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Earth News

NOAA Report: World Labor Capacity Dropping Because of Increased Temperatures 337

pigrabbitbear writes with a story about some interesting possible effects of Global Warming. From the article: "It's a good thing that robots are stealing our jobs, because in about thirty-five years, nobody in their right mind is going to want to do them. Scientists from NOAA just published a report ... that details how a warming climate impacts the way we work, and the results are pretty clear — we do less of it. NOAA discovered that over the last 60 years, the hotter, wetter climate has decreased human labor capacity by 10%. And it projects that by 2050, that number will double."
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NOAA Report: World Labor Capacity Dropping Because of Increased Temperatures

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @11:21AM (#43024453)

    Global Warming is there anything it cannot do?

  • by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @11:22AM (#43024465)

    Is there anything bad in the world that is not caused by global warming?

  • Doubt (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Bigby ( 659157 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @11:23AM (#43024473)

    Talk about a study that has too many variables to conclude something so major... How did they eliminate the effect of today's technology and culture on work ethic and demand? Among the thousands of other variables...

    5 degrees isn't going to reduce overall labor by 5%, let alone 10%. And the 10% is considered with far less than 5 degrees in increased temperature.

  • Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportland&yahoo,com> on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @11:28AM (#43024539) Homepage Journal

    Man doesn't understand report, calls it 'dumb'. News at 11.

    Alternatively:

    Yeah, it's the report that's dumb~

  • by EmagGeek ( 574360 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @11:32AM (#43024605) Journal

    Global warming theoretically might cause increased competition for resources. Increased competition for resources sometimes leads to armed conflict. Armed conflict over resources sometimes results in the US getting involved militarily. The US sometimes uses drones when it is so involved.

    Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that global warming definitely causes drone strikes.

  • by h4rr4r ( 612664 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @11:35AM (#43024635)

    Up to a limit yes.

    Visit a nice tropical nation and look around vs North America or Northern Europe.

    In one climate you can survive without any effort, in the other you will work or die outside in the winter.

    Obviously once it gets cold enough that also impacts how much work can get done since now all energy must go into just not freezing to death.

  • Re:Doubt (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @11:40AM (#43024701)

    From Jamesl in "Below the headline...

    --- ... far below the headline ...

    Uncertainties and caveats associated with these projections include climate sensitivity, climate warming patterns, CO2 emissions, future population distributions, and technological and societal change.

    Because this is after all, just a projection based on computer models. And we know how well they work "out of sample."
    ---
    Spot on. In other words, they make a statement and then say that it could be wrong based on just about everything.

    Garbage.

  • by CanHasDIY ( 1672858 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @11:43AM (#43024731) Homepage Journal

    Why are drone strike bad?

    A) summary executions of American citizens, thereby denying due process, and B) exceedingly high rate of innocent civilian casualties.

    There are vilified becasue of the accuracy and effectiveness. .

    Which I'm certain is a fully evidence-based assertion, right?

  • Re:Jaw drop (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @11:43AM (#43024735)

    How else can they justify the 70+ Billion dollars [dailycaller.com] on climate change research?

    Got to produce reports!

  • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @11:50AM (#43024811)

    Somebody should invent some way to cool the air down.

    Moron. It's not about office workers. RTFA.

    The impact will be felt the most by those who work outside or in hot environments, such as firefighters, bakery workers, farmers, construction workers, factory workers, and others who will be forced to slow down due to increases in heat and humidity.

    Let me know when you can aircondition a farm or construction site.

  • Re:Jaw drop (Score:5, Insightful)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportland&yahoo,com> on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @11:57AM (#43024891) Homepage Journal

    If only there was a paper explaining it~

    Did you read the paper? if so please show me where it's rubbish. If not, STFU and let us adults who have read the paper talk about it, m'kay?

    . One heat-stress metric with broad occupational health applications4, 5, 6 is wet-bulb globe temperature. We combine wet-bulb globe temperatures from global climate historical reanalysis7 and Earth System Model (ESM2M) projections8, 9, 10 with industrial4 and military5 guidelines for an acclimated individual’s occupational capacity to safely perform sustained labour under environmental heat stress (labour capacity)"

    SO they took known data involving sustaining labour under heat stressed and applied it to the climate change.

    They aren't making data up.

    YOU otoh are claiming an increase in temperature does not effect production based on..what, your ass?
    please, tell me, specifically, what you find wrong with the report:
    http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/nclimate1827-s1.pdf [nature.com]

  • Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sockatume ( 732728 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @12:23PM (#43025211)

    This isn't about pointing to a change and saying "this was caused by that". This is about taking what we now know about the effect of heat stress on labour output (as determined by the US military, for example), looking at the change in climate in the tropical regions, and looking at how that change in heat stress should have affected labour output, and how it should affect labour output in the future.

    They've created a model based on empirical data, tested it against historical results, and projected it into the future with a testable prediction. The "climate science isn't science because it's not experimental" crowd should be here imminently.

  • by Lluc ( 703772 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @12:24PM (#43025223)
    Puerto Rico is not a country. It is a territory of the United States. It has some fringe elements who want to establish an independent country, perhaps like a few fringe elements in the American Southeast who want still want to secede in the Civil War fashion. Some people want Puerto Rico to become the 51st state, but this is also somewhat unlikely since it is an income tax haven for its wealthiest residents.
  • No kidding... (Score:0, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @12:36PM (#43025387)

    I see that whoever did these studies, never seen a Mexican construction crew in August here in Georgia - in 100+ heat.

    And they got their work done well and on time.

    I'll bet they never saw a crew of them in Texas either, working in 110+ heat.

    The reduced labor output is not because of the global warming... it's caused by unbridled growth of the FSA, socialism and the welfare state. Too many people living on the dole that don't want to work. Those who do want to earn an honest living and try to better their financial position are indeed not afraid of hard work, and despite the bad economy there is work available. Maybe not the work you'd like, but in a pinch, any job is a job... and those of us who are working hard are getting tired of paying dearly for those who don't want to, and it's going to come to a breaking point soon.

  • Re:Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by megamerican ( 1073936 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @12:37PM (#43025399)

    They base their finding on a climate model which like most climate models, are always inaccurate.

    They also assume that at these temperatures people would be working the same hours. They could easily work at night and since there is a push with the smart grid to pay for the time of use, working at non-peak hours would save costs on energy.

    This is nothing but pure speculation based on an unproven hypothetical situation to drive a political agenda. Welcome to modern science.

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