As climate change accelerates, much attention is given to effects like rising seas, and increased weather variability. Often overlooked is the temperature itself, and the direct impact warmer temperatures will have on our ability to maintain infrastructure, our health, agriculture, and our ability to live in certain parts of the world. As the temperature rises, so will the risk that the very fabric of modern society simply evaporates.

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Chapters

08:58 How will Modern Infrastructure Adapt to Heat?

10:18 Transportation

17:45 Energy

22:56 Renewable Energy

25:24 Animals and Crops

32:50 Human Health

44:20 Pakistan and India

46:24 Wet-Bulb

52:41 Future Temperatures

1:01:23 Variable Benchmarks

1:02:53 What Can We Do?

Listener Correction:

Correction submitted by a listener with education in metallurgy and material science, and experience in a metals heat treating facility:

I wanted to correct a small detail in your show "Heat Death". ... You mentioned that rails change crystal structure in increased heat. That is not correct in the environment that rail roads would be subjected to. Steel does not undergo a phase transformation until around 1500 F (slight variations on that temperature depdning on the alloy of steel). The friction from the car moving on the rail would not generate that much heat to cause that transformation. Even if the pressures were huge it would actually suppress phase changes. ... What does cause the rails to warp from high temperatures is that the steel expands slightly. The expansion will generally happen in the direction the steel was rolled during manufacturing. Miles and miles of rails expanding along the track direction generates enough compressive stress for the steel to buckle outwards. This expansion isn't the crystal structure changing, but atoms just becoming more energetic and taking up slightly more space in their lattice multiplied by the huge number of atoms there are in rail road tracks.

Sources

Weather related deaths in the US: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats/resources/weather_fatalities.pdf

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