All posts tagged: extreme

Extreme heat poses ‘real risk’ to Spain’s mass tourism industry | Spain

Extreme heat poses ‘real risk’ to Spain’s mass tourism industry | Spain

Published by skeptic

The climate emergency poses a “real risk” to Spain’s traditional mass tourist model as rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves hit the country’s most popular coastal destinations, a senior public health adviser has warned. Héctor Tejero, the head of health and climate change at Spain’s health ministry, said the increasingly apparent physical impacts of the climate emergency had already led the ministry to begin talks with the British embassy on how best to educate “vulnerable” tourists about coping with the heat. Asked whether the climate emergency could lead to tourism disappearing from parts of Spain in the future, Tejero said: “It’s a real risk because the big Spanish sol y playa tourist areas – the areas that are most dependent on tourism – are places where the impact of climate change is going to be greatest in Spain; places such as the south and the east of the peninsula – basically the Mediterranean coast. There’s a definite risk that the zones where there’s most tourism will become less habitable because of more heatwaves and much …

UN chief calls for action to stem ‘extreme heat epidemic’ | United Nations News

UN chief calls for action to stem ‘extreme heat epidemic’ | United Nations News

Published by Sam

Antonio Guterres urges countries to shift away from fossil fuels to tackle the climate crisis driving extreme heat. The head of the United Nations has called on countries to take action to address the effects of “crippling heat”, as the world experiences record-high temperatures that have put vulnerable communities at risk. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Antonio Guterres said billions of people around the globe are experiencing “an extreme heat epidemic” fuelled by climate change. “Extreme heat is increasingly tearing through economies, widening inequalities, undermining the Sustainable Development Goals, and killing people,” the UN secretary-general said. “We know what is driving it: fossil fuel-charged, human-induced climate change. And we know it’s going to get worse; extreme heat is the new abnormal.” Guterres’s warning comes a day after the European Union’s climate monitor said the world had experienced its hottest day on record this week. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Wednesday that the global average surface air temperature on July 22 rose to 17.15 degrees Celsius (62.9 degrees Fahrenheit) – or 0.06 degrees …

One man’s desperate search for wife as more than 1,000 hajj pilgrims die in extreme heat | Hajj

One man’s desperate search for wife as more than 1,000 hajj pilgrims die in extreme heat | Hajj

Published by skeptic

Hoda Nagib and her husband had walked 20km in the baking sun in Saudi Arabia when she told him that she needed to rest. The couple, who are in their 60s, had just scaled Mount Arafat, along with thousands of other white-robed pilgrims on the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, where temperatures as high as 51.8C have been recorded in the shade in recent days. Nagib’s husband left her to perform a ritual known as the stoning of the devil. When he returned she had disappeared, their neighbour Walaa Roshdy explained. Fellow pilgrims told him that his wife was suffering from exhaustion and had been taken to a hospital in Mina, Roshdy said. The husband – who Roshdy said had requested anonymity while he searches for his wife – went to the hospital, where staff told him she had been treated and had left. He has been unable to make contact since. Roshdy, who works as a tour guide in Saudi Arabia, knows the couple from their home town of Tanta, in Egypt. …

Oceans face ‘triple threat’ of extreme heat, oxygen loss and acidification | Oceans

Oceans face ‘triple threat’ of extreme heat, oxygen loss and acidification | Oceans

Published by skeptic

The world’s oceans are facing a “triple threat” of extreme heating, a loss of oxygen and acidification, with extreme conditions becoming far more intense in recent decades and placing enormous stress upon the planet’s panoply of marine life, new research has found. About a fifth of the world’s ocean surface is particularly vulnerable to the three threats hitting at once, spurred by human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, the study found. In the top 300 meters of affected ocean, these compound events now last three times longer and are six times more intense than they were in the early 1960s, the research states. The study’s lead author warned that the world’s oceans were already being pushed into an extreme new state because of the climate crisis. “The impacts of this have already been seen and felt,” said Joel Wong, a researcher at ETH Zurich, who cited the well-known example of the heat “blob” that has caused the die-off of marine life in the Pacific Ocean. “Intense extreme events like these …

Extreme exercise may help you live longer without stressing your heart

Extreme exercise may help you live longer without stressing your heart

Published by skeptic

Running is generally associated with good health outcomes Ian Forsyth/Getty Images It has been suggested that too much extreme exercise can be damaging to our health, but researchers have now found that people who can run a mile in less than 4 minutes generally live several years longer than would otherwise be expected. Regular exercise is important for heart health, but too much strenuous activity has been linked to harmful cardiac outcomes. “During really intensive or prolonged bouts of endurance exercise like running or cycling, some proteins are released that suggest injury may have happened to the heart,” says Stephen Foulkes at the University of Alberta in Canada. To learn more about the effects of exercise, Foulkes and his colleagues looked at the lifespans of the first 200 athletes who were recorded running a mile (1.6 kilometres) in less than 4 minutes. The athletes were all men born between 1928 and 1955. They included British neurologist and athlete Roger Bannister, the first person in the world to be recorded running a sub-4-minute mile, 70 years …

UK farmers consider quitting after extreme wet weather and low profits | Farming

UK farmers consider quitting after extreme wet weather and low profits | Farming

Published by skeptic

British farmers are considering walking away from their farms as the recent record run of wet weather has left the sector “on the brink”, rural bodies have warned. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and the Soil Association raised concerns over the perilous situations facing many in their industry, with profits being squeezed and extreme weather driven by the climate crisis putting financial and mental strain on farm owners. Helen Browning, the chief executive of the Soil Association, said: “A lot of farmers are really considering their options, and thinking about walking away from their farms, as they could make far more money doing something else.” Browning, who runs a livestock and arable farm in Wiltshire, added: “If you were economically rational, you wouldn’t farm.” The trade bodies’ comments came during a briefing on Thursday run by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank ahead of the second annual Farm to Fork summit being hosted by Rishi Sunak at No 10 next week. The summit is expected to discuss the UK’s future food …

How ‘eunuch maker’ livestreamed extreme body modifications and sold body parts | UK news

How ‘eunuch maker’ livestreamed extreme body modifications and sold body parts | UK news

Published by skeptic

Marius Theodore Gustavson had just performed one of his signature procedures in his basement flat when a stranger turned up to buy a penis. The man known as the “eunuch maker” retrieved a jar from a small fridge behind his living room sofa before handing it to the buyer, who paid in cash before leaving. It was yet another deal for Gustavson, the mastermind behind a lucrative website where subscribers could watch videos of extreme body modifications such as castrations and penectomies. Gustavson’s former friend Andrew recalled: “My partner and I were there when a sale went down. We’d never asked about the fridge before but when [Gustavson] walked off with what looked [like something] a bit dodgy, we asked and he said: ‘Oh yes, this is someone’s penis, [it belongs to] this nice little twentysomething from Belgium.’ “But he didn’t come back in with lots of cash. He used the money to buy pizza. It wasn’t a lot.” Gustavson, 46, originally from Norway, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 22 …

Marius Gustavson: Mastermind behind ‘eunuch maker’ extreme body modification ring jailed for at least 22 years | UK News

Marius Gustavson: Mastermind behind ‘eunuch maker’ extreme body modification ring jailed for at least 22 years | UK News

Published by skeptic

The mastermind behind an extreme body modification ring that carried out “grizzly and gruesome” procedures including castrations has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years. Warning: The following article contains graphic details of extreme physical mutilation Marius Gustavson, 46, ran a “lucrative business” sharing images of “dangerous, unnecessary and life-changing surgeries” carried out by people with no medical qualifications, the Old Bailey heard. The Norwegian national made almost £300,000 through his open website “eunuchmaker.com”, which amassed 22,841 users as it became increasingly professional. He advertised his services, such as male castration, penis removal and freezing of limbs, while customers paid to view footage of the procedures or could take out a £100-a-year subscription. “Arch-manipulator” Gustavson had his own penis cut off, the tip of his nipple removed, and his leg frozen so that it had to be amputated, and recruited like-minded individuals to assist him, the court heard. Gustavson, who claimed £18,500 in disability benefits after losing his leg and now uses a wheelchair, appeared in court for sentencing by video-link …

“The Contestant”: The 9 wildest moments from Hulu’s documentary about Japan’s extreme reality show

“The Contestant”: The 9 wildest moments from Hulu’s documentary about Japan’s extreme reality show

Published by skeptic

“I have always wanted to make people laugh. But there is a difference between making people laugh and being laughed at.” This is what Nasubi, a Japanese actor and comedian, tells viewers in a new documentary about the 15 months he spent naked in isolation, entering magazine sweepstakes to earn food. His ordeal, lasting from January 1998-April 1999, was broadcast to millions of people for the nascent and massively popular Japanese reality show, “Susunu! Denpa Shonen.” Clair Titley’s “The Contestant,” which saw its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023, was released on Hulu on May 2. The documentary traces more than a year in the life of the 22-year-old Tomoaki Hamatsu, better known as Nasubi, who leaves his home in rural Fukushima to pursue a career in entertainment in Tokyo. It’s there that he entered a challenge segment of “Denpa Shonen” called “A Life in Prizes.”  “A Life in Prizes” is something of a predecessor to “The Truman Show” starring Jim Carrey, which was not released until later that year. “The …