to do. You'd fix the humidity problem, but run straight into critical wet bulb because you'd increase temperature faster than you decrease humidity.

[@RenAtkins]

Thanks for this - it's good to understand, and a reality check, because as you say - physics doesn't care whether or not you believe in climate change. A generator is a very good idea. I'm in Australia, and already bracing for the coming El Nino summer, which I suspect will be worse than our 2019 fires. We have an issue with needing to preserve native trees for endangered and threatened wildlife, and these are the same trees that cause catastrophic fires (because that is their role in the ecosystem here). Side note: have you seen/read any of the bushfire safety content by Joan Webster? I'd be interested in your thoughts.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

I've read some that I don't rememeber who the author was. I don't remember that name though. Thanks for the kind post 😀

[@PhilippeFernandez]

I never sweat in the high desert of California where it was dry however, in Missouri I sweat when it gets really humid and hot so whatever you’re saying doesn’t apply to me.. lol

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Oh no, thats exactly how it works. You sweat the same, but in humid weather, since the sweating isn't working as well and not evaporating much at all, the sweat doesn't get off you and it just keeps piling up until you are soaking wet. In drier climate, you sweat just as much, but since the air is so dry and it evaporates so easily, it never builds up, and it feels like you aren't even sweating.

[@jeremynv89523]

​@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I as a sort of corollary to all of this, in my high desert city, many of use evaporative coolers that work off this principle. They emit water droplets into the house, which cools the house quite efficiently because the humidity is very low. Bonus: it's much less expensive than AC.

[@sup_with_a_duck5794]

good quick calming vid

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

❤️

[@organicnorth5492]

That was a quick education. Thank you. QUESTION: How did tribes of people survive those conditions living in rainforests of Equador survive without air conditioning?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

The temps were lower. More shade. It can be 10-20 degrees cooler in forests. The main threat to people alive today are shadeless cities like the urban hellacapes we like to design. But the short answer is that in ancient times, they had more natural habitat to go seek shelter in, and they never saw the wet bulb temperatures that we see because they had forests.

[@organicnorth5492]

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy ok. Thank you.

[@catharinephoto]

What if you lie down on a cool tile floor connected to earth heat sink?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

It will definitely help. Anything you can do to help is a good idea. However, if power went out, and the wetbulb temperature got even close to critical temp 35C/95F, my number one thought would be evacuation.

[@SmashPhysical]

Thanks for this. Unfortunately, the climate change deniers tend to deny science, so they may be among the first victims when this inevitably does occur in certain areas.

[@cornstar1253]

Pseudoscience. Or what I call climate sceance.

[@mysterion2626]

​@@cornstar1253you just proved his point

[@BloodMoonFT]

Can’t wait to see those idiots trying to prove it wrong, but when they die from the wet bulb temps they’ll probably say it’s a psyop or it’s staged or the covid vaccine makes it so it activates in that heat killing you. They’re so creative and annoying it’s insane.

[@mep.stance1210]

I wonder if our food forests and gardens can actually help save us from wet bulb temperatures? I read that plants cool their environment quite a bit by shading, removing heat binding co2 and transpiration. Or is wet bulb so bad that even a rich microclimate won't help?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Yes they help TREMENDOUSLY. Wet bulb is a combination between temp and humidity. In a forest, the temperature can drop 10 degrees easily, often more. Trees also act as humidity buffers. In dry areas they transpire and create rain cycles, and in humid airs, they act as a nucleatuon site for condensation, and remove water out of the air.

[@nonexistence5135]

If you were to take a bath in cool-lukewarm water at 100% humidity in a heat wave would that have any effect?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Yes, definitely. This would actually be the best thing you could do.

[@sqeekable]

Not to take away from your interesting topic, but I feel like that frog was trying to chime in on the subject, it matters to him also.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

😆 🤣

[@focus19551]

Have you read The Treeline by Ben Rawlence?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

No I haven't

[@SgtScourge]

Might be nice to give people practical info like how to look up their current or forecasted wet bulb temp by zip code or something. As it is, you mostly provide a bit of fear and suggest prepper actions like to buy a generator, but you didn’t give information for how to actually assess when and if you’re under any threat at any given time.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

If people can look up their temperature and humidity, I included a wet bulb calculator in the video description to help folks out.

[@SgtScourge]

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy ah, gotcha. I don't read video descriptions in that way I guess but there's why I miss out 😅

[@nickdmartin]

You are very intelligent and understand nature. Wondering how you justify nuclear tech when it’s radiation is so very bad for everything.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Define bad. For example, I get less dose working inside the nuclear plant for 20 years than I got from one walk in my garden this year, from the sun. The negatives of nuclear are only in the disasters, not in the ongoing operation of them. Now, that's not to belittle the disasters that we've had, namely 2, in the history of nuclear where radiation was released to the public in any meaningful quantity. Cherbobyl was a poor design and extremely poor safety culture. I can't even describe how insane these people were. It was literally like driving 100 mph down the freeway, then strapping the accelerator down to do an overspeed test, then disabling 3 out of your 4 brakes systems because they would stop the car and you wanted to test the 4th one, then, oops, the 4th one didn't work because we didn't do any maintenance on it. That's how stupid those guys were, and that kind of thing would never happen today. Then Fukushima, which to me was an engineering marvel, at how well it handled that tsunami, which was well above the design basis tsunami. It handled the earthquake itself perfectly. And even all told, it barely released any radiation. Magnitudes less than if coal were used instead. That last point is the main reason I support nuclear so heavily. If we replaced nuclear with coal (which is what would happen), then we release MORE radiation through C14 in coal plants, and we do it uncontrolled into the air. Then also all the just base pollution you get. But coal is releases more radiation than nucelar. So if someone is anti radiation, the best solution is actually, unintuitively, to build more nuclear.

[@nickdmartin]

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy thank you for replying to me. I have not studied nuclear tech so all I know are the stories I hear. I would define the nuclear rods radiation being bad as they have enough radiation to kill, mutate, etc. yes the disasters are bad but how about storing the spent fuel rods? From what I have hear, you can only bury them underground and hope they don’t leak into the water table. Also, I don’t have faith in humanity to not do stupid things in the future. I hear that the nuclear reactor in Ukraine was in bad shape due to the war and might still be. So this is where my question came from, thanks again and I appreciate the conversation.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

@nickdmartin Spent fuel is definitely the largest concentration of radioactivity, but once it has spent a few years in a pool, it can be stored safely in a concrete cask, and doesn't need any external cooling any more. The ambient heat removal of the concrete is enough to remove the low level of decay heat, and water in the concrete absorbs the very low level radiation at that point. Storing it in the ground is the safest place for it, at a proper site with low chance of earthquakes. If someone doesn't want radiation in the water, then nuclear is the best way to accomplish that. Because, again, without nuclear, you have coal plants, and coal releases way more radioactivity (along with other polutants), and does so indiscriminately. The issues with nuclear spent fuel storage is not an engineering or scientific one, it's a political one. As an engineer, I would much rather have all the toxic stuff concentrated and held in an engineered solution, and also 1000x less of it (with nuclear), than to have it all over the place and way more of it (with coal).

[@annburge291]

Very depressing video! Seeing the electronic wet bulb metre was interesting. The one we used to use was a metre long mercury thermometer with a black metallic soft ball sized bulb for measuring radiant temperature (very relevant for determining comfort in buildings) For the wet bulb measurements we would drape the thermometer bulb with a wet gause. I didn't know that 36C wet bulb was the critical life and death threshold. I'm surprised it isn't 37.5C. I'm not sure about mentioning/recommending fructose as a way to lower core body temperature. Fructose in fruit comes with fibre, so most of the fructose stays in the gut according to Dr Lustig. If you drink the fructose in juice or soft drink, the fructose now is in the blood stream and can get to the cells. Fructose is a mitochondrial toxin so the liver tries to turn it into fat to protect important cells like in the heart and brain. Build up liver fat and you cannot detox adequately. A safer way to reduce body temperature is to eat lots of salads or cooked vegetables with olive oil or some nuts with extremely little protein and extremely little high glycemic grains while there is a heat wave. It's the fasting mimicking diet recommended by Dr Valter Longo.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Oh, for the lower body temperature, lower is bad. Sorry, I probably wasn't clear on that. It means your entire body metabolic rate is lower. If you eat really healthy, your body temp will be a little higher than someone who eats processed garbage all day long. Fructose is indeed awful stuff.

[@GimmeADream]

Didn't understand one thing about that! Now..., do I decide to listen to that again? Will I know it better? Wet bulb/dry bulb? Why aren't these expressions commonplace?

[@GimmeADream]

I do have it up on google and trying to understand what I heard, lol. I am on the east coast, so I guess it isn't something I have to worry about so much.

[@christinec271]

​@@GimmeADreamwhere on the East coast? Cuz wet bulbs are going to become more and more a problem for the East coast, too... :(

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Everyone has to worry about this. The east coast is cooler, but we can get humidity. Think of dry bulb as being just as one dimensional as humidity. Is it humid? That could mean swampy summer, or foggy fall, or frostbite winter. Dry bulb is just temperature. Wet bulb combines both. You know how humid muggy summers can feel hotter at 70 degrees than dry heat? Now imagine it's either so hot that you die (desert), that's bad. But it can be equally bad at much lower temperature, say 90F if it's so humidity that your sweat doesn't evaporate and cannot cool you. Wet bulb is the temperature that the thermometer feels when it's wrapped in a wet cloth, and that wetness cloth evaporates to cool the thermometer. If it's 120F outside, a little evaporative cooling (think about cooling tents at theme parks) can make it feel like 80F. However, if it's 90F and humidity, it can feel hot, even with the cooling tent, because you cannot evaporate that water. It just so happens that there is a critically dangerous wet bulb temperature. 95F/35C. This can be any combination of severe heat and low humidity, or lower heat but high humidity, or anywhere in between. Once your body cannot cool itself, you will die.

[@GimmeADream]

​@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I don't think it gets that high of temperatures here. 95F/35C would be a record for us. I'm learning all sorts of new terminology these days. Thanks for bringing this to my attention and reminding me not to go to town this summer, lol. That is no hardship, hahahaah

[@GimmeADream]

@@christinec271 PEI Canada! It is fairly comfortable here even at the worst of summer. But honestly..., I keep horses and I'm going to have to think about them and this wet bulb temperatures....

[@doinacampean9132]

5:22 - you mean Fahrenheit, for sure :)

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Indeed. I tried to be pretty good about stating F and C when I mentioned any temperatures in this video. I didn't do it absolutely everywhere though. When I'm talking in the 35 range it's C. When I'm talking in the 95 range, it's F.

[@doinacampean9132]

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy - 5:22 "my body temperature is around between 95 and 98 Celsius" - that automatically put a boiling body image in my mind :) So, for sure you meant Fahrenheit. Just a quick note that your viewers are paying attention. :)

[@therealkrystalvintage]

🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️adiobatics!

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

LOL

[@therealkrystalvintage]

🐸 ribbitttt

[@bial12345]

The carbon that we are burning recklessly comes from deep underground, sequestered for millions of years. No matter how many trees we plant it will never be enough to remove the CO2 that we've dumped into the atmosphere. The truth is, it's getting worse, and not only are we not doing anything about it, we're making the problem worse at an exponential rate.

[@ninemoonplanet]

Just so you're aware, the Russians are vacating and Zaporozhye NUCLEAR power plant by July 5. I know you have direct connection to the nuclear power systems and ask you to get on the phone ASAP because if this plant is the second largest in the world, it's not just Ukraine that's affected. Frankly this is an international obscenity, and I am seriously WORRIED about the world-wide implications. ⚠️🔥⚠️🔥⚠️

[@therewasoldcringe]

something definitely went off. im ~950 km away and i’ve been having a lot of nosebleeds in the last week. its not heat related because its been 18-23 for a while now and only today jumped to 31 and will go back down on tuesday

[@NervousSkiMask]

We 100 + degree weather in north Texas with 80 % humidity

[@dorotheadiallo5790]

metric?

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

I used both.

[@garyhoover9750]

It might be worth emphasizing that even before we get to lethal wet bulb temperatures, folks will start to experience heat stroke and death if they are too active, not well-hydrated, or have underlying medical issues. i am concerned that some people might think that they are fine becaue they are in an environment that is not close to the lethal wet bulb temperature. Stay cool and hydrated and as healthy as you can…...

[@andyhodchild8]

I am concerned about the collapse in the food systems for us in England?! I am concerned about mass migration driven by my 1st concern above.

[@bonniepoole1095]

Go to this web site and click on Wet Bulb Globe Temp: digital.mdl.nws.noaa.gov/ Then, check out this graph: mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/onsite/features/2019/07/190719.png

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Watch my video first please. That is not wet bulb temperature that is wet bulb glove temperature. I explain the difference.

[@newperson2012]

We shouldn't feel responsible for the additional carbon levels because a single volcano can (and has) emitted way more than we could ever do. However, we should work to increase oxygen levels by planting trees and kelp forests. Thanks for your efforts and in explaining wet bulb.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

1) It doesn't matter because those two things aren't mutually exclusive choices. They are additive. This would be like saying that radon gas in your basement causes more radiation than getting an xray, so you are going to get 10 x-rays a day. It is complete nonsense. But also... 2) It's false as well: www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/file_mngr/file-154/Gerlach-2011-EOS_AGU.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi0pLb7r_L_AhWPKFkFHVOYAsUQFnoECA8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw27ZmENyd8-tpezVNEzn5wY

[@andyhodchild8]

I completely disagree about nuclear. And when you are aligning nuclear with a load that has a perfect alignment to solar. Nuclear is most expensive energy on the planet right now despite the subsidises. The 'profits' will be privatised but the catastrophic will be socialised by way of being under insured. Most enterprises never get off the ground if they can not obtain insurance. This is because the risk is deemed to be to high. Military defence against a 9/11 incident is a subsidy. Then you have waste, would you be prepared to have an underground facility near your family. Like the one in Germany which is leaking! I admit that I have been anti nuke for 45 years and was involved in trying to stop the UK government dumping 'low level' nuke waste into the Irish sea!! I mean, like that, they should be dumping anything in the sea. 45 years ago I supported the Severn Barage power scheme, I wanted best scheme for the natural world. Still not built but the Chinese and French governments are building new nuclear at hinkley point. Madness utter madness.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

I will definitely admit that it was easy to be anti nuclear in the past. From TMI to Chernobyl, the lax regulations, the lax safety culture. The industry has definitely gone through growing pains, I will give you that one. Our emission targets keep getting tighter, often hundreds to thousands of times tighter than in the past, and the industry constantly strives to tighten further. For example, I took a flight last year and got more dose on that one flight than I have received in 20 years working at the plant. Yes, I am a nuclear engineer, so I'll definitely be upfront about that as well, as I would clearly have bias at play. I'm very pro nuclear, but I work there, I believe in the tech, so I'm definitely biased. However, I don't believe in it because I work there, I work there because I believe in it. As far as cost goes it's definitely not the most expensive - offshore wind is, and by a large margin, followed by geothermal, again by a large margin, then other techs are somewhat close. However, be very clear, you are paying for different pros/cons. Nuclear is the single most reliable form of energy. It also has the lowest geological footprint per MW, and has the lowest impact on nature (deaths of animals and destruction of habitat) than any other form. These things all have value. Also, nuclear is one of the electrical options that has the most variability in cost. For example there were UK projects that cost 6000 Euros per kWh ($8600 CAD), and Canadian projects that cost $1457/kWh, which actually make it almost as cheap as the cheapest energy option, Solar, at ~$1300/kWh. So, like all things, it depends where you get your numbers from. For comparison, Hydro is about $3000, natural gas is about $2000, coal is about $1800. However, and here's the important part, all the "dirty power" does not factor in environmental externalities into their prices. They are also heavily subsidized. So everything you mentioned about nuclear, is just as relevant for coal oil and gas. Infact, a coal plant puts out more radiation than a nuclear plant, they just release it uncontrolled into the air (which is a pretty crappy thing). The numbers above are from IAEA, IAE and wikipedia. Waste is a big issue, but it's not an engineering issue, it's a political issue. Nobody wants it in their backyard, but there are great solutions. Yucca mountain was a great solution, and wasn't cancelled because the public didn't want it, and wasn't cancelled because it was unsafe. It was a perfect location. It was cancelled for political reasons. The land encompassing the repository site was under the control of several different federal agencies, including DOE, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Defense; and an act of Congress was needed to transfer the lands in question to DOE. Political games were played and the entire project was cancelled because of a political powerplay, leaving the states without a long term nuclear solution. The engineers know what should be done. People also think that the fuel needs constant cooling, but once the fuel has decayed in a spent fuel pond for long enough, it can go into concrete casks and can last indefinitely without power or cooling. If the site is then designed properly, then there is no chance of a "leak" or getting into any aquifer, and even if an earthquake happened, the fuel would be contained in the rock, and would be lower radiation than radon which naturally occurs in the soil. Sure, some of the stuff is very long lived, but it's really not an issue. People also vastly overestimate how much spent fuel there is. We've been operating 12 units here for 40 years, and our fuel fits into a few traincars. That's it. If you compared the amount of radioactive C14 pumped out of an equivalent MW worth of coal plants, you could fill lake Ontario 3 times. None of that is recoverable, it's already entered into people's lungs, and likely contributed to hundreds of thousands of cancer cases. So I'll definitely admit that nuclear can be a scary tech, and I understand why some people are anti-nuclear. I also would prefer that we don't use nuclear, but you can't just cancel coal oil and gas AND cancel nuclear, without collapsing society. I personally think Coal Oil and Gas are a million times worse, so for that reason, I think we need nuclear. I also didn't talk about nuclear's STRENGTHS at all. It has the LOWEST deaths per MW of any power source. It has the highest capacity factor and reliability of any energy source. It's the best energy source for stable baseload power. And it has the lowest CO2 emissions per MW of any power source. Even IF nuclear was the most expensive (and it's not), you cannot just say that without understanding what you are buying with nuclear. You are buying a 90% power factor (compared to 20-50% with solar/wind). You are buying 40-80 years of dependable power (versus 15-30 with solar/wind). You are buying clean air and water. Anyways, I'm sure we probably won't see eye to eye on it, and that's okay. I just thought I'd throw in a perspective from the other side, from a nuclear engineer (fully admitting to my bias, but my bias exists because I work there, and again, I work there because I believe in it - not the other way around).

[@andyhodchild8]

​@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy With regards Canada having very little spent fuel, I am just wondering if it is all over here at Winscale where we had the fiasco called THORP en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_Oxide_Reprocessing_Plant Which is why there is an underground warehouse full of waste from all around the world.

[@andyhodchild8]

​@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy It might be a bumpy ride but I also believe that the global renewable system being built will be greater than the sum of its parts, much as it is in a forest is greater than the sum of its parts. They are talking of a cable from Morocco to UK which would start to address that availability issue.

[@darkwing3713]

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy More uranium reactors would be disastrous in the US. Industrial and transportation accidents seem to be increasing, which makes sense because big investors are pushing companies to use incredibly narrow safety margins. Corporations see breaking the law as nothing more then a risk. Fines are always less then the profits the companies made by breaking the law. Companies avoid paying people they harm by going back to court to get the judgement reduced until its basically gone. Politicians get billions from corporations, and they bail them out no matter what they do. Executives are never punished for their crimes. Term limits are worse then useless - politicians all have corporate jobs waiting for them. Anti-trust legislation is being ignored completely. And artificial scarcity and price fixing are standard practices. I don't like uranium reactors because in an emergency the worse things are, the less you can do about it. Reactors should be designed to keep molten uranium from forming a large clump. Or automatically combining it with other elements so that its fast moving neutrons can escape. Or use thorium with a particle accelerator instead of uranium. But no one is going to do any of these things (and I wouldn't trust a US company that claimed they were).

[@heresteven]

mass extinction

[@djmoulton1558]

Sorry, I didn't really understand the science stuff. Instead of a wet bulb you should have aimed your discussion at more of a dim bulb level. Is there a simpler calculation I could do of the relationship between temp in °C to %RH? e.g. if T=35°C and RH>=75% you gonna croak.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

I didn't get into that level of detail because people can look it up on their phones. The formula itself is complex, and it is: Tw = T * arctan[0.152 * (rh + 8.3136)^(1/2)] + arctan(T + rh%) - arctan(rh - 1.6763) + 0.00391838 *(rh)^(3/2) * arctan(0.0231 * rh) - 4.686

[@djmoulton1558]

Oh dear! I don't have a "phone" (cellular mobile phone, I think) and my thermometer doesn't have an arctang thingy. I suspect there are general averages that mere mortals can use as guidelines.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Really all that matters is that you have somewhere you can go if the power is out and you don't have a generator. It's best to have a day bag prepacked with food, clothing, water, and an idea of where you would go. also it helps to have extra gas cans, so you can use your car in a pinch, and have backup gas.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Also, here I found this and put it into the video description. It's a wetbulb calculator, so you don't have to pull out a scientific calculator and start doing some arctan's. www.omnicalculator.com/physics/wet-bulb I plugged in 35C and 75% RH and the wetbulb is around 31.1C, definitely getting close to the danger zone.

[@djmoulton1558]

Ok! I tried the calculator. I input my current conditions (31.8°C and RH 38% - typical Ontario evening) and it says I am safe. Phew! I guess I ducked the big one... THIS time. :o

[@thehermitmonk081]

This video is factually incorrect, even if with good intentions. Human body (like any other material) also cools by radiative emissivity in the infrared and far infrared spectrum. Google Stephan-Boltzmann law and Plancks law, please. This cooling is so well-balanced that painting something that emits into the sky white will cool it by one degree Kelvin for every 28.9 constant Watts of sun energy it receives, compared to the same surface if it was painted pitch black. You can interpolate in-between colors if you need, the function is mostly* linear (mostly because air convection transferring heat was included in the calculation).

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

You are talking to an engineer FYI. Now do the calculation of how much heat we radiate this way, and then compare that to being in thermal contact with hot air.

[@thehermitmonk081]

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy We radiate a lot this way, especially at high temperatures. The cooling grows to the fourth power of temperature in Kelvins, and it's the main mechanism of the Earth's surface cooling in the summer, not contact with cool air. Upd: why this effect is not more pronounced is that tall buildings and dark asphalt radiate the exact same amount of heat back at us, and sometimes they actively heat us up. But a white roof with a big thermal mass makes a real difference, as do white pavement and swimming pools. You can even make renewable ice in those without air ever going to 0 Celcius, this technology is a few thousand years old at this point.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

@warpreacher1 Yes, technically we radiate something like 60% of our heat this way. However, that's what keeps us in homeostasis, so it also kind of doesn't really matter, because it doesn't change that much going from say 303K to 308K. The main way our body changes our temperature regulation is by sweating. Yes, even while sweating most of your energy loss is through blackbody radiation, but, again, that remains pretty constant. It's not like we get a NET increase in thermoregulation (taking into account all other factors) if we get more blackbody radiation if our body temperatures go up, because that would cause a natural damping effect, which there isn't. It would essentially mean our body temperature couldn't rise, because temp rising could instantly cause more thermal loss, negating any possible temp rise. Of course that's not the case, so the increased blackbody radiation from simply having a higher body temperature is actually negligible, compared to the amount of energy we receive back in the form of heat from our surroundings (blackbody from all the objects around us, and convective/conductive impact from the air - especially in a humid air.

[@marinar9899]

Absolutely agree! Human body has different mechanisms to adapt to variety of temperatures. People leaving in central Mexico or Africa would be extinct if it was true.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

climate.nasa.gov/system/internal_resources/details/original/2530_heathumidity_20200508_noaa_alt07.jpeg

[@simonpingon]

You are so f confusing...need to remember that not everybody is a technical wizaed

[@nero9506]

Would buying moisture absorbers, if someone didn't have an AC, technically help "cool down" your home? Of course it wouldn't literally cool it down, but wouldn't it prevent humidity saturation in the air inside your house? As long as the air inside the house is as isolated as possible from the outside, that is, so no open windows at all. I purposely said moisture absorbers and not electrical dehumidifiers cause I'd assume that the latter would pump extra heat inside your home regardless, so it would be pretty pointless.

[@CanadianPermacultureLegacy]

Pointless. It would be like trying to pee in the ocean to warm it up.

[@higheriam]

🌡️☠️ follow the science 🐄💨 . The problem with knowing it all, is you may not know all the factors of the cause or the cure.