I noticed this Summer I started transitioning my morning walks to pre-sunrise hours to try to escape the heat (since even mornings in Ohio are getting to be hot). Since global warming (or climate change in general) is happening and there’s apparently nothing to be done to fix it in our lifetimes, it made me wonder if our overall society might move towards more nocturnal working hours instead of the standard 9–5, just to escape overheating during the day?
There’s probably no incentive currently, since workers aren’t dropping like flies yet, but I could see it coming into play as global warming gets worse over time and it causes legitimate production issues. Probably some jobs wouldn’t have the option, but most I think would be able to benefit from it. Does this sound like something realistic, or are we cursed to have to endure extreme temperatures because we’ve always worked in the daytime and we can’t/won’t change now?
I would be happy to see morning people get the shit end of the stick, finally.
I heard recently that about 8x more people die from excess cold than from excess heat.
Plants don’t grow without light. Plants can’t survive extreme heat and drought.
Once it gets too hot or too dry to grow crops, it won’t matter anymore. Call me a doomer, but we aren’t doing enough to stop that future from happening.
Idk, our crops can’t survive extreme heat and drought but certainly there is life in a desert. The ol’ Carlin bit of the world will be just fine and all. But, you have to consider the fact that we have always migrated in the past during extreme climate changes and will have to do so in the future if it continues. There is plenty of places like Canada where the climate change will boost some sectors. Same with the fact Antarctica used to be tropical, we’ll just huddle around the proverbial fires of our community wherever they need to go to survive.
We don’t grow our crops in a desert. They grow in very specific regions of the world, often in areas that are suitable due to natural formations and easily obtainable water. Most of Canada is forested land that is uninhabited with no infrastructure such as roads, running water, or electricity - not to mention there has never been a large agricultural presence in those areas, so it would have to be started from scratch, if it is possible at all.
When you say we’ll huddle around the proverbial fires, it might be a very small human population. Our civilization (likely including both of us) probably won’t be around at that point.
The thing is also, the models work reasonably well on the global scale, but the local scale is something different. Whoever did work in climate change impacts knows that we still work mostly in darkness and just try to prepare for the worst.
The climate is no simple thing. Who knows, maybe some weird shit with the ocean will happen and increase the rainfalls over northern africa by 500% and the Sahara becomes a jungle. Probably unlikely, but we don’t really know.
Finally all you fucks will work on my schedule! Night owls unite!
I think the key is just avoiding the heat of the day. A lot of Mediterranean societies already have slow hours during the hottest times (the clearest example being the Spanish Siesta) and it makes a lot of fucking sense.
I doubt we’d move fully nocturnal but normalizing long midday breaks would be excellent - the main impediment is probably our shitty commute oriented society… if it takes you 15 minutes to get home it’s quite reasonable to head home at lunch - if it takes you an hour and a half it’s impossible.
I used to work exclusively night shift and it was such a pain getting anything done that required me to go into a government office or a bank or any of those “respectable” businesses that only operate during the day time, since I was typically sleeping til 4pm usually right before I needed to go to work. It was literally night and day switching to 1st shift.
What were your hours? i love night shift because it allows me to take care of whatever i need to during the day when everything is open.
i work 20-6
No human society in any climate has ever been nocturnal: https://web.archive.org/web/20030318032208/http://condor.depaul.edu/~mfiddler/hyphen/humunivers.htm
No, but a lot of communities in hotter climates have integrated habits like siestas, where breaks including are taken in the hottest part of the day. I can see that being adopted more, especially in cases when wet bulb temperatures exceed the human body’s capacity to cool itself.
I also know that a lot of construction activities in Phoenix and Las Vegas in the summer months are scheduled towards early morning due to the heat. They might work an hour or two in twilight and then finish work by early afternoon.
I expect schedules to change, but I don’t see going full nocturnal.
