Headline, August 28 2022/ HEAT : ''' '' CHINA'S ECONOMIC CAREEN '' '''

HEAT :

"' "CHINA'S ECONOMIC

 CAREEN '' '''

THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY - MOST LOVINGLY and respectfully called !WOW!, is the exclusive ownership of every student of China, just as it is the total ownership of every single student in the world.

HEAT INCREASES CHINA'S ECONOMIC STRESS. Factories are shutdown and power is interrupted for businesses and homes.

Faced with China's most searing heat wave in six decades, factories in the country's southwest are being forced to close. A severe drought has shrunk rivers, disrupting the region's supply of water and hydropower and prompting officials to limit electricity to businesses and homes.

In two cities, office buildings were ordered to shut off the air conditioning to spare an overextended electrical grid, while elsewhere in southern China, local governments urged residents and businesses to conserve energy.

The rolling blackouts and factory shutdowns, which affected Toyota and Foxconn's supplier for Apple, point to the ways that extreme weather is adding to China's economic troubles.

The economy has been headed towards its slowest pace of growth in years, dragged down by the country's stringent Covid policy of lockdowns, quarantines, and travel restrictions, as consumers tightened spending and factories produced less.

YOUTH unemployment has reached a record high, while trouble in the real estate sector has set off an unusual surge of public discontent.

Now China is also facing an intense heat wave that has swept across the country for more than two months, from central Sichuan Province to coastal Jiangsu, with temperatures often exceeding 40 degrees celsius, or 104 Fahrenheit.

In the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, the mercury rose 113 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday, prompting the government to issue the highest heat warning for the eighth time this summer.

The country has recorded an average of 12 days of high temperatures this summer, about five days more than usual, and the heat wave is forecast to persist for at least another week, according to statistics from the official China Meteorological Center.

The heat is expected to significantly reduce the size of China's rice harvest because it has caused long periods of drought, drying up rice paddies that are irrigated by rain, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

''At this time, the heat has the biggest impact, and has brought about extremely unfavorable effects,'' Fang Fuping, a researcher in China at the China Rice Research Institute in Hangzhou, told an official news outlet.

The intense weather is affecting other agriculture as well. In the city of Hangzhou in the east, tea farmers preparing for the fall harvest have covered their crops with nets in an effort to shield them from the heat.

In the cities, motorists donned face coverings and sleeves to protect themselves from sunburn. Residents and delivery workers sought in underground shelters or by swimming in rivers and pools. Office workers tried to cool off with ice and frozen snacks.

''It's too hot, like a furnace,'' said Ella Wan, a 24-year-old property agent in Hangzhou.

She found welcome relief from tepid office air-conditioning by placing a large bucket of ice on the floor by her feet. ''It has an affect on both the physics and the psychology,'' she said.

Humans were not the only ones oppressed by the heat. Pandas in zoos lay on sheets of melting ice. Pigs being transported by truck in the southwestern city of Chongqing became dehydrated prompting firefighters to hose them down.

Chickens rejected their food and struggled to lay eggs in the heat, causing egg prices to surge across the country, according to state media reports.

To conserve energy, subway stations and trains in Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu, turned off overhead lights to conserve energy, while office buildings there, as well as in Dazhou, a neighboring city, were asked to stop using air conditioning.

The province also issued order to factories to suspend operations for the past week, and Toyota and Foxconn were among companies that confirmed that their factories would comply.

Climate scientists said that the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events will increase in the next few decades.

''Following this trend, future extreme heat waves will affect even larger areas and impact more population,'' said Xiaoming Shi, an assistant professor in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's environment and sustainability division.

''Everyone, from individuals to city governors and developers, should prepare for the new norm of extremes and be aware that these new extreme events can be dangerous,'' he said.

The Honour and Serving of the Global Operational Research on Climate and Heat extremes, continues.The World Students Society thanks authors Tiffany May and Joy Dong.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of China and then the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society - for every subject in the world : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

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