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Posted on 08/20/2012 6:19:08 PM PDT by Kaslin
New York Times environmental reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal's latest 1,600-word attack on air conditioning,"The Cost of Cool," made the front of the Sunday Review. " The text box: "Air-conditioning makes us feel better, but it's hurting the planet."
Rosenthal previously argued in a June 21 post on the paper's "Green" blog complaining that she can't buy an environmentally correct air conditioner and so chose to suffer (but not in silence) in the name of fighting "climate change," which she assumes is a proven fact and a clear danger to humanity.
Rosenthal wrote on Sunday:
The blackouts that left hundreds of millions of Indians sweltering in the dark last month underscored the status of air-conditioning as one of the world’s most vexing environmental quandaries.Fact 1: Nearly all of the world’s booming cities are in the tropics and will be home to an estimated one billion new consumers by 2025. As temperatures rise, they -- and we -- will use more air-conditioning.
Fact 2: Air-conditioners draw copious electricity, and deliver a double whammy in terms of climate change, since both the electricity they use and the coolants they contain result in planet-warming emissions.
Fact 3: Scientific studies increasingly show that health and productivity rise significantly if indoor temperature is cooled in hot weather. So cooling is not just about comfort.
Sum up these facts and it’s hard to escape: Today’s humans probably need air-conditioning if they want to thrive and prosper. Yet if all those new city dwellers use air-conditioning the way Americans do, life could be one stuttering series of massive blackouts, accompanied by disastrous planet-warming emissions.
We can’t live with air-conditioning, but we can’t live without it.
....
Projections of air-conditioning use are daunting. In 2007, only 11 percent of households in Brazil and 2 percent in India had air-conditioning, compared with 87 percent in the United States, which has a more temperate climate, said Michael Sivak, a research professor in energy at the University of Michigan. “There is huge latent demand,” Mr. Sivak said. “Current energy demand does not yet reflect what will happen when these countries have more money and more people can afford air-conditioning.” He has estimated that, based on its climate and the size of the population, the cooling needs of Mumbai alone could be about a quarter of those of the entire United States, which he calls “one scary statistic.”
It is easy to decry the problem but far harder to know what to do, especially in a warming world where people in the United States are using our existing air-conditioners more often. The number of cooling degree days -- a measure of how often cooling is needed -- was 17 percent above normal in the United States in 2010, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, leading to “an increase in electricity demand.” This July was the hottest ever in the United States.
Rosenthal had helpful advice (or will they become rules?) for how people could alter their lives to fight the unproven threat posed by global warming, betting that people "could acclimatize to warmer conditions," shake off their "cultural differences in cooling preferences," or else just sweat it out in silence.
Building managers could increase airflow in hot buildings, for example, which improves comfort. Workers could wear lighter, looser clothing to work in summer -- instead of carrying sweaters to protect themselves from over-chilled air. Architects could design office blocks using materials that did not conduct so much heat and where humans could open the windows to take advantage of natural ventilation and breezes.....
Mr. Wargocki says that an office temperature in the mid to high 70s should be fine. The comfortable temperature for sleeping (naked) is around 84, Mr. Tanabe says, if a fan is on.
Those suggestions are a good deal warmer than the norms in the United States, which underlines a cultural differences in cooling preferences.
All these liberals have 10,000 sf estates that suck energy like nobody’s business.
Just like they want everybody to be unarmed except their security detail.
Those 3 articles of blather labeled “Fact 1,” “Fact 2,” and “Fact 3” are no more factual than 99% of the stuff that comes out of Obummer’s pie hole!
Why not be accurate and label them CLAIM 1, CLAIM 2 AND CLAIM 3?
Just like with Algore, I will consider shutting off my A/C right after you refuse to work in a air-conditioned office on the hottest summer days. Until then, I will use my A/C, SUV and incandescent light bulbs.
And in a world she thinks is getting warmer, too?
Air conditioning helped the world so much, from ending disruptive siestas to making refrigeration practical and reducing food waste to allowing much of the West to become habitable. This idiot has never been in Texas in August, with 100+ temps. Kill the AC, and the state virtually empties.
if she wants me to turn off my AC she can blow me, er blow on me, er, ach... oh never mind
Nuts like Rosenthal have killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined. When the extremists outlawed DDT they killed hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
.
SF4 - During my year at Ft. Huachuca we didn’t have an airconditioner in our quarters. In fact, due to the dry climate, they sold ‘swamp coolers’ instead. but I didn’t get one. Also, we didn’t have airconditioners in military quarters at Ft. Hood. That was back in 78-80. And I use to go running outside at noon in July.
One wise man who improved the lives of so many. I for one am grateful to his enterprise and ingenuity.
Obama would tell him “you didn’t build that air conditioner” and the liberal fool Rosenthal is telling us “you don’t deserve that air conditioner”.
I was going to say the same thing. Seems to me that she is hypocritical for not suggesting that Americans dispense with heat as well as air-conditioning. While she is at it, isn't hot water something that should also be eliminated? Furthermore, I think she should demand that the White house should set a good example for the rest of the country and give up air-conditioning, heat, and hot water in the name of “saving the planet”. Since Obama and his queen support green policies, I am sure they would jump at the opportunity to show how much they care for the environment.
No bet there, but I will bet that one night sweating it out in her bed at 90 degrees will have her in the store buying an air conditioner.
I've been telling my liberal eco-nutcase friends and relatives for years to simply move to Cuba where they'll find their communist paradise. It has all the amenities: a dictator, electrical blackouts, secret police, horse-drawn transportation, a notable absence of air conditioning and much more to please blowhards like Rosenthal. But all the libs I know are blowhards too. They talk the talk and that's where it ends. They only want others to do what they say.
Yes, but they were people of color which are targeted for extermination anyway. Planned Parenthood is a bit more refined here in America, but not much.
Y I K E S !!!!
If and/or when she washes that nasty looking hair I'm sure it takes plenty of heated water to clean it. In other words she needs to mind her own damn business!
It’ll be nice when divine providence turns off his air. Thanks Kaslin.
well.. alright.. it’s suppose to get in to the 40’s tonight. I guess I could turn it off and open a window.
But if it gets above 68 in the house tomorrow. It comes back on!
The sacrifices we make to “save mother earth” I tell ya...
The Environmental Protection Agency says that climate change will increase the use of air-conditioning because it will lead to more hot days and heat waves.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/my-air-conditioner-envy/
I just turned my air down to 68 from 72 in honor of Rosenthal.
How noble of her. It’s like she donated a kidney to a stranger. What a humanitarian. Maybe she’ll get the Nobel prize for grandstanding.
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