The new edition of Catan is designed to tackle the climate crisis
Building with minimal pollution is the challenge of the board game Catan: New Energies. The classic board game Catan has launched a new edition with
Research by the US space agency NASA points to the Algarve region as the most critical in the face of climate change in Portugal.
An analysis of four decades of data from thousands of weather stations shows that the regions of South Asia, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea will be the most affected by a mixture of heat and humidity in the nearer future than expected. The study concludes that several of the world’s hot and humid cities will cease to have the living conditions we know today within the next 30 to 50 years, sooner than previously thought.
The regions will be at risk due to the combination of rising temperatures (which will be around 35 ºC) and relative humidity set at 100%. This means that even those who are best adapted to these environments will not be able to carry out their normal activities at room temperature.
“The ability of humans to efficiently dissipate heat has allowed us to travel to all continents, but a wet bulb temperature (WBT) [a temperatura mais baixa a que o ar pode ser arrefecido através da evaporação] of 35 °C marks our upper physiological limit, and much lower values have serious impacts on health and productivity. Climate models project the first occurrences of 35 °C WOT in the middle of the 21st century. However, a thorough evaluation of weather station data shows that some subtropical coastal locations have already experienced 35 °C TW and that global extreme humid heat has more than doubled in frequency since 1979,” reads the report. “These trends highlight the magnitude of the changes that have occurred as a result of global warming to date.”
According to the estimates, the most vulnerable areas include South Asia, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, with temperatures regularly exceeding 35 ºC by 2050. Eastern China, parts of Southeast Asia and Brazil will follow by 2070.
In Portugal, in addition to the Algarve, where temperatures could reach 29 ºC (along with 100% relative humidity), the regions of Lisbon, Alentejo and the northwest of the country (including the districts of Porto, Braga and Viana do Castelo) will be the worst affected.
“Once the wet bulb temperature exceeds 35 ºC, no amount of perspiration or other adaptive behavior is enough to lower the body to a safe operating temperature. Most of the time, it’s not a problem, because the wet bulb temperature is usually 5 to 10 ºC lower than the body temperature, even in hot and humid places,” he explained Colin Raymond, one of the authors of the study that identified the “thermal frontier”. “Previous studies predicted that this would happen several decades from now, but this study shows that it’s happening right now.”
The researchers found that some individual spots – including coastlines along the Persian Gulf and river valleys in India and Pakistan – have already exceeded the 35°C wet bulb threshold, albeit only for an hour or two at a time. In 2017, wet bulb conditions exceeded 30 °C 1000 times – more than double the number recorded in 1979.
While previous studies have analyzed temperature records, this study adds a new perspective by linking temperature to humidity. The results “underline that their diverse, consequential and growing impacts represent a major social challenge for the coming decades,” concludes the research.
Building with minimal pollution is the challenge of the board game Catan: New Energies. The classic board game Catan has launched a new edition with
G20 countries such as Brazil, Germany, South Africa and Spain claim that a 2% tax on wealth would reduce inequality and raise funds to minimize
This article addresses an action that promotes the adoption of urgent measures to fight climate change and its impacts. SDG 13 also aims to improve education on climate change mitigation and impact reduction.
Esta publicação também está disponível em: Português (Portuguese (Portugal))
Para estar a par de tudo o que acontece na área da sustentabilidade, consumo responsável e impacto social.