161–170 of 505 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For some reason they seem allergic to AC - see the rest of this thread.
COST. People don’t have the money to spend installing aircon to save themselves from a couple of weeks of discomfort per year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Sure the sun is a proximal cause… But are you really going to tell me that you me that tho evidence that temperatures are getting warmer is bunk? For starters check out the top diagram here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change# Would you argue against the physics of greenhouse gases? https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-pinpoint-the-quant... Are you too young to have noticed climate changes over time in…
Europeans don’t get scolded enough for their resistance to air conditioning. In terms of accounting for preventable deaths, Greece has 2x more heat-related deaths per capita annually than Mississippi has gun deaths. By comparison, the worst US state for heat related deaths, Nevada - a literal desert - has >10x fewer deaths per capita than Greece.
It's not just the resistance but the price. There is tremendous price gouging in the AC industry. The real cost of a mini split system is the low hundreds of dollars but good luck finding one for that price in Europe. If it were regulated as a life critical technology and not as a luxury then it could be substantially cheaper.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Las Vegas and one year at the start of summer my AC went out. It took a week to order the part needed and make the fix. I lived out of casinos for that week (using HotelTonight to get a different place each night) and it was pretty fun. I gained 10lbs. That said, AC's are a necessity out here.
I live a few hours outside Las Vegas and it's a lot more survivable than you would think given primitive technology and some knowledge. I have one of those portable evaporative coolers and they don't need much power (50-100W). I have one and measured ~110F input and 78F on the output side using nothing more than water and a fan, pretty remarkable. The trick is staying out of direct sunlight, and the body can cool its…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not debating that the sun is stronger heating source. I’m just saying air-conditioning increases climate change because it uses fossil fuels and also the law of thermodynamics dictates that he will be created in this instance.
Air conditioners don't need to use fossil fuels. Solar power and AC work really well together because peak solar energy is exactly when you need AC the most. No heat is created either, that would explicitly violate the first law of thermodynamics. An air conditioner powered by solar energy (or anything solar powered) ends up releasing the exact same amount of "excess" heat as the sunlight would have if it hadn't been…
As an example of thermal lag: My present home doesn't have aircon upstairs. I've got a room with a west-facing window up there, and I just happen to chart temperatures in that room.
The daily temperature peaks in that room during the warmer months tend to happen at night -- sometimes, as late as midnight. The daily temperature minimums tend to happen around noon.
This suggests that solar power is least-useful for that particular room when solar availability is greatest. It doesn't overlap very well at all.
(I'm still looking into installing fairly modest solar rig, though, just to help offset my own baseload when I can and maybe make extended power outages more survivable.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an uncharitable take on the original comment which literally said: > the fact this is how hot it will be from now on That sounds to me like an acknowledgement that, in fact, the climate has changed.
[flagged]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Air conditioning only works for things inside of buildings. Not so good for the plants and animals our lives depend on. And it raises the heat outside of buildings. Not so good for people who have to be outside, think first responders etc. "just turn on the AC and keep burning the world down" isn't really the answer.
> And it raises the heat outside of buildings. No it doesn't. Seriously, where does this meme even come from? It should be pretty obvious just from a solar insolation map that AC is just noise vs the sun. The energy usage is tiny vs vehicles or non-heat pump heating and only electric. What changes temperature overall is the balance of thermal retention by the atmosphere vs radiation into space, hence why net increase…
> A significant degradation of external thermal comfort can also be seen in the simulations, as heat released by AC systems warms the outside air (see figure 3). The temperature increases due to AC depend on the time of day and on the characteristics of the heat wave, mainly its intensity. On average, the duration spent under high heat stress conditions in the streets is increased by about 20 min per day because of AC.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6a24#...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does on my balcony where the fan pumps to, which has made doing any gardening difficult, but to the overall outside temperature it's just a drop in the ocean.
Sure. And each car is just a drop in the ocean of CO2. And each plane flight. And smoking one cigarette. Humans have a really hard time understanding compounding risk. But there are billions of us. How many billions of drops can you handwave away?
Air Conditioners do not produce a net heating effect unless you power them by burning fossil fuels.
Europeans don’t get scolded enough for their resistance to air conditioning. In terms of accounting for preventable deaths, Greece has 2x more heat-related deaths per capita annually than Mississippi has gun deaths. By comparison, the worst US state for heat related deaths, Nevada - a literal desert - has >10x fewer deaths per capita than Greece.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't imagine this is significant unless there is a demonstrated reporting bias between the US and Europe. Otherwise I'd assume it's a wash
There was a good More Or Less (uk radio programme) episode about this last week. Essentially, the European statistics on this tend to be based on excess mortality during hot periods, while US stats currently are much more about what words are used on death certificates. Very different measures and hard to compare.
It doesn't affect life expectancy much, because most deaths are among the elderly (70% over 80 IIRC).