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Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

nytimes.com

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Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#321

Post by emodendroket »

enraged_camel wrote: post #313
emodendroket wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Democrats are basically Republicans-lite and have been for decades but that's neither here nor there with regard to the point I'm making.

>>The Democrats are basically Republicans-lite and have been for decades Democrats don't want to abolish every regulation possible in order to maximize corporate profits. Democrats don't want to cut healthcare and entitlement programs in order to give massive tax cuts to rich people. Democrats don't want to defund Planned Parenthood and are not rabidly anti-abortion. Democrats don't want to ban gay marriage. Democrat…

Do you remember when Bill Clinton made dismantling welfare his signature policy proposal and Obama practically begged the Republicans to reach a deal with him to cut Social Security, or is it only privileged people who don't pay attention to politics who remember that?

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#322

Post by enraged_camel »

emodendroket wrote: post #321
enraged_camel wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The Democrats are basically Republicans-lite and have been for decades Democrats don't want to abolish every regulation possible in order to maximize corporate profits. Democrats don't want to cut healthcare and entitlement programs in order to give massive tax cuts to rich people. Democrats don't want to defund Planned Parenthood and are not rabidly anti-abortion. Democrats don't want to ban gay marriage. Democrat…

Do you remember when Bill Clinton made dismantling welfare his signature policy proposal and Obama practically begged the Republicans to reach a deal with him to cut Social Security, or is it only privileged people who don't pay attention to politics who remember that?

Obama suggested making a slight change to the measure of inflation used to calculate Social Security cost-of-living adjustments from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI) to the chained CPI. This would have modestly improved Social Security's finances while resulted in retirees getting slightly smaller increases to their Social Security checks. Obama suggested this as an olive branch to the obstructionist Republican Congress that worked hard from the moment he got in office to prevent him from doing anything. It was a move borne out of desperation rather than the cynical hatred for the poor.

I'm not going to defend Bill Clinton. He made a lot of mistakes, including, as you say, making drastic, misguided changes to welfare and being "tough on crime". Although, for what it's worth, he has recently apologized for some of those mistakes [1].

In any case, fast-forward 17 years to today. Democrats and the Republicans are very, very different parties. I stand by my original statement: the only people who believe the two parties are similar are those who aren't paying attention.

--

[1]http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/15/politics/bill-clinton-1994-cri...

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#323

Post by cannonpr »

pdelbarba wrote: post #127
cannonpr wrote: post #107

I hate to say it but AC always felt like thoughtless engineering and consumerism, especially the electric varieties. It's ironic that in a sunny, energy rich environment, you spend extra energy on a heat pump. In a lot of environments some better architecture will take care of the problem via passive methods, additionally evaporative methods work pretty well in dry environments and polute considerably less ? Failing…

Currently live in Colorado where the highs are regularly in the 90s. Turn the house fan on at night for a couple hours, cool everything off, then close all the doors and windows during the day and everything is perfectly comfortable. When I lived in Philly however... 90% humidity and 80 degrees AT NIGHT is no joke.

So to respond, yes I generally suggested the above for dry climates, I have also lived in humid climates and agree to all the comments regarding them. However I am willing to bet we use electrical heat pumps out of sheer convenience even in climates that offer alternatives. That having been said, even for humid environments, the ground often offers us solutions that are more efficient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-coupled_heat_exchanger They do however ofcourse require engineering and support from society to adopt.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#324

Post by emodendroket »

enraged_camel wrote: post #322
emodendroket wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember when Bill Clinton made dismantling welfare his signature policy proposal and Obama practically begged the Republicans to reach a deal with him to cut Social Security, or is it only privileged people who don't pay attention to politics who remember that?

Obama suggested making a slight change to the measure of inflation used to calculate Social Security cost-of-living adjustments from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI) to the chained CPI. This would have modestly improved Social Security's finances while resulted in retirees getting slightly smaller increases to their Social Security checks. Obama suggested this as an olive bra…

Today the Democratic Party is almost entirely positioning itself on "not being as bad as the Republicans" without any sort of positive vision. That's the reason all they can talk about is Russia and Trump; it keeps them from even having to articulate a position other than being against these enemies.

There are a handful of figures to whom this does not apply, but the greater party apparatus fights tooth and nail against any substantive change (on the grounds that the current strategy is the only way to win elections, even as they lost all three branches of the national government and are irrelevant in more and more states) so I'm not holding my breath.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#325

Post by TheCoelacanth »

Berobero wrote: post #178
hughw wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing the number of humans could be one approach. The idea causes rancorous response from religious people who believe God told us to be fruitful and multiply. To reduce births might require coercion, it's true, but it would not require killing people or making them suffer. I don't see how else we can continue to enjoy the benefits and power of technology while keeping the planet habitable and enjoyable.

You realize the world's birth rate has already been on the decline for decades, correct? And in general, the bulk of this occurred not because of coercion, but because of economic development and the ensuing shifts in optimum family strategy.

In fact, the world already hit "peak child" some years ago. The number of children in the world has stopped increasing. That means that the world's population is now only growing because of life expectancy increases and not because of increased numbers of people being born.

The population will continue to grow for a while because of developing countries' life expectancy catching up with developed countries, but unless there are drastic technological breakthroughs to improve life expectancy beyond where developed countries are now, the world population will stop growing fairly soon.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#326

Post by TheCoelacanth »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #219
emodendroket wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "don't worry; the Republican-controlled Congress will not cut funding on environmental initiatives" sounds like a bit of a pollyannaish proposition.

Can you tell when the US had a Democrat controlled Congress by looking at this global greenhouse gas emissions per year chart? I can't. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss... I'm not saying there's no reason to worry, but there's also no reason to pretend that having the Democrats move pollution overseas solves global problems.

Democrats have controlled both Congress and the Presidency for only two two-year sessions out of the past three decades. You might be expecting a bit much for them to have put a stop to the rise in carbon emissions with such brief windows of control.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#327

Post by sobani »

julianj wrote: post #314
gnaritas wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As other nations continue to grow and industrialize, the issue then doesn't really go away. Sure it does, as each national industrializes it solves part of the problem; when they all do it, problem gone. > It seems that the problem would just move around the globe until we hit critical mass. You really haven't thought this through.

I can see why you'd think that. However, industrialization does not occur overnight. > You really haven't thought this through. I don't know why you would say this. Do you think that Earth will never reach a point where its population exceeds the planet's capacity to support it?

Where will the problem move to when every nation is industrialized?

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#328

Post by Eric_WVGG »

khedoros1 wrote: post #307
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/is-your-thermostat-se... The biological reasoning, as I understand it, is that men have a higher ratio of heat-generating muscle than women. When I first moved to NYC, I was bewildered by all the women walking around with scarves and summer dresses; it was explained to me that this was a strategy to optimize being comfortable in the outdoor heat, and then having something to wit…

> (Personally, I'm of the opinion that one should acclimate to their climate, and folks who hate the heat wouldn't mind it so much if they didn't coddle themselves with AC all the time.) I agree, to an extent. I mean, bumping the temperature that you can be comfortable in by 10 or 15 degrees is reasonable (up or down). I lived in southern Arizona as a child, where 80 degree nights were heaven after 110 degree days. I…

same, I'm from Tucson. ^5

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#329

Post by [deleted] »

emodendroket wrote: post #321
enraged_camel wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The Democrats are basically Republicans-lite and have been for decades Democrats don't want to abolish every regulation possible in order to maximize corporate profits. Democrats don't want to cut healthcare and entitlement programs in order to give massive tax cuts to rich people. Democrats don't want to defund Planned Parenthood and are not rabidly anti-abortion. Democrats don't want to ban gay marriage. Democrat…

Do you remember when Bill Clinton made dismantling welfare his signature policy proposal and Obama practically begged the Republicans to reach a deal with him to cut Social Security, or is it only privileged people who don't pay attention to politics who remember that?

[deleted]

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#330

Post by Consultant32452 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #313
emodendroket wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Democrats are basically Republicans-lite and have been for decades but that's neither here nor there with regard to the point I'm making.

>>The Democrats are basically Republicans-lite and have been for decades Democrats don't want to abolish every regulation possible in order to maximize corporate profits. Democrats don't want to cut healthcare and entitlement programs in order to give massive tax cuts to rich people. Democrats don't want to defund Planned Parenthood and are not rabidly anti-abortion. Democrats don't want to ban gay marriage. Democrat…

>Democrats don't want to cut healthcare and entitlement programs in order to give massive tax cuts to rich people.

Bill Clinton had an agreement with Newt Gingrich to privatize Social Security that was only stopped because the Lewinsky scandal broke.

>Democrats don't want to ban gay marriage.

Who passed DOMA? Obama was against gay marriage until it became clear that it was going to get passed.

>Democrats don't work their asses off trying to suppress minority votes.

No, they just work their asses off to keep minorities poor and beholden to the state because that makes them good Democrat voters.

>Democrats don't want to prevent refugees from war zones from seeking shelter in the United States.

We wouldn't have refugees in Syria seeking shelter if Obama hadn't bombed Syria so much we literally ran out of bombs.

>But if you ask a low-income woman, for example

If that woman became a high income woman, she'd be much less likely to vote Democratic. The Democrats have no incentive to actually help her, only to make her more beholden to the state.

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