[rogersmith]

So I go to the sauna for a few hours right? Reach abnormal temperature for a statistically insignificant period of time wrt to my expected lifetime, then a few minutes later after I left the sauna my temperature is back within average expectations.

What was your point again?

To clarify: my point is, even only taking into account only the period during which it has been inhabited by mankind, Earth has probably reached hotter and colder averages than what we've experienced over the past half century. Mankind did fine.

[adaml_623]

"So I go to the sauna for a few hours right? Reach abnormal temperature for a statistically insignificant period of time wrt to my expected lifetime, then a few minutes later after I left the sauna my temperature is back within average expectations. What was your point again?"

My point was that you're dead.

In a Sauna for a few hours. You will die. Statistics and average lifetime are not relevant.

[fsloth]

Just to be clear, a few hours of sauna does not kill you. It's not a pressure cooker.

[adaml_623]

Well I wasn't totally sure so I googled quite a bit and what with websites recommending 20 minutes, articles about deaths, discussions about achieving 45 minutes in a sauna, I would say that a few hours in a Sauna would kill you unless the temperature was very low by Sauna standards. I was originally going to suggest that the OP stand in an oven but thought that too crude.

Realistically I accept that this debate is not 'winnable' in any traditional sense. Even if the governments crack down on CO2, and the temperature drops back to non increasing fluctuations there will be no acceptance from some people who will always insist that it is/was a conspiracy the same as the moon landings and the UN. I suppose the only way that one side could convince the other is if the CO2 keeps increasing and the weather doesn't end up killing us all. Sorry for the digression.

[fsloth]

A sauna can be used as a steam boiler, then being plausibly lethal:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Sauna_Championships#20...

I usually spend like an hour at 75 degrees celsius with some moisture. Which is totally non-lethal.

[azernik]

http://espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=5198604

Note the times - on the order of minutes.

You don't need a pressure cooker to kill a person from heat. The 70°C of a traditional sauna will do just fine.

[noselasd]

"Mankind did fine". It survived, sure (not every species did though). There's quite a lot findings attributing the vanishing of various populations to climate change.

People are concerned about negative effects, not just surviving.

[mirimir]

It's been a few hundred thousand years, I believe.