Unresolved end to saeculum possibility?

[pbrower2a]

I have no doubt that global warming gone awry will be a huge disaster. The equatorial regions could end up with wet-bulb temperatures above human body heat, which will cause people to die if they are exposed to it for any extended time; in essence, the body cannot cool. The situation projected 50 years from now is monstrous. 

From Wikipedia:

Quote:When ambient temperature is excessive, humans and many other animals cool themselves below ambient by evaporative cooling of sweat (or other aqueous liquid; saliva in dogs, for example); this helps prevent potentially fatal hyperthermia. The effectiveness of evaporative cooling depends upon humidity. Wet-bulb temperature, which takes humidity into account, or more complex calculated quantities such as wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT), which also takes solar radiation into account, give useful indications of the degree of heat stress and are used by several agencies as the basis for heat-stress prevention guidelines. (Wet-bulb temperature is essentially the lowest skin temperature attainable by evaporative cooling at a given ambient temperature and humidity.)

A sustained wet-bulb temperature exceeding 35 °C (95 °F) is likely to be fatal even to fit and healthy people unclothed in the shade next to a fan; at this temperature, environmental heat gain instead of loss occurs. As of 2012, wet-bulb temperatures only very rarely exceeded 30 °C (86 °F) anywhere, although significant global warming may change this.[24][25]

In cases of heat stress caused by physical exertion, hot environments, or protective equipment, prevention or mitigation by frequent rest breaks, careful hydration, and monitoring body temperature should be attempted.[26] However, in situations demanding one is exposed to a hot environment for a prolonged period or must wear protective equipment, a personal cooling system is required as a matter of health and safety. There are a variety of active or passive personal cooling systems;[20] these can be categorized by their power sources and whether they are person- or vehicle-mounted.

Outside labor as in farming, construction, and the maintenance of infrastructure could become dangerous in the more frequent excesses of heat. Cooling someone who must work outdoors in such heat will itself require the expenditure of energy and thus waste heat that contributes to global warming, so we would end up with a vicious cycle. Air conditioning may cool one off significantly, but it warms the local climate.
In my case, the highest dew-point (and wet-bulb temperature) that I ever endured was 26 C (roughly 79 F) during the 1980 Texas heat wave in which Dallas reached a record high of 45C (113 F) twice. With the sort of grim humor that such a condition induces in me, I suggested that "Benito Mussolini is signing autographs" on one of those days, and "Hideki Tojo is signing autographs" on another after going through mobsters, Nazi and Stalinist butchers, serial killers, and such brigands as John Dillinger and Billy the Kid. I was saving Stalin for "114" and Hitler for "115". A 26 C wet-bulb thermometer reading is miserable. That is as cold as the temperature could get at night.   

That is before I begin to discuss inundation (Bangladesh) or desertification (Ukraine) of some of the world's most productive farmland. Ukraine gets such prosperity as it has by exporting grain often to poor countries in the Arab world; peasant farmers of Bangladesh may largely be feeding themselves and what passes as the middle class of Bangladesh, but they feed millions of fellow poor people. Obviously it is poor people who are most vulnerable to ruinous changes of agricultural production, and I am not going to say that well-off people have any more right to food than do poor people; such would be criminal talk of the genocidal category. 

If you thought such horrors as the Holocaust and the Holodomor unspeakable for scale (if not moral enormity), then wait till you contemplate the effects of global warming. The most devastating effects of global warming will not be a 50 C (122 F) reading in Phoenix; it will be wars that people rage because they must get food that is no longer there. Much as we glamorize electronics, entertainment, real estate, and finance, we cannot escape the necessity of agriculture. There is no technological fix for hunger. 

Tip-offs in America will be that Dallas will be about as hot as Phoenix is now, that Detroit will be about as hot as Memphis is now, and that Portland, Oregon will be as hot as Sacramento is now.  Tipoffs in Europe will be that the areas around Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Odessa will be too dry for wheat (which is the ideal crop for growing in the mid-latitudes in areas marginally moist enough to not be grazing land) and that London and Paris will have hot summers. 

Before:

After:


The stark red areas appearing in Spain are hot deserts suggesting an invasion by the Sahara. The light-orange zones that take over the eastern two thirds of the Hungarian plain, northern Serbia, lowlands of Bulgaria and Romania, practically all of Moldova, and southern and central Ukraine, while appearing in splotches in Poland and even Germany are semiarid areas too dry for non-irrigated farming -- even wheat. 
Global warming will consign millions to hunger and heatstroke if we do not stop it. Global warming is genocide.