WEBVTT - The Great Chinese Heatwave 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:10.040 Oh boy, it is behind the It Happened Could Here? 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:19.119 I'm Evans, Robert podcast song. Hello. Who else is on 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:24.439 the call? What are we doing? Where are we It's 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:28.840 it's it's me. Uh, it's Christopher Wong. I'm gonna talk 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:32.440 a lot this episode. There's also other people here. You are. Now, 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.280 before we get into that, I should note that we 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:38.520 were all just looking at the latest episode of podcast Magazine, 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:44.800 which of course we all read regularly, as I do 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:49.440 like that to describe you as uh uh, they describe 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:51.599 you in a few funny ways. Actually, yes they do. 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:55.760 It's a list of the most powerful people in podcasting. Um, 0:00:56.000 --> 0:01:01.080 of course got me obviously all the great On page 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.279 forty seven we have Robert Evans, who and they do 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.800 say that he has also undertaken an ambitious daily series 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:08.880 called It Could Happen Here that takes us on some 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:16.039 of the weightiest issues and problems facing policymakers. I will 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.360 say this, if you are a policy maker and you 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.000 have ever taken a policy suggestion from us, you have 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.320 a legal obligation to like light your own office on 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:27.720 fire with a molotov. I do like that. Robert Evans, 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.920 don't listen to Chris do it policymakers. I do like that. 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:36.360 Robert Evans is right above the serial creators, So that's 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.600 that is I'm above Trevor Noah. I mean, I don't. 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.760 I literally don't think it's like it listed, because there 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:46.360 is no way in in the list. Ben Shapiro is 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.720 above Joe Rogan, and that's just not not accurate to 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:53.000 the to the to the to the way the industry functions. 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.279 But it's a very silly listening. It's been fun reading 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.440 through our latest tissue of our favorite of our favorite 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.880 podcast magazine, podcast Magazine made by podcast News Daily, where 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.440 you can get all your news about podcasts. The thing 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:10.640 that I totally knew about for for I've known about 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:13.320 this for clearly for longer than fifteen minutes. Actually that's 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.079 that's not true. I've known about it for longer than 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:23.280 eight minutes. Maybe twelve. Yeah, m hmm. It's an amazing photo. 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:26.920 Was happy to get I was it. Was happy. Was 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:30.240 happy to get in some fine reading today. Uh So, anyway, 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.720 what's what's what's this? What's our episode actually about? That's 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:38.320 a great question. It's a podcast power rating episode. Yeah, yeah, 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.400 we're We're I don't even have any order to go 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:43.200 with that. No. The thing, the thing the episode is 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:47.480 actually about is heat waves, and very specifically a heat 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.880 wave in China that has been going on for Why 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:53.079 this is day seven as we're recording, this is day 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:56.480 seventy two. I think by by the time Let's Go 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:02.080 Out goes out, it will probably be like day seventy four. Um. Yeah, 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:07.760 And this is and and incomparable heat wave. I'm just 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.600 gonna read this from Axios. The extreme heat and drought 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.360 that has been vost roasting a vast swath of southern 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:17.320 China for at least seventy days straight has no parallel 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.680 and modern record keeping in China or anywhere else around 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:25.120 the world for that matter. Now, okay, so that sounds bad, right, 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.040 but it's actually worse than that, because okay, so if 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.240 if if if you were to read that, you you 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.440 might believe that this heat wave is just affecting southern China, 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.680 and that's like not true. It's also affecting northern China. 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:40.600 It is affecting like most of China. It's like affecting 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:47.880 almost like most people alive is nine million people, which 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:51.960 is like quick question, is that a lot? So okay, 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.040 so if if if you rank all the countries in 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.080 the world, right, the people affected by this heat wave 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:59.160 would be the third largest country in the world, only 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:04.000 behind in India. Okay, okay, so that's that's several people. 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.360 It's it's fun, is it? More people than the British 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:09.320 people who have been logging on to post about it 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:14.080 being like five degrees and them like, I do love. 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.440 One of the things that's keeping me alive during this 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.320 ugly summer is like all of the photos of British 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:21.920 people just getting as red as possible because they think 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:28.440 the tanning needs burning of your body. It's hard for 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:30.560 me to explain how difficult it was for me to 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:33.719 comprehend that in California they won't serve you if you 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.440 have your shirt off, because it is a national tradition 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:38.680 in Britain to take off your shirt and get as 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:41.880 much some known as possipital or if you're getting into 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.320 a fist fight as well. Well. The number of folks 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:51.160 pull their shirts off and fights in London. Yeah, it's 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.280 it's part of a natural heritage for many. It's it's 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:58.000 a beautiful country. But please continue, Chris, Yeah, okay, so 0:04:58.000 --> 0:04:59.880 so you know, to get a sense of like the 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.800 stakes of this, right, so okay, and like they just 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.680 just the sheer scale of this, because people is an 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.840 amount of people that like, we like is incomprehensible. You 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:14.600 think that's a number that's too large. So okay, Sichuan Province, right, 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.040 this is this is one province that is being affected 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:19.800 by this. This province has eighty three million people in it. 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:24.120 This is the entire combined population of California, Texas, Indiana, 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:28.159 and New York City. Um, here's here's in France twenty 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:32.039 four about what's happening here. Since July this year, the 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.120 province has faced the most extreme high temperatures, the lowest 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:39.200 rainfall in the corresponding period in history, and the highest 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:43.000 power load in history. Local authorities said, So, it is 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.800 hotter than it has ever been. It is drier than 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:48.960 it has ever been except and and this is the 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:52.000 fun part. This is the similar similar happening in Texas. 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:54.600 And I think, yeah, well, I'm texts probably the best 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.760 example this. Okay. So it's really really, really unbelievably dry, 0:05:57.760 --> 0:05:59.800 except for when there's giant flash floods and they've killed 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.400 twenty two people already have to have died from the 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:06.720 flash floods um the different province, but yeah, it is 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.440 unbelievably bleak um. One of the big things that's happening 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:15.119 is that the Yanksy River is like the lowest anyone 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.640 has ever seen it. Who's like, anyone alive has ever 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:19.640 seen it. It's the lowest we have recorded measurements of 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:23.440 because like, and this is everything is happening here, like 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:26.360 there is no record of it ever being this bad. 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:32.920 And this is a real problem because particularly in sich One, 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:38.039 because of this, province's power is drawn from hydro electric 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:42.799 and you know, it turns out it's it's really bad 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:44.720 if the rivers that you are relying on for your 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.240 hydro electric power are basically drying up. And like like 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.240 there's there's pictures of like like you can go find 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:51.800 pictures of this that there are pictures of the Yanksty 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.960 that like it looks like a riverbed on Mars, Like 0:06:55.040 --> 0:07:00.000 it is just just completely dry, like it's like dry 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:05.920 ragged stuff. It's really Again, this is just to kind 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:10.720 of bring out how worldwide this problem is. We're seeing 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.160 pieces of this everywhere else, right Like Texas, which is 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.480 also in a horrible drought, has been having flash floods 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.080 that have been disastrous recently because when it's been super 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:21.840 dry for a while and you have these these heavy rains, 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.720 it's it's a huge fucking problem. And you've got riverbeds 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.400 drying up all across the Southwest and things like Lake 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:30.040 Mead getting low enough that hydro electric power isn't going 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.320 to be reliable in a huge chunk about like the 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.880 the again, because it's important not to distract from like 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:37.960 what's happening in China, but because it's important, like this 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:42.239 is this is everybody, This is everybody, yes in India 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:46.040 all over yeah yeah, and and you know, okay, so 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:49.760 the seat wave in China, like there's been very very 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.720 little English coverage of it, and the thing everyone focuses 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.000 on is the fact that like the power out ofgy well, 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.760 the the reduced ability to generate power and the fact 0:07:57.800 --> 0:07:59.280 that everyone has to turn on the air conditions so 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.840 not like literally die is you know, it's wreaking havoc 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:04.920 on China set of productive capacity since such one has 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:10.480 like there there there's an enormous like industrial base there 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:12.920 that you know, produce stuff from everything from like Tesla 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:14.680 to apple. And this is what the sort of the 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.320 anglephone media cares about, right, like everything that almost everything 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:19.720 written about the heat wave is about this effect on 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:22.240 like supply chain disruption, disruption to like semi conduct your 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.000 production and like batteries for electronics, on and so forth. 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:28.000 And I do not give a shit about this, um 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:29.360 And the reason I don't give a shit about this 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.880 is because the actual human impact of this is just 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:37.400 sort of unfathomable, and the media outlets we're talking about 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.880 it like don't seem to be paying attention to it 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.559 at all. Um So, while I was originally okay, so 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.480 uh when I when I was originally writing part of 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.240 this episode, I went and like looked back at weather 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.920 data for Shanghai, and so okay, when I was running 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.079 this on August, that day was a hundred and three 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.280 in Shanghai, like two weeks before that, it was a 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.679 hundred and eleven. And I found out that from July 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:10.440 to August, the like the high temperature, like the daily 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:14.240 high temperature like did not go below a hundred. On 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:17.720 the one it finally rained and that dropped the temperature 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:23.440 to merely four. I think either tomorrow today or tomorrow, 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:28.040 I think it will go below ninety. This is at 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:30.480 now this is this is this is this is the 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:32.040 temperature of the day. But after you in the night 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:34.000 aren't going below like seventy either, then a lot a 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.480 lot of times are the eighties or nineties. And and 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.000 that the temperature at night does just for people who 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.640 are not aware of like heat. One of the things 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.480 that's most important for like the survivability of a heat 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:48.440 wave is whether or not it gets cool at night, 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:51.400 because you can survive pretty hot temperatures during the day 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:53.679 if you were able to cool your body down at night. 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.040 It's one of the like one of the saving graces 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:58.720 the Pacific Northwest end during its heat waves. But yeah, 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:00.640 and and this is this is a real like so Chunking, 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:04.040 which is an enormous city. It has nine million people 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:07.640 like regularly in the city. It's Chunking. The city is 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.160 also the municipal like government there, so there's a whole 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.280 sort of complicated thing there. But like the municipality of 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.000 Chunking is thirty two million people in it. Uh. They 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.640 had a night I a couple I think a couple 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.199 of weeks ago that was ninety four point eight degrees 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:25.360 and which is again like that is a night that 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.880 is significantly hotter than the average summer day. And you know, 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:31.240 I mean, like I want to go back to Shanghai 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:35.400 for just like a second, because like, Shanghai, I looked this, 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.440 I I looked this up. Shanghai has not had a 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:41.040 day where the high has been below eighty nine degrees 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:45.160 for two consecutive days since mid June. It has been 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:49.400 over ninety degrees every single day, like with without two 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:51.800 days back to back. It wasn't that hot since mid June. 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:55.720 Um and you know, okay, so like the theft, this 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.600 is having enormous effects. One of the big ones, the 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:02.640 most noticeable ones, is lie Basically like any excess power 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:04.720 usage that a city can have is just getting shut off. 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.000 There's been a lot of uh, there's been a lot 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.160 of stuff where like businesses aren't allowed to open before 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.800 like four pm because it's literally just too hot and 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:17.320 you can't deal with electricity load and yeah, like and 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:18.960 you know the other the other problem here again it's 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:20.559 like it's not cooling off at night. And if it's 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.760 not cooling off at night, yeah like that this is 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:28.280 this is the thing that kills people, um and so well, 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:29.559 the one of the things I want to talk about 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:31.720 this is just like looking at this, looking at what 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.520 this looks like on like a very very granular individual level, 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:38.920 because this stuff also just sort of gets ignored. Um, 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.360 there is a really horrible story in six Tone, which 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.880 is like it's hard to describe them. So six Tone 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.880 is a state media outlet, but they're like, I don't know, 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:51.240 I guess you consider them like they're they're like the 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.640 left wing state media outlet, which means that like they 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.800 have somewhat more like editorial independence than like something like 0:11:57.880 --> 0:11:59.280 China Daily or like a lot of the other state 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:03.240 when they and they like they criticize the government a 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.480 lot more than uh, most of the sort of state 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:11.000 run outlets. And they did this story about a migrant 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.560 worker who was working at a freight depot about like 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:15.800 he's this is this is depots about like two and 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.720 a half hours outside of Shanghai, and Okay, so he's 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:24.440 he's working and it is you know, it is it 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.880 is unbelievably hot. I think I think the last day 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.120 that he's working here, it's a hundred and four degrees 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:32.640 and that night it only cooled off to eight four. 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:35.640 Here's from six Tone about sort of just the conditions 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.560 that people are working in here on the hottest days, 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:40.480 the temper side of the carriages is at least fifty 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.280 degrees celsius, which is a hundred and twenty two degrees fahrenheit. 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.520 Says you. He had Dong, a worker from Drunk c 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:49.400 and other Inland province. It feels like you're on fire 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:54.079 standing here. Around noon, his employer, an outsourcing agency, hands 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:56.840 out heat stroke profession drugs, which he takes twice a day. 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.360 At the freight depot. Managers sit in air condition rooms, 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.480 but workers like him rest under trees. The office is 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:07.400 not for us, you says, now, okay. In theory, under 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.280 Chinese law, if it hits a hundred and four degrees 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:12.720 outdoor work is supposed to immediately stop, and you're supposed 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.160 to move everyone indoors and like give them water and stuff. 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.000 Because it turns out if you're working like a hard 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.440 many or labor job outside and hundred and four, you 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:24.360 might die. But you know you and you're you're supposed 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.680 to get paid heat breaks and like you know, as 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.320 as anyone who is familiar with, for example, how American 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.640 farm labor works, you know what happens about to happen next? Uh, 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:35.320 it turns out that, you know, okay, so you can 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:37.280 take a break, but your employers won't pay you for it, 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.920 because like they don't know who's who, who's gonna at 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:42.640 who's gonna atually force them to do it. John, who's 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.400 the work of the story is about, you know, is 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.600 extremely poor. His family is poor. He's trying to support 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.440 a family like back home because again he's he's a 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:57.440 migrant worker, and he you know, he can't he can't 0:13:57.440 --> 0:13:59.080 afford to take a break on his ship. So he 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.600 doesn't die, and so he he literally collapses on the 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:06.360 job and then gets back up and finishes his work, 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.240 and he tries to cool down by like laying in 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.240 his tiny, young, un air conditioned apartments with like an 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.960 electric fan pointed at his head. And he died on 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:18.640 a bed that was held up by two broken cinder blocks, 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:26.800 making maybe four dollars an hour. Yeah, and you know, yeah, 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:28.520 and I mean, you know, the the thing about this, 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.360 right is so in theory he's working for for a 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:34.200 state owned company, right, but you know, as as as 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:35.800 we talked about like a little bit in that the 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.200 sort of quote earlier, he's not actually working for the 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:41.120 state owned firm what he's working for is one of 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.160 these like labor agencies, which are these like sort of 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.360 contracting things that allow you to actually get a job. 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:49.400 But you know what what happens is that the state 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:52.080 owned firms like outsourced of labor to the to these 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.880 contracting firms, and the contracting firms just like pick people 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:57.120 up and bring him to the side. But this means 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:00.200 he doesn't have a contract. And the problem is if 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.160 you don't have if you don't have a contract right, 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.440 you can't get any government benefits, you can't get insurance. 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.560 And it turns out this matters because you know China, 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.160 China has like a payout right that they're supposed to 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.840 pay to families when you know, if someone dies in 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:16.920 the job. But you know, it's almost impossible to collect, 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:19.600 especially if you don't have a contract. It is it 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:24.400 is almost impossible to to get this thing. Um And 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:26.720 you know, like this is this is how like most 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:30.040 of the Chinese economy works. The Chinese General Trong calculated 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.320 that in funk One, which is one of like China's 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.480 big industrial cities, if companies actually paid out the insurance 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.640 benefits they were legally required to pay out, it would 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.200 cut corporate profit by and bankrupt, like most of the 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.960 company's working here. You know, the entire economy is based 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:52.280 on this. And Jong's family drives like three d and 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.280 fifty miles to the city where he died and starts 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.680 like harassing government officials and bosses for like literally weeks. 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:01.200 They are trying to get people to like, hey, you know, 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:03.560 will you pay out the insurance money you're legally required 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:09.400 to pay us? And they refuse, like the local officials 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:12.120 like won't even give them like surveillance footage of like 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:16.160 what like of him on the job dying. And you know, 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:20.040 after like several weeks of his like four or five weeks, 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:22.080 their finally able to get a sixth of the money 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:23.920 they're supposed to get if you die if someone dies 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.760 under sort of like there's they're able to get a 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:27.960 sixth of the money that you're supposed to get in 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:29.760 a Chinese law if one of your family embers dies 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.200 in the workplace. And you know, I'm focusing on this 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.000 story because it's one of the few stories that we 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.920 have directly about sort of the sheer magnitude of the 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:43.320 suffering the heat waves is causing and part of part 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:45.040 of what's going on here is that we don't know 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.200 what the death told heat wave is. There's there's nothing 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:50.320 about it, right. You'll see a couple of reports talk 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:52.600 about like two or three heat related deaths, but it's 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.160 it is literally impossible that there are that few deaths. 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.000 Um there there there was a study in the journal 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.040 Lancet that was looking heat related deaths in China over 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.560 the last thirty years and it showed that like heat 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:07.960 related deaths have died increased by a factor of four 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.200 since and you know, so there was there was another 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:12.800 heat wave in China that was like pretty bad in 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:18.879 twenty nineteen, and they calculated that eight hundred people have 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:22.480 died from heat related deaths Jesus, and you know, and 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.400 again that that that heat wave, heat wave was pretty bad. 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:30.000 This heat wave, like it has just utterly destroyed every 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.800 single record that heat waves set, Like it is in 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.120 like its own universe of heat waves. So it has 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:38.640 killed like probably by the end of this it will 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:45.520 have killed like tens of thousands of people, yep. And yeah, 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:49.040 which is really bleak. And you know what I mean. 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:50.360 I think like part of the reason also I wanted 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:52.359 to talk about like the specific story is that like 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.760 you know, so the weather itself like is trying to 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:00.760 get like is enough to kill you, right, But like okay, 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:05.400 so like this like this kind of heat is survivable 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.280 if like you know, if if if you're in a 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.280 situation where you can be inside and where you can 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:12.800 be hydrated and stuff like that. But you know, hey, 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:14.960 capitalism exists. I means you have to keep working during 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:19.600 this ship and that's just going to keep killing people. UM. 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:21.600 I wanted to sort of also look at sort of 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:23.640 some of the historical heat waves to also to get 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.159 a sense of how many people like probably died in 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.320 this one. Um. I think like maybe the most famous 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:31.600 heat wave like in in my lifetime, well I tell 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.080 this one, I guess was that heat wave in europeousand 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:39.920 three and that one killed something like seventy people. Um. 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:41.920 And there's a lot of very interesting stuff that we 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:44.320 learned from this heat wave about what heat waves to you. 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.000 It's sort of in general. The United Nations, like in 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.159 finne mental program like released a report about this, and 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:52.000 there's a lot of really interesting stuff in it. I mean, okay, 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:53.800 so the obvious one is that this has a massive 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:58.400 effect on agriculture, which okay, Yeah, Like you can ask 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:00.080 a four year old and they will tell you that it. 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.080 I this is bad, and this is happening. This is 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:07.520 affecting China right now too, because um, this drought is 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:09.520 hitting like right in the middle of a lot of 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:13.639 China's bread basket. So yeah, there's all these sort of 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:18.639 like downstream effects that we'll see later. Um. One of 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:21.000 the other fun parts about this this is when she 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:23.400 doesn't three heat wave. I'm just gonna read this quote. 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.719 Massive alpine glaciers decreased by ten pc in two thousand 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:31.639 three and yeah, okay, so you know what you're seeing here, right, 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:35.000 is this sort of sickler thing where each each heat wave, 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:36.800 you know, does things like melt glaciers, right, and that 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:38.920 makes the next heat wave worse because when when you 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:41.720 when you lose glacier mass, you're you're you're you're losing 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.760 surface area that reflects light, which increases level of warming. 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:45.879 And this is sort of you know, this is one 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:52.560 of the sort of feedback loops that we're we're dealing with. Um. Uh, 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:54.800 you know another thing that we've been seeing a lot 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.919 in the US had this like pretty badly. I mean, 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:00.879 I guess like anyone who lives the specific Northwest like 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:05.800 understands this. There's just there are just fires constantly because 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:07.520 it turns out that when it's really hot, things just 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.040 lead on fire. Um. In the in the two thousand 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:13.720 three one there were twenty five thousand fires and they 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:17.359 burned something like six fifty thousand head acres of forest. 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.080 And even the places it didn't burn, it causes sort 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:26.760 of like severe, severe ecological damage to these forests because 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:32.400 like the they the heat leaves trees, for example, like 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:34.760 a lot weaker than's supposed to mean. This leads in 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:37.399 vulnerable to things like plagues, into like into the waves 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:40.040 of insects and this. You know, like everything that's happening 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.200 here with these heat waves, like we weakens the environments 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.320 that are supposed to be sort of like mitigating the 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:50.040 effects of climate change. Um So we also like on 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:51.960 the sort of like human front. We we talked about 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:55.800 how heat waves can knock out uh, heat waves can 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:57.840 knock out hydro electric power. It turns out they can 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:01.520 also knock out nuclear power plants because nuclear power plants 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.639 rely on like dumping their cooling water back into rivers. 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.280 Now there's like there's there's legal limits on how hot 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:10.600 like the water you can dump into these rivers is 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:13.000 supposed to be. Because it turns out, you know, if okay, 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:14.359 if you have a bunch of boiling water into the 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:16.960 river is gonna kill everything in it. But as the 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.800 sort of cooling process like gets more difficult because the 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.520 water levels are lower, you have to take power plants 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:26.119 offline because otherwise you're going to just kill everything in 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:28.679 the river. When you when you're venting your sort of 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.000 exhaust heat and into it got into three. It gets 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:35.280 bad enough that like a bunch of companies get exemptions 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:36.960 right there, like okay, it's an emergency, we can turn 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:38.480 this on. We can like we can vent all this 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:40.919