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There's no putting a chill on the worldwide air conditioning boom that's expected to heat up to historic levels over the next decade. Nations with emerging economies and spiking populations - including India, Indonesia and Brazil - are seeing air conditioner sales grow 10 to 15 percent a year. That means the world's supply of A/C units could nearly double from about 900,000 million in 2015 to roughly 1.6 million by 2030, according to a recent Berkeley National Laboratory study. So instead of simply trying to shut off the inexorable growth, scientists are working to find fresh energy-efficient technologies that...

Oh good grief, not this again. So, there’s this feminist who writes for the Telegraph in the UK and she was on one of their news shows talking about how air-conditioning is sexist. Somehow, she managed to say this with a straight face, which is a far cry from what I was doing as I watched this clown show – So, the women in her office building are standing around resembling human popsicles and her best idea was to go on TV and complain about it? Like, you didn’t talk to whoever sets the thermostat in your building and ask...

As summer approaches in Louisiana, prison officials insist that ice, fans and cold showers are enough to protect death-row inmates from dangerous heat and humidity. […] U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson questioned Friday why prison officials won’t spend roughly $1 million to install the air conditioning, since the state has already spent much more money fighting this issue in court. The judge already ruled it unconstitutional to keep inmates where the heat index exceeds 88 degrees. …

ED. NOTE: As this article is posted, Pope Francis begins his visit to the United States. In his encyclical released in June of this year, the pope singled out air conditioning as being a "harmful habit" that is a symbol of rampant capitalism that is blind to the plight of the poor and disadvantaged. These comments by Matt Michel, CEO of Service Roundtable, serve as a timely response. ————— Since becoming pontiff, Pope Francis has repeatedly made the news for his criticism and condemnation of capitalism and free markets. Worse, in his encyclical, he singled out air conditioning as particularly...

It started with the pope. In his recent encyclical, Laudato Si’, he singled out air conditioning as a particularly good example of wasteful habits and excessive consumption that overcome our better natures: People may well have a growing ecological sensitivity but it has not succeeded in changing their harmful habits of consumption which, rather than decreasing, appear to be growing all the more. A simple example is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning. Now, it seems to be open season on air conditioning. From a raging Facebook debate over an article that claims that air conditioning is an oppressive...

Feminist writers across the Internet have unearthed the latest conspiracy against women: office air conditioning. The Washington Post published an “investigation” of the “sexism” of air conditioning. The author, Petula Dvorak, spoke to an array of women who felt as if their offices were too cold; meanwhile, the men did not feel uncomfortable. Therefore, Dvorak concluded, “That’s right, my friends. Air conditioning is another big, sexist plot.” …

I know, I know … Europeans also believe in the fantasy that they can live in a socialist utopia of sorts and the bill will never come due too. Er, except in Greece, of course.This “new” outrage, though, is simply the usual Euro “superiority” fantasy. They always have a better/smarter/eco friendlier idea and we New Worlders, well, we’re wasteful, uncouth and unsophisticated barbarians, or something: Overall, it’s safe to say that Europe thinks America’s love of air-conditioning is actually quite daft. Europeans have wondered about this particular U.S. addiction for a while now: Back in 1992, Cambridge University Prof....

Bresso, near Milan, 07/02/2015New original protest circulate among welcomed immigrants (with the money of the Italians) in the center of the Red Cross, Clerici Street in Bresso. After the violence of June 8, a new challenge was born yesterday afternoon. Illegal came out of their homes and headed, making threatening, to executive offices managed by the provincial Red Cross. They complain about their "poor housing conditions." There are too many mosquitoes and the water is too hot, they want air conditioning in each tent. Hundred refugees staged a protest, this July 2 to complain about their conditions. They were immediately...

Have you heard the news? Scientists have found a planet that can support life. Its atmosphere is too hot for year-round habitation, its gases impede breathing, and surface conditions are sometimes fatal. But by constructing a network of sealed facilities, tunnels, and vehicles, humans could survive on this planet for decades and perhaps even centuries. The planet is called Earth. Will Saletan writes about politics, science, technology, and other stuff for Slate. He’s the author of Bearing Right. If you've seen this planet lately, you know what's going on: temperature records shattering, scores of Americans dead. By summer's end, the...

Unlike Pope Francis, I believe that air conditioning and the capitalists responsible for the technology are blessings to the world. Perhaps the head of the Catholic Church, who condemned “the increasing use and power of air-conditioning” last week in a market-bashing encyclical, is unaware of the pioneering private company that has donated its time, energy, and innovative heating, ventilating and air conditioning equipment to the Vatican’s most famous edifice for more than a decade. That’s right. While the pontiff sanctimoniously attacks “those who are obsessed with maximizing profits,” Carrier Corporation — a $13 billion for-profit company with 43,000 employees worldwide...

Unlike Pope Francis, I believe that air-conditioning and the capitalists responsible for the technology are blessings to the world. Perhaps the head of the Catholic Church, who condemned "the increasing use and power of air-conditioning" last week in a market-bashing encyclical, is unaware of the pioneering private company that has donated its time, energy and innovative heating, ventilating and air-conditioning equipment to the Vatican's most famous edifice for more than a decade. That's right. While the pontiff sanctimoniously attacks "those who are obsessed with maximizing profits," Carrier Corporation — a $13 billion for-profit company with 43,000 employees worldwide (now a...

Pope Francis’s aversion to air conditioning may be red hot, but he himself is comfortably cool. In his encyclical Laudato Si’, published today, the pope lambasts wasteful consumerism and unchecked human economic activity as a root of climate change, singling out one product in particular for censure: the air conditioner. “A simple example [of harmful habits of consumption] is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning,” Francis writes. “The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand. An outsider looking at our world would be amazed at such behavior, which at times appears self-destructive.” But ironically, Francis probably...

Consisting simply of a surface and legs, the table is one piece of furniture that has remained largely the same for thousands of years. But now, a French design duo has come up with a way to turn the humble table into a means of climate control that doesn't use any electricity. Paris-based industrial designer Jean-Sébastien Lagrange teamed up with French engineer Raphaël Ménard to create the Zero Energy Furniture table, also known as the ZEF Climatic Table. The ZEF table looks like any other with the sleek design of a solid plank oak top and angled legs — but...

You know that controversial NBA game last night more than a few water coolers are privy to this morning? ... The one played in an arena where the air conditioning went out due to an electrical failure, turning the court in a 90-degree sauna, resulting in said cramps for one LeBron James? It should have never been played...

Obama: Planet Will ‘Boil Over' If Africans Are Allowed Cars and Air-Conditioning July 1, 2013 - 4:22 PM By Ryan Kierman (CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama said at a town hall event in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Saturday that unless we find new way of producing energy "the planet will boil over" if people in Africa are allowed to attain air conditioning, automobiles and big houses. “Ultimately, if you think about all the youth that everybody has mentioned here in Africa, if everybody is raising living standards to the point where everybody has got a car and everybody has got...

Scientists have found a way to cool houses without air conditioning — and without using any power at all. Shanhui Fan, professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University, and graduate students, Aaswath Raman, and Eden Rephaeli, are working on a cooling panel that could possibly replace your air conditioner. How? By radiating the vast majority of incoming sunlight into the outside world. “The structure basically does two things: It radiates the heat out in the atmosphere into outer space, and the device reflects sunlight to ensure that the sunlight does not heat up the device itself,” explained professor Fan, a...

Crusade against carbon dioxide threatens the environmentTechnologies advanced as the solution to the purported global warming problem are catching fire — just not in the way intended. Bureaucrats are quickly learning that their regulatory offerings designed to entreat Mother Nature into bestowing cooler temperatures upon the planet have created environmental hazards of their own. It’s well-known that the fluorescent light bulbs being foisted on a reluctant public spread deadly mercury when dropped. In March, the administration will be free to enforce a federally imposed ban on the manufacturing of warm, pleasing and affordable 100-watt light bulbs. This will force more...

Hi Freepers. Question: A neighbor recently cut down some trees in his yard and took the shade off one side of my house with it. The side of the house now getting tons of sunlight has an office over the garage. That office is now a sauna. We finished the room ~10 years ago and it's always been warm. But without the shade, it's unbearable. We're talking 90+ degrees with the main AC on. There are 4 recessed lights. I held my hand up to one light can(?) and it was like a space heater. I moved around until I...

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,...

It is summer for sure. Colorado is experiencing 90-100 degree F days in the north east plains. Forest fires, high winds and dust complicate the time we can have the windows open as even at 80Deg in the house, the low humidity makes it comfy. The Carrier AC unit for this house (3,500+sq ft, 4BR, high ceilings) has had issues since I moved in. Refrigerant leaks and an electrical issue. Now, with the heat of the summer coming back, the AC unit can't keep up again. I've cleaned the unit outside, replaced the inside filter and am still getting some...