Yeah we’ll also probably get the malaria mosquitos and other bearers of tropical diseases here.
Not to say that we should have ever gotten this far or that we’re doing enough to stop climate change or that this is the only problem caused by climate change, but we are where we are and heatwaves kill and AC helps and, at least where I live, we have not done nearly enough to prevent these deaths thus far imo.
AC is the cheap « oh we didn’t do shit so now let’s take the quickest solutions regardless of cost, externalities etc… »
ACs help, sure, so would adding vegetations around houses/buildings, using higher albedo roofs, having fucking blinds on the windows, not building skyscrapers out of glass that are essentially giant greenhouses…
But that requires planning and not voting for the destruction of the government’s competence soo…
Yeah, but let me tell you, even if you have plenty of vegetation around the house, a well-insulated roof, windows that you open during the night and outside blinds you close during the day, this heatwave has been unbearable.
I think we use the less energy-intensive tools at our disposal pretty effectively around here actually. As an example, my university’s main building has also managed to remain somewhat bearable with minimal AC, somehow.
The problem is that these things are beginning to not be enough anymore. I’ve been going through my personal hell on earth with this heatwave for the past weeks despite using all of the techniques that don’t involve heat pumps, which is also why I feel so strongly about this. I simply can’t see another way out in the short to medium term.
We’re going to use heatpumps/AC that’s not the thing that pisses me off. The thing that pisses me off is the reaction from so many people in France is “oh we need AC now” and not “why the fuck did we wait so long to give a shit about climate change and why is nobody talking about reducing emissions still ?”
Oh yeah, that’s totally fair. I’m also still sour about the two perfectly good climate change laws that were rejected in referendums in Switzerland. This is where that gets us. I hope populism dies and all the oil barons burn in this world’s last oil fire.
And I want to watch the spectacle from an ACd room, ideally.
Try swamp coolers, especially when it is less humid, a wet blanket over a window with air blowing in, put the bottom of the blanket or beach towel in a pot of water, the evaporation creates a cooling effect.
Newer buildings are often built with windows oriented to miss the summer sunshine but get hit by the winter sun, one of my old apartments was built like that, and it was a world better than other old apartments, especially the ones that are like 80 years old, which get hellishly hot in the summer.
Where are you at? Because hard winter weather hasn’t gone away, and that’s what keeps those tropical/subtropical diseases from traveling north. We got like 3 or 4 polar inversions in the contintental US just this winter, and at least one for years going back.
Those diseases aren’t moving anywhere near us here, if you are right on the coast maybe as the ocean keeps it warmer in cold fronts, Washington DC was a malarial swamp since before we built the capitol there, but that’s the farthest north of any malaria I’ve heard of in the US.
Yeah we’ll also probably get the malaria mosquitos and other bearers of tropical diseases here.
Not to say that we should have ever gotten this far or that we’re doing enough to stop climate change or that this is the only problem caused by climate change, but we are where we are and heatwaves kill and AC helps and, at least where I live, we have not done nearly enough to prevent these deaths thus far imo.
AC is the cheap « oh we didn’t do shit so now let’s take the quickest solutions regardless of cost, externalities etc… »
ACs help, sure, so would adding vegetations around houses/buildings, using higher albedo roofs, having fucking blinds on the windows, not building skyscrapers out of glass that are essentially giant greenhouses…
But that requires planning and not voting for the destruction of the government’s competence soo…
Yeah, but let me tell you, even if you have plenty of vegetation around the house, a well-insulated roof, windows that you open during the night and outside blinds you close during the day, this heatwave has been unbearable.
I think we use the less energy-intensive tools at our disposal pretty effectively around here actually. As an example, my university’s main building has also managed to remain somewhat bearable with minimal AC, somehow.
The problem is that these things are beginning to not be enough anymore. I’ve been going through my personal hell on earth with this heatwave for the past weeks despite using all of the techniques that don’t involve heat pumps, which is also why I feel so strongly about this. I simply can’t see another way out in the short to medium term.
We’re going to use heatpumps/AC that’s not the thing that pisses me off. The thing that pisses me off is the reaction from so many people in France is “oh we need AC now” and not “why the fuck did we wait so long to give a shit about climate change and why is nobody talking about reducing emissions still ?”
Oh yeah, that’s totally fair. I’m also still sour about the two perfectly good climate change laws that were rejected in referendums in Switzerland. This is where that gets us. I hope populism dies and all the oil barons burn in this world’s last oil fire.
And I want to watch the spectacle from an ACd room, ideally.
Try swamp coolers, especially when it is less humid, a wet blanket over a window with air blowing in, put the bottom of the blanket or beach towel in a pot of water, the evaporation creates a cooling effect.
Newer buildings are often built with windows oriented to miss the summer sunshine but get hit by the winter sun, one of my old apartments was built like that, and it was a world better than other old apartments, especially the ones that are like 80 years old, which get hellishly hot in the summer.
Where are you at? Because hard winter weather hasn’t gone away, and that’s what keeps those tropical/subtropical diseases from traveling north. We got like 3 or 4 polar inversions in the contintental US just this winter, and at least one for years going back.
Those diseases aren’t moving anywhere near us here, if you are right on the coast maybe as the ocean keeps it warmer in cold fronts, Washington DC was a malarial swamp since before we built the capitol there, but that’s the farthest north of any malaria I’ve heard of in the US.
Switzerland. The first tiger mosquito was spotted in Ticino in 2003 and they are established there now. In other parts of Switzerland as well.
And at least by how it feels, our winters have been getting milder as well.