Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Business Insider’s Harrison Jacobs, visiting Dubai is the equivalent to experiencing what our world will be like after it has been ravaged by global warming.
If you ever wondered what life will be like when climate change makes outside unlivable, Dubai can give you a good idea
HARRISON JACOBS
DEC 17, 2018, 10:30 AM…
As I hung out in Dubai last month, it struck me that the city’s severe climate and its adaptation to that climate was a good approximation of what I imagine living with the severe effects of climate change to be.
During Dubai’s long summer, stretching from mid-April through October, temperatures make it unbearable to be outside for more than a few minutes. Temperatures are regularly around 105 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius) and have gone as high as 119 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius), with plenty of humidity.
The city’s adaptation to that climate? A proliferation of interconnected climate-controlled spaces, including more than 65 malls, residential and office buildings with entire indoor cities attached, metros, and indoor parking lots.
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Meanwhile, for the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in Dubai who aren’t lucky enough to live in air-conditioned megacomplexes, Dubai can be a hellscape during the summer – just as the climate might be for the developing countries that will be hardest hit by the effects of climate change.
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If I was going to take a guess at where our hyper-consumerist world is heading in the event the world can’t get its act together on climate change, I’d say it’s going to look a lot like Dubai.
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Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/dubai-indoors-climate-change-future-2018-12
I’m not sure how the people of Dubai feel about a green journalist describing their beautiful and popular city as an unsurvivable hellscape. Last time I visited Dubai it seemed quite pleasant, amazing shops, nice beaches, polite and friendly people.
Some of the taxi drivers were a bit useless, but I wouldn’t describe my Dubai taxi experience as “unsurvivable hell” – they all tried their best. Some of the drivers had interesting stories, like the driver who used to be a Mujahideen during the Soviet occupation. But I never felt unsafe – I got the strong impression that most people relocate to Dubai to leave their old problems behind.
Dubai certainly has a warm climate – but this is not a big deal if you are used to warm climates.
‘a good approximation of what I imagine living with the severe effects of climate change to be.’
Well, at least he’s admitting it’s all his imagination. Like 97% of the rest of it.
These guys are real pikers. James Hansen said that the earth would become like Venus.
Many people consider, say, NYC or LA to be hellholes. They address the problem by living somewhere else.
And if this person doesn’t like Dubai after development, he should have tried it before..
Harrison Jacobs could have at least thrown in the obligatory “it’s like living with a million Hiroshima atom bombs going off every day….” type of idiocy. C”mon Harrison, step up your BS.
I have always believed that “Business Insider” is no more about business than the movie Monkey Business was about business. A better name for “Business Insider” should be “Millennials Without Real Jobs”
BI has done some good exposés of Tesla this year.
The guy needs to visit Phoenix in July. I lived there 10 years and for me the weather was nearly the only good thing about that city.
I am getting a pop up ad when on my iPhone but not on my Mac again. Can’t view site at all when on my phone. Sorry to be off topic.
The average CONUS temperature is presently about 55F. In Florida, the average is about 68F. So why wait till 2100? Just move from most anywhere in the US to Florida and experience what a 3F or more rise will feel like.
Which neatly illustrates the lack of logical thinking of Mr Jacobs and his ilk. To raise the average temperature of CONUS to that of Florida would need a warming of a wee bit more than 3F and to that of Dubai, throttles to the firewall (in pilot speak)
The key phrase is “I imagine.”
Climate change exists predominantly within the imaginations and the models.
Federer lives there,practises outside etc.How bad can it be ?
His piece illustrates the effect of alarmist narratives on some of the utterly uninformed. I hadn’t realized it, but some of them aren’t thinking in terms of a rise of five degrees (max.) by 2100, but many times that. Incredible.
Indeed. that what happens when you show the uninformed scary graphs that show large movement upwards (because the scale of the chart is in fractions of a degree) when the actual change thus far is barely a blip on the thermometer (not even noticeable to the naked eye, and smaller than the error bars for reading said thermometer) – it’s the equivalent of making a molehill look like a mountain.
so how is this different from Dubai before Globul warming? aside from fewer air conditioned buildings?
the well off Arabs head for their summer playground – London, so who cares what the weather in Dubai summer is. The Marriott Grosvenor Square parking area was full of their Lambos, and Ferraris. I suppose those staying at top flight hotels have Bugatti’s. I don’t know if those were their London cars, or do they have them flown in for the summer?
During Dubai’s long summer, stretching from mid-April through October, temperatures make it unbearable to be outside for more than a few minutes.
Wow, what a wimp.
Because of Diera (sp?) creek, Dubai can be pleasant. Doha on the other hand just sucks.
Deira
Or, to visit a hellscape that might represent the world if the greenies have their renewable energy dreams fullfilled, North Korea can be dark, cold and hellish.
At least Mr. Worrel was honest enough (” a good approximation of what I imagine living with the severe effects of climate change to be”) to tell us he was just making it up as he went along.
you mean Mr. Jacobs was honest enough to tell us he was making it up as he went along as the quote you mention comes from Mr. Jacobs’ article that Mr. Worrel was reporting on.
The climate in Dubai isnt any hotter than it has ever been. It is in a desert. According to Al Gore’s Church of climatology, deserts won’t get any hotter than now even with runaway global warming. That is because there is little water vapour to increase the temperature as per the Church’s CAGW theory. So if runaway global warming occurs we can all move to the Sahara. Even 11 billion people could fit into the Sahara. I guess cactus could be the main food staple. CAGW is such a farce.
Gee, Dubai sounds a lot like where I live in the low part of the Victorian high country in Australia.
Summer, generally hot and dry. Temperatures up to 43 degrees C every summer, although not for more than a few days at a time. Lots of temps in the very high 30’s. The view from my house is one of verdant abundance. Sure a bit burns off ( dries out ) but once the autumn comes its back to green and then down to the minus 2 degrees C. What a hell hole.
Yes, Dubai must be unsurvivable. That would be why Roger Federer does his training there.
Fed has a house there, too.
Dubai is a beautiful and pleasant place to be, the Monaco of the Middle East. I was fortunate to attend an endodontic conference there a few years ago.
As I walked beside the clear blue sea feeling the balmy air and a backdrop of palm trees and attractive architecture, I can’t really say that I felt “ravaged” at all by the climate and environment.
But then, I’m not a climate scientist, what would I know?
People who complain about living in Dubai should have visited it before the widespread introduction of air-conditioning occurred. Those who visit Dubai in July, need to consult the climate charts in advance and reconsider the need to travel. January in Dubai is great.
Next time this guy should fly, swim, walk to Pyongyang and hang in it’s suburbs until cleared to leave after successfully attending political reeducation facilities.
Almost no cars, frequent electricity outages, heating is a luxury few can afford, not even stray animals, mice, rats, as all that could be, dissidents inclusive, was eaten long ago.
Earth day every day, I still wonder why no greens expat there.
My wife and I were in Dubai back in October … no problems at all. Used Uber instead of taxis, only UberX mind you (the standard service) and both times we were picked up by a driver in a Lexus. Yes, everyone was polite, the mall we visited was as good as any I have seen (great food court), and the hotel was top notch despite not being expensive (unless you worry about alcohol prices).
Harrison Jacobs is apparently unaware of Hadley Circulaton. Winds are generally from West to East from around 60 to 30 degrees North and South, generally East to West from the Equator to 30 degrees North and South, thanks to the spin of the Earth, the Coriolis effect, and differential heating at the Equator and Poles.
The Horse Latitudes or Doldrums, form two belts around the Earth around 30 degrees North and South. Along those bands there are plenty of deserts, and it gets extra hot, as evaporating water in those latitudes doesn’t rise and carry away latent heat as it does in other regions. They may shift Northward or Southward depending on global warming or cooling, but they’re going to exist as long as the Earth has an atmosphere and continues to rotate . Dubai is in that desert region around the horse latitudes.
“Migrant workers.” Call them what they are-slaves. They are lured there promised good wages, instead, they live in miserable conditions, have they passports confiscated as soon as they arrive and don’t get them back until they have paid their transportation to Dubai and back home. Meanwhile, the charges for their “housing” and food is more than enough to make sure that they never can go back home. Dubai is, I believe, the only country in the world where they will throw you in jail until you pay your debts.