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SCIENCE Wednesday 6 May 2020
Billions projected to suffer nearly unlivable heat in 2070

By SETH BORENSTEIN Nanjing University in China.
AP Science Writer With enough money, "you
KENSINGTON, Maryland can actually live on the
(AP) — In just 50 years, 2 moon," Scheffer said. But
billion to 3.5 billion people, these projections are "un-
mostly the poor who can't livable for the ordinary, for
afford air conditioning, will poor people, for the aver-
be living in a climate that age world citizen."
historically has been too Places like impoverished
hot to handle, a new study Nigeria — with a popu-
said. lation expected to triple
With every 1.8 degree (1 by the end of he century
degree Celsius) increase — would be less able to
in global average annual cope, said study co-author
temperature from man- Tim Lenton, a climate sci-
made climate change, entist and director of the
about a billion or so people Global Systems Institute at
will end up in areas too the University of Exeter in
warm day-in, day-out to be England.q
habitable without cooling
technology, according to
ecologist Marten Scheffer
of Wageningen University in
the Netherlands, co-author In this Sept. 15, 2015 file photo, water is sprayed over Muslim pilgrims to cool them down during the
of the study. afternoon heat as they walk outside the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
How many people will end Associated Press
up at risk depends on how will be living in places too back 6,000 years to come perature greater than 84
much heat-trapping car- hot without air condition- up with a sweet spot of degrees (29 degrees Cel-
bon dioxide emissions are ing, the study said. temperatures for humanity: sius) — far beyond the tem-
reduced and how fast the "It's a huge amount and Average annual tempera- perature sweet spot. That
world population grows. it's a short-time. This is why tures between 52 and 59 area is less than 1% of the
Under the worst-case we're worried,'' said Cornell degrees (11 to 15 degrees Earth's land, and it is most-
scenarios for population University climate scientist Celsius). ly near the Sahara Desert
growth and for carbon pol- Natalie Mahowald, who We can — and do — live in and includes Mecca, Saudi
lution — which many cli- wasn't part of the study. warmer and colder places Arabia.
mate scientists say is look- She and other outside sci- than that, but the farther But as the world gets more
ing less likely these days entists said the new study from the sweet spot, the crowded and warmer, the
— the study in Monday's makes sense and conveys harder it gets. study concluded large
journal Proceedings of the the urgency of the man- The scientists looked at swaths of Africa, Asia, South
National Academy of Sci- made climate change dif- places projected to get America and Australia will
ences predicts about 3.5 ferently than past research. uncomfortably and con- likely be in this same tem-
billion people will live in ex- In an unusual way to look siderably hotter than the perature range. Well over
tremely hot areas. That's a at climate change, a team sweet spot and calculated 1 billion people, and up to
third of the projected 2070 of international scientists at least 2 billion people will 3.5 billion people, will be af-
population. studied humans like they be living in those conditions fected depending on the
But even scenarios consid- do bears, birds and bees by 2070. climate altering choices
ered more likely and less se- to find the "climate niche" Currently about 20 million humanity makes over the
vere project that in 50 years where people and civiliza- people live in places with next half century, accord-
a couple of billion people tions flourish. They looked an annual average tem- ing to lead author Chi Xu of

Why has toilet

paper run out

during the pandemic?

The Associated Press and not profitable, retail-
Why has toilet paper run ers don't typically keep a
out during the pandemic? lot of inventory on hand.
Blame the empty shelves That makes it hard for them
on hoarders who stockpiled to keep up when demand
the plush paper goods. suddenly surges.
During a two-day period in Americans are also using
March, online and in-store more toilet paper at home Madison Chop House Grille offers customers free toilet paper
sales shot up a whopping now, instead of at places Monday, April 27, 2020, in Madison, Ga.
845% as states announced like offices and schools. Associated Press
stay-at-home orders, ac- Yet companies can't just aged differently. number of rolls custom-
cording to NCSolutions, a redirect supplies of the big Demand has since soft- ers can buy at once, so it
data and consulting firm. institutional rolls, which are ened and retailers includ- should be easier to find rolls
Since toilet paper is bulky manufactured and pack- ing Kroger are limiting the on shelves these days.q