The air conditioning trap: how cold air is heating the world

[arenean]

Interesting read about the rise of air conditioning.
It would be so easy to redesign housing (even affordable housing ) using passivhaus techniques, but as usual, money talks.....

The air conditioning trap: how cold air is heating the world

The warmer it gets, the more we use air conditioning. The more we use air conditioning, the warmer it gets. Is there any way out of this trap? By Stephen Buranyi

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/29/the-air-conditioning-trap-how-cold-air-is-heating-the-world

[MichMan]

1. If people are serious about combating climate change, AC use needs to be curtailed substantially

People demand action on climate change as long as it doesn't affect their own lifestyles.We do not need to live in sterile environments of 72 degrees year around

We only run ours a handful of times a year if that. When I was growing up we did not have AC and somehow people managed just fine.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. I don't have A/C. Never have.

My apartment reached temperatures over 90 degrees at times.

All I relied on was a fan which only circulated warm/hot air.

I grew up in the Sixties and Seventies without air conditioning. While I do concede that it is uncomfortable without it, I would consider getting a window unit ONLY IF the heat affected my health, such as dizziness, fatigue, etc. that prevented me from getting out of bed.

[Siwsan]

3. I have to wear a sweater when I go to the stores, because of the AC

I understand the big stores may need it, in the Summer, but do they have to keep it cranked to arctic levels? I had the same problem at work. Always wore a sweater, year round, because of how cold it felt.

My house has AC but I've never used it. I prefer open windows and fans.

[FoxNewsSucks]

7. I go into grocery stores a lot for work,

and keep a jacket in my car because most are cold enough to be uncomfortable. And I don't want to get adjusted to that cold then feel like I need to run the AC more at home.

There is a reason for grocery stores doing that. They have so many coolers for produce, dairy etc. Freezers. Big walk-in coolers and freezers for backstock. They claim that when they turn the thermostat up, all those coolers and freezers work harder and their electric bills are actually higher than just using the AC to keep the whole store cool. A lot of those fixtures look like they are decades old, and probably are less efficient than a newer AC.

That doesn't explain, however, why clothing stores and office buildings are often nearly as cold.

[GoneOffShore]

4. We don't have air conditioning here in Aix even though we needed it in July.

Two ceiling fans, 4 other fans. North/South windows. And lots of linen clothes.

We do have AC in our car.

Not that many people here have AC, though more are installing it. It is indeed a trap.

[The_jackalope]

5. At wet bulb temps over 95, without AC you die quickly.

https://www.inverse.com/article/34990-south-asia-unsurvivable-wet-bulb-heat-by-2100



In the future, parts of the world will become so hot and humid that healthy adults sitting in the shade will die within a matter of hours. It’s hard to imagine, and yet that’s where Earth’s climate is headed, perhaps sooner than expected.

New research, published Wednesday in Science Advances, found that 75 percent of the population of South Asia will experience extremely dangerous heat waves by 2100 if no action is taken to fight climate change. Four percent will experience unsurvivable heat — that’s 69 million people at today’s population level.

The Indus and Ganges river valleys, spanning southeast Pakistan, northern India, and Bangladesh, have a disastrous combination of a densely populated, vulnerable population and extreme, humid heat. In these parts of the world, extreme heat is already frequent and deadly. A 2015 heat wave that covered large parts of India and Pakistan killed an estimated 3,500 people.

[mopinko]

6. one more disastrous cycle.

[Coventina]

8. It's going to be 106 today, 110 tomorrow, and 111 Saturday.

I'm using my a/c or I will die.

Sure, I'd love to live in the PNW, but I can't afford to do so.

I have a tenured faculty position here in Phoenix, so I'm here no matter what.

Yes, I am concerned about global warming, but I have no other realistic choice in the matter.