Posted on 06/22/2012 4:14:16 PM PDT by Timber Rattler
The economist Thorstein Veblen once quipped that "invention is the mother of necessity." That was before the age of air-conditioning, but no technology better illustrates Veblen's point. Having developed efficient cooling, we've designed homes, businesses and transportation systems that are completely dependent on it, while the resulting greenhouse emissions create the need for even more air-conditioning.
(snip)
We must break this feedback loop, but what does one say to someone living in one of the tropical nations where much of the increase in cooling demand is expected? Surely not that Americans are addicted to air-conditioning and can’t give it up, but we expect Southeast Asians to get by without air-conditioners because they're used to the heat.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“There would be bloodshed in the streets.... hello triple digits in Texas!”
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I wasn’t aware the Texas was unpopulated until around the 1930s.
...but we expect Southeast Asians to get by without air-conditioners because they’re used to the heat.
We do? I don’t remember saying or thinking that. Who’s “we”? I say if it’s hot, crank up the A/C!
I bet if those Pacific Islanders were in Buffalo New York in January, they’d want to crank up the heat.
I say, let em!
Folks don't really know Texas until they have to work outdoors all day in our triple digit heat. Like yours truly.
We don't just wear them big hats to look cool.
The real air is outside and unconditioned.
That “real” outside air is full of bugs and stuff.
***Just crack a few windows open an inch or so each and turn the fan on***
We lived next to a dirt road and the dust would be pulled in covering everything.
Ever notice how the old houses were designed for hot weather? 10-12 ft ceilings, large windows with two panes, one to lower and one to raise. But they were cold in winter!
Lucky you. If you were in Texas, you'd be wearing those window shakers out. I grew up in SoCal, so I know what some high temps are about, but the heat down here is a whole 'nother breed.
Here is what is getting popular in Texas now:
LOL. You sound like my grandmother complaining about a cheap window AC.
Nothing is changed about the chemical make-up. It simply passes near a cold piece of metal that cools and dries the air. No chemicals are used to dry it. The metal simply “sweats” and the excess water drips down. Just like a cold pint of beer.
Aside from the temperature and moisture content, this air is identical to unconditioned air. There is nothing unnatural about it. Even if it is different from the air currently outside, there is somewhere on the planet that currently has the identical temp/moisture of your ideal conditioned air. We condition because the optimal human comfort zone is fairly narrow. About 70-80 degrees F and 30-50% humidity. Outside that zone is survivable but not optimal.
It sounds like you only have experience with cheap or poorly maintained HVAC systems. People have misconceptions about conditioning mainly for these reasons:
-Cheap materials can leech chemicals into the air. This is why the air can smell like chemicals and make you think conditioned air is unnatural. Cheap window ACs are nearly always guilty of this. A good system will not leech any detectable amount of chemicals.
-Poorly maintained filters, ducts and coils give off dust and mold smells. Maintaining a cheap AC is hard but there are advanced systems today that virtually eliminate this type of maintenance.
-A poorly designed system is loud and creates drafts. A properly designed system should be quieter than ambient noise in the room and shall not create drafts noticeable by anyone in the space. You shouldn't even know the unit is on. Some advanced systems don't even have indoor fans but instead rely on natural air currents. Very expensive but completely silent.
I'm an engineer with years of HVAC experience. I hope you someday see a system that changes your mind. But yes; properly designed, installed and maintained systems are rare.
Our AC comes from our ground source heat pump.
It’s free, more or less...
I don't know what folks up your way consider high temps, but from the Southwest to the Southeast, the heat can be overpowering. Even at night. Most homes in Texas have the A/C running from late Spring to early Fall. Continuously.
I was born and raised in Houston in a time when our schools had 35 students per classroom and no air-conditioning, to consider returning to what now seems like an impossible situation is absurd, but we should try it out in the government offices and media first to see if it is doable.
If the Mayor and City Hall, and Congress, TV and print media all like it both at work and at their homes, then let them bring it up to us again in a couple of years.
You must go through a lot of elk, then...
If they would build houses right; we wouldn’t need a/c. My husband’s mothers house was practically in desert; but it was built right and didn’t ned a/c. Same way with my grandfather’s house.
I just started wearing big hats when working outside in the lawn and garden. It also stops skin cancer cells from starting.
They hate the south and want to do everything they can to undermine it. Ag products under attack are invariably southern. Go after air conditioning while failing to note that heating costs are much lower.
There’s an Israeli company, Advantix, that has invented a new sort of air conditioning using salt that requires 50-80% less electricity. Like fracking and peak oil, the idiots better come up with a new scheme to reduce us all to sweltering serfs packed into concrete housing projects, because reality has caught up and surpassed their narrative.
I’ll make a deal with y’all. We will turn off the AC in the summer... and the heat in the winter! Think how much that will help! What... you don’t agree? Well, I usually wear t-shirt and shorts around Thanksgiving... don’t everbody else do the same?
“When they pry my cold dead fingers away from the thermostat.”
I like how you think. If I need a company gunnery sergeant to kill Nazis, are you free this fall?
My brain shuts down at exactly 75 degrees. At 74 degrees, I’m productive. At 75 degrees, I need a nap, and can’t accomplish anything.
So, is it a luxury to keep me productive on behalf of others with air conditioning?
Y’all want to live in caves?
Riiiight!
I have a car, but I prefer to walk 8 miles to work. I have a phone, but I prefer yelling as loud as I can hoping the person can hear me. I have a computer, a typewriter and a pencil, but I prefer scratching images on the walls of my cave with a rock, in hopes that some day, someone will see it. < /sarc >
And yes, "conditioned air" is simply humid, dusty, allergenic air, potentially containing bacteria or viruses, that gets drawn past a cold, wet metal grid. The bad stuff sticks to the condensed water droplets and drains out onto the ground.
No hocus-pocus there.
“AC helps those with asthma and breathing problems breathe easier. If you ban AC, you’re cutting the life spans of people whose hearts and lungs must work harder to breathe as a result.”
This means nothing to the “ban AC” crowd, who would argue that the above-mentioned people have a “duty to die” and free up the plant for the young. Also, fewer costs to government if they die earlier…. (sarcasm off)
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