May 16, 2018

"The number of air-conditioners worldwide is predicted to soar from 1.6 billion units today to 5.6 billion units by midcentury..."

"If left unchecked, by 2050 air-conditioners would use as much electricity as China does for all activities today. Greenhouse gas emissions released by coal and natural gas plants when generating electricity to power those air-conditioners would nearly double, from 1.25 billion tons in 2016 to 2.28 billion tons in 2050, the report says. Those emissions would contribute to global warming, which could further heighten the demand for air-conditioning. Right now air-conditioning is concentrated in a handful of countries, mainly in the United States and Japan, and increasingly in China. While 90 percent of American households have air-conditioning, 'When we look in fact at the hot countries in the world, in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, where about 2.8 billion people live, only about 8 percent of the population owns an air-conditioner'.... As incomes in those countries rise, however, more people are installing air-conditioners in their homes.... Some of the spread is simply being driven by a desire for comfort in parts of the world that have always been hot. But other factors are at play.  For example, as household wealth increases, so does the presence of household appliances like refrigerators and televisions, the report notes. These appliances generate heat, making homes warmer."

From "The World Wants Air-Conditioning. That Could Warm the World." (NYT).

I would add that television affects the mind and, I would think, spreads ideas about how well people can live and what kind of comfort is to be expected.

Here's a WaPo article I blogged in 2010: "In the heat wave, the case against air conditioning." The reason to reject air conditioning was global warming, but beneficial side effects were noted:
In a world without air conditioning, a warmer, more flexible, more relaxed workplace helps make summer a time to slow down again. Three-digit temperatures prompt siestas. Code-orange days mean offices are closed. Shorter summer business hours and month-long closings -- common in pre-air-conditioned America -- return. Business suits are out, for both sexes. ...

Congress [would be] forced to adjourn to avoid Washington's torturous summers, and "the nation [would enjoy] a respite from the promulgation of more laws, the depredations of lobbyists, the hatching of new schemes for Federal expansion and, of course, the cost of maintaining a government running at full blast."...

Saying goodbye to A.C. means saying hello to the world. With more people spending more time outdoors -- particularly in the late afternoon and evening, when temperatures fall more quickly outside than they do inside -- neighborhoods see a boom in spontaneous summertime socializing.

Rather than cowering alone in chilly home-entertainment rooms, neighbors get to know one another. Because there are more people outside, streets in high-crime areas become safer....

Children -- and others -- take to bikes and scooters, because of the cooling effect of air movement. Calls for more summer school and even year-round school cease....

112 comments:

rehajm said...

We're back to blind acceptance of polls and now also predictions of experts. Got it.

Robert Cook said...

"In a world without air conditioning, a warmer, more flexible, more relaxed workplace helps make summer a time to slow down again."

Yup! This is why life in the American south was always slower and more informal than in the North. This is still true to a degree, (no pun intended...or is it?), but less so now that air conditioning fills homes and offices with chilled air. I remember years as a kid living in Florida where we had no air conditioning. You got used to it or used fans when necessary. (Come to think of it, southern Indiana, from whence I hail, was extremely hot in summers, and we had no air conditioning there, either.)

Paco Wové said...

We could also help slow life down by infecting everyone with hookworm, or maybe cutting of a leg or two.

The Bergall said...

Read her bio, explains it.

AllenS said...

I don't have air conditioning. I do have ceiling fans in almost every room of the house, and even in the shop. Closing the blinds on the side of the house where the sun is shining, is very helpful.

Robert Cook said...

"We're back to blind acceptance of polls and now also predictions of experts. Got it."

Others are sticking with blind insistence that the climate projections and warnings of thousands of climate scientists can have no possible validity and are a conspiracy to con the public, with the intent of forcing constrained living circumstances on us (for unknown nefarious reasons) or for grabbing big research bucks on which they can live high, or both. (Or, that the warnings and projections may be true, but humankind has nothing to do with it, can do nothing about it, and so should just keep on keepin' on, as we are.)

rehajm said...

If left unchecked...

..and there it is. Every leftie needs a daily dose of control over 'others'.

...but by all means go ahead a try to mess with the settings on everyone's air conditioner in July.

MadisonMan said...

Well, when the NYTimes shuts down the A/C in their building, I'll think they're serious.

We have a/c -- and have used it maybe 1 or 2 days in the past 3 years. It's really only there for the hottest of summers, which we haven't had for a while. You really do acclimate. As long as there's a fan blowing at night, then it's cool enough to sleep. I also can't stand the staleness of a house that's with a/c all the time.

stlcdr said...

...all based on an insistence that there’s a problem that needs solving.

Jersey Fled said...

Funny but whenever we get a heat alert here in Philly, it is followed the next day by a count of how many old people died "without air conditioning."

But I guess that's OK if it means less global warming and a more relaxing life style.

Tank said...

We're going to see quite a bit of global cooling which will more than offset any increase caused by AC. This year alone spring is running about a month late temperature wise.

Jersey Fled said...

Forgot to mention above that "women and minorities are disproportionately impacted".

rehajm said...

Others are sticking with blind insistence that the climate projections and warnings of thousands of climate scientists can have no possible validity...

Speaking for myself I prefer independently verifiable scientific evidence over climate 'projections and warnings'.

Mrs. X said...

Energy demand for climate control was analyzed for Miami (the warmest large metropolitan area in the US) and Minneapolis (the coldest large metropolitan area). The following relevant parameters were included in the analysis: (1) climatological deviations from the desired indoor temperature as expressed in heating and cooling degree days, (2) efficiencies of heating and cooling appliances, and (3) efficiencies of power-generating plants. The results indicate that climate control in Minneapolis is about 3.5 times as energy demanding as in Miami. This finding suggests that, in the US, living in cold climates is more energy demanding than living in hot climates.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/1/014050

I have a suggestion for the New York Times: shut up.

Rob said...

There is a strong strain of Ludditism in the climate change movement. But even the Luddites should be ashamed of the attitude that poor countries should swelter because they’ve always been hot and they can damn well stay that way.

Hagar said...

In a Jimmy Carter recirculating stale air office building, I require the temperature to be held below 72F, and preferably at 68F, if you expect me to get much work done.
With fresh air and shade, I can go to 75F, but that is about it.

Tommy Duncan said...

I fondly remember the sweat soaked bed sheets in August, the mildew in the shower, the impetigo and fungal infections.

And, of course, I still long for those 110 degree temperatures in the foundry where I worked summers to pay for college. They would send us home (without pay) when it hit 120 degrees in the galvanizing room.

Lewis Wetzel said...

All the ways suggested to mitigate warm weather w/o air conditioning cause economic inefficiency. Last I heard, there were still people living in dire poverty in the world.
And of course virtually all modern urban commercial architecture assumes the space will be air conditioned. My alma mater just built a science and technology center with glass walls, and windows that can't be opened, and I live in the tropics.
All we really need is lots of nuke power. It's the only practical solution to global warming caused by burning fossil fuels, if that is your worry.

Dave said...

Carbon dioxide causes global cooling.

Rusty said...

Tank said...
We're going to see quite a bit of global cooling which will more than offset any increase caused by AC. This year alone spring is running about a month late temperature wise.

We're currently n a solar minimum. It would help explain the last 20 years. And Robert. Those projections are all based on models. Not very accurate ones at that. Mann still won't release how he obtained his data. Solar activity is empirical, objective scientific evidence. We are going to be in store for 10 to 20 more years of a cooling trend.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Blogger rehajm said...
. . .
Speaking for myself I prefer independently verifiable scientific evidence over climate 'projections and warnings'.

Climate science and social science don't do the "reproducible results" part of science. They swapped it for "consensus", which makes climate science a social science.

Rusty said...

Air conditioning is another miracle of the modern age.

MadisonMan said...

This year alone spring is running about a month late temperature wise.

What a load of tosh.

The USA is not the Globe. Helpful Graphic

MadisonMan said...

For the USA, I like these graphs too. (Link)

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

My partisan reaction is: sure, deny air conditioning to the poor in the name of an exaggerated environmental scare. But then: Automation doesn't necessarily bring more leisure; sometimes it forces people to work harder to keep up with the machines. The cell phone as an electronic tether to be used by bosses is an example. At the recommendation of a friend, I'm reading The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington, of course made famous by the Orson Welles movie.There is an emphasis on good things that were lost in a place like Indianapolis, roughly with the arrival of the automobile: an appreciation for lasting quality as compared to fashion, and leisure of some kind even for poorly paid people. A single-track street car pulled by a mule would stop at request--even by someone whistling from an upstairs window; the later, much faster trolley car would "wait for nobody." "In the days before deathly contrivances hustled them through their lives, and when they had no telephones--another ancient vacancy profoundly responsible for leisure--they had time for everything: time to think, to talk, time to read, time to wait for a lady!" I play trumpet in a community band, and I'm amazed by the amount of amateur music that seems to have occurred.

Matt Sablan said...

Wait. Offices close during orange alerts? I just had to walk to work if they took public transit offline.

MikeR said...

Europe is in general much cooler than the US. They don't use as much air conditioning, but they use much more heating in the winter. That's energy, and CO2, often from burning coal. Why don't they get more sweaters? Cold is much easier to deal with than heat.

O2bnaz said...

According to the US Dept of Energy Americans use 4 times the amount of energy to heat their homes than they do to cool their homes. There may be an Alt-Right but there is definitely a Cult-Left. Suggesting that the brown peoples of southern latitudes will somehow be responsible for future global warming if they are allowed to cool their homes exposes the insidiousness of leftist racism. The left is the evil they see in everyone else.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/?page=us_energy_homes

Lewis Wetzel said...

Blogger Robert Cook said...
. . .

Others are sticking with blind insistence that the climate projections and warnings of thousands of climate scientists can have no possible validity and are a conspiracy to con the public, with the intent of forcing constrained living circumstances on us (for unknown nefarious reasons) or for grabbing big research bucks on which they can live high, or both.

Gosh, remember when the consensus of geophysicists was that continental drift was a fraud? It wasn't that long ago. The reason that they thought that it was a fraud is because moving continents takes a lot of energy, and they couldn't find a source for the energy it would take to rearrange continents. It took until the 1960s before they developed a theory (eddy currents in the mantle) and they only came up with that theory after empirical evidence for continental drift in the form of see floor mapping forced them to find a mechanism.
They geophysicists came up with a theory that explained the empirical evidence.
Climate scientists don't do that.

Dave said...

I guess plants have nothing to do with the Earth's climate.

I do find it super neat that fossil fuels saved the whales. But that doesn't matter now that we need some real carbon taxes to help out the sociopaths running the planet.

rhhardin said...

I had a heat pump that lasted a year in the 70s, at which point I could see ongoing expenses would always outweigh power bill savings.

One extra-hot summer I had a solar powered fan blowing air from the basement floor up a duct onto the computer desk, but otherwise just ordinary fans have done fine for this telecommuter.

rhhardin said...

The discussion has inspired me to buy a stirling engine for the top of the computer monitor.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

There are always people who want to restrict other's choices to effect their preferred reality.

If folks want to forego aircon and sit on the porch all summer, they can already do that, see. So I suspect that no one actually wants to do that.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

gah ~ others'

Larry J said...

Robert Cook said...

"In a world without air conditioning, a warmer, more flexible, more relaxed workplace helps make summer a time to slow down again."

Yup! This is why life in the American south was always slower and more informal than in the North. This is still true to a degree, (no pun intended...or is it?), but less so now that air conditioning fills homes and offices with chilled air. I remember years as a kid living in Florida where we had no air conditioning. You got used to it or used fans when necessary. (Come to think of it, southern Indiana, from whence I hail, was extremely hot in summers, and we had no air conditioning there, either.)


I grew up in Alabama without air conditioning. I was in high school before encountering air conditioned classrooms. The first several cars I owned didn't have air conditioning. We were just used to the heat and humidity.

I sometimes joke that the reason southerners talk and move slow is that in the days before air conditioning, people with the defective "fast" genes tended to die of heat stroke.

Today, I'd gladly contribute to a fund to erect statues of Willis Carrier in every southern town square. Blessed be the name of the man who invented air conditioning!

Etienne said...

If you had a huge field of lava available, you could use the heat to generate steam, which can then run a turbine, which can then run a compressor.

It's the compressor that sucks all the energy.

If instead of drilling for oil, we drilled for lava, we could replace 19th century technology.

Drilling for lava is very hard in Mississippi, fairly easy in Hawaii and Iceland :-)

MadisonMan said...

Why don't they get more sweaters? Cold is much easier to deal with than heat.

Come visit in winter! We're sitting around in sweaters in my house. The thermostate is set at a bracing 63.

Last weekend's cold spell, the house was in the mid-50s! I refused to turn on the heat though. Wrong time of year.

Is it odd to sit around the house in a jacket? Not for me -- but I wouldn't insist everyone else do it, which is why I'm different from a lot of virtue-signalling Democrats.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

p.s. you Northerners and your 'fans are fine with me!' make me smile. Come to Texas!

David Begley said...

Agree with Madison Man. And how about turning off the a/c in the UN building? And the offices of the NYC government.

Gahrie said...

The reason to reject air conditioning was global warming

The earth is cooling, not warming. We're headed into another mini ice age most likely.

Ralph L said...

The humidity came early this spring. Last year, I scrubbed and painted most of my house before July 4. This last week, I've had it by 9 AM, even when it was still under 80 but rising.

When my former boss went on blood pressure medication, he put the thermostat at 78 in warm weather. I could tell when it was about to kick in because I would want to lie down. Got me a small fan.

Phil 314 said...

Mr. Carrier, Arizona thanks you.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Is it odd to sit around the house in a jacket?

It's funny how people get acclimated. My brother in law, who lives in Mesa but was raised in Ohio and has lived all over the world including Scotland and Iceland, wears a jacket in the house if the indoor temperature drops below 80.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

Funny how many true believers in man-made warming have AC, own cars, and spend their days burning kilowatt hours on the internet.

Gahrie said...

Others are sticking with blind insistence that the climate projections and warnings of thousands of climate scientists can have no possible validity

They're just flat out wrong. Garbage in, garbage out. The first and most basic problem is that they use corrupted data.

Global warming caused civilization, not the other way around and the earth is cooling, not warming.

MadisonMan said...

p.s. you Northerners and your 'fans are fine with me!' make me smile. Come to Texas!

If you're in Houston, you have a point. But living in that polluted flooding Hell Hole? Eesh.

I was in Fort Worth for a meeting last July and it was super hot. 100+. The outdoor opening reception (??? What were they thinking!!) was moved indoors (duh) where it was absolutely glacial. I walked around each noon outside in the heat just to warm up! I didn't move fast. That's my chief complaint with a/c -- stale air unless the a/c is set to 'icebox'.

I think once you get west of, say, a Childress to Laredo line, it's comfortable enough at night with some kind of air circulation.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mockturtle said...

As if the NYT actually gave a shit.

tcrosse said...

Let them all move to Santa Barbara.

Michael said...

There is the tale of the BMW engineers who refused to believe their AC systems were not equal to the freezing Cadillac ACs. They were sent to Houston in August and given a black 700 series to drive with the windows locked closed. BMW AC systems got better on the new models. Houston and Bavaria have a different view of hot.

mockturtle said...

If left unchecked

A/C for me but not for thee, peasants.

M Jordan said...

Liberals and their world solutions... yechh. I’ve quit calling them hypocrites because I now realize they don’t believe anything they “believe” in.

M Jordan said...

@O2bnaz

“There may be an Alt-Right but there is definitely a Cult-Left.”

Cult-Left, eh? I like it. Must scurry over to reddit /thedonald/ and get it into the vernacular.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

the population is expected to jump as well. I wonder if there is a parallel?

stevew said...

These people fantasize about living in a world that existed 40 or 50 years ago, which we call third-world today. This is magical thinking and should be derided.

-sw

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Shorts, t-shirt, and an electric fan make even the hottest days comfortable. The trick is to embrace the acclimation. Do some strenuous outdoor work on the first blazing days and you’ll be good for the summer. Or dead.

Caligula said...

Perhaps it's about the need for more nuclear power, to power all those air conditioners.

And to charge all those electric cars!

stevew said...

"Shorts, t-shirt, and an electric fan make even the hottest days comfortable."

Right on. I've longed said there is no such thing as bad weather, just poor and mismatched clothing choices.

-sw

Kevin said...

I recommend that the first place air conditioning gets shut down is the NY Times' datacenter/server rooms.

Big Mike said...

The glass boxes that office building architects are so fond of cannot function without air conditioning, but I used to work across the street from a building that was designed during Carter’s energy crisis and looks as though it would be very efficient. Instead of being positioned vertically, the office windows slant inwards from top to bottom. In the summer little direct sunlight enters the window, but in the winter when the sun is lower in the sky sunlight does get in to help lower the heating bills. But every office building I have seen built since that time is just yet another variation in the glass box.

Wilbur said...

"Shorts, t-shirt, and an electric fan make even the hottest days comfortable."

Aha! This is all just a conspiracy to get men in shorts!

Henry said...

In a world without air conditioning, a warmer, more flexible, more relaxed workplace helps make summer a time to slow down again.

That dimwit has never worked in a Shanghai office building.

tcrosse said...

In a world without air conditioning, a warmer, more flexible, more relaxed workplace helps make summer a time to slow down again.

As long as one can go out to the Hamptons or Martha's Vineyard for the weekend.

Larry J said...

If air conditioning is so unnecessary, why is it that during heat waves, special efforts are made to get vulnerable people (sick or elderly) into cooler places? I remember reports of over 11,000 elderly people dying in France back in 2003 during a heat wave and it has happened here, too. Perhaps some people see the deaths of old people as a feature, not a bug. Old people can be expensive for governments.

Air conditioning saves lives.

Dust Bunny Queen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dust Bunny Queen said...

It gets pretty hot here in the summer often well over 100 during the day. But...it is mostly a dry heat (low humidity). We cool off naturally during the day with evaporative action. The sweat on our bodies evaporates. We use an evaporative cooler (aka Swamp Cooler) during the day to cool inside the house. A bigger version of those evaporative coolers of yore

Fans at night to move the air in the house. Windows open to let the cooler night air come in. Screens on the windows to keep the mosquitoes and moths outside.

If you live where there is high humidity, you won't have this ability. The humidity and heat....you might as well be living in a sauna. This is most of the South, North East and Midwest.

The problem with nostalgia for the "good old days" is that people only remember the good things, the fun things and not the bad.

If the author is so nostalgic, I suggest he/she go first. Return to the 50's and tell us how it is for her.

n.n said...

So, planned parenthood, virtual travel (with prevailing winds, but not to gusty, and sun shiny days), heavy insulating coats, and isothermal caves.

Birches said...

How dare the world's poor use capitalism to better their lives! The audacity! !1!

Because I grew up in AZ, we keep our AC at 78 or 80 and only turn it on a couple of weeks in the summer. Everyone here thinks we are crazy.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

I greatly suffered growing up in a house that had no air conditioning. The stifling heat made sleep impossible many summer nights, and I'd even go outside and try to sleep on the lawn, with limited success. I finally got a job and bought a window unit (for my room only, of course!), and it was like Heaven.

I discovered, though, that proper ventilation and a few fans were really all we needed, and in fact, I never use the AC in my apartment now. I have windows and fans, and that takes care of it, even if the temperature outside approaches 100 degrees.

Rick.T. said...

Spent a summer in England during a "heat wave" at an office and a countryside inn with no A/C. No thanks. And this was near Birmingham which is as far north as Calgary, Canada.

Michael K said...

One comment about nuclear power.

the intent of forcing constrained living circumstances on us (for unknown nefarious reasons)

Yes, those "unknown" reasons always occur to the left.

Shutting off A/C in Congress and the UN building would be a start.

Plus the NY Times building, of course, Show us the way, Masters !

Seeing Red said...

Cookie, German scientists actually did an experiment and decreed we’re in global cooling until I think 2050. Then it’s going to warm up again until 2130. Then there’s Pele’s anger spewing ash and lava constantly.

Rusty said...


"Shorts, t-shirt, and an electric fan make even the hottest days comfortable."
Go fuck yourself. ;-)
All well and good if you don't move.
If I knew where the guy who invented modern air conditioning lived(Dodge?) I'd go up to his house and hand him a grand in cash. "Here. This is for you. Thank you."

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"Europe is in general much cooler than the US.... Why don't they get more sweaters?"

I've been told by someone who knows Europeans that Americans will say, "It's cold, I'll turn up the heat.", and Europeans will say, "I'm cold, I'll put on a sweater."

I'm not sure if those are exact quotes.

Kevin said...

And not only the physical discomfort involved, think about THINGS. Increased heat, humidity, and dust are the #1 killers of anything electronic. And everything that is anything to anyone these days is some form of electronic device. Books, paper, cloth, leather will all have their lives significantly shortened. Mold and mildew will explode like wildfire. Allergy attacks will be pandemic. Remember we filter the air in our cars now, we're so spoiled. You want to go back to a point where there is no air filtration in public and private buildings?

Seeing Red said...

My dad said he’d work with no A/C (at that time his building didn’t have it) but he’d be damned if he’d live with no A/C and turned it down. I grew up in a cool home. That’s one if the things he worked hard for. Comfort.

That article is nonsense. Those people get upset if they have pit stains on their clothing. Sweaty messy hair, dripping clothing. The last thing they want to emulate is the working class.

Robert Cook said...

My first summer job at 15 was as a dishwasher at the restaurant my father managed. This was in Florida. Added to the natural heat and humidity outside was the heat radiating off the ovens and stoves and the conveyor belt dishwasher. One quickly acclimated to being slick with sweat for hours at a time.

Bruce Hayden said...

“Others are sticking with blind insistence that the climate projections and warnings of thousands of climate scientists can have no possible validity and are a conspiracy to con the public, with the intent of forcing constrained living circumstances on us (for unknown nefarious reasons) or for grabbing big research bucks on which they can live high, or both. (Or, that the warnings and projections may be true, but humankind has nothing to do with it, can do nothing about it, and so should just keep on keepin' on, as we are.)”

Cook here has a convoluted appeal to authority. After reading that, and thinking about it as I drove over here to find an open McDonald’s, I thought about my law school graduation, almost 30 years ago. Out in the hot sun, without a cloud in sight, one of our Senators (Timmy Wirthless) gave, as our commencement speech, his stock Global Cooling speech. Making things worse - it was the third time that year that I had had to suffer through it. Probably unknown yet to our Wirthless Senator, the environmental movement was then facing an existential crisis: the climate had quit cooling and was then warming. Ultimately, they managed to switch sides without, of course admitting it, within a decade switching from a consensus that CO2 buildup was causing Global Cooling, to causing Global Warming. And (by then former) Senator Wirthless was boring people with his Global Warming speeches. But, of course, switching the “consensus” back and forth takes several years, and by the time that the Global Warming consensus was fully accepted by all the best people, the climate had ceased Warming. So, someone had a bright idea - if the climate wasn’t going to consistently cool down, or heat up, then they could exploit this, turn this fatal defect into an advantage - and now we have Anthropogenic Global Climate Change. If it heats up cools down, there are more hurricanes, or fewer, more ice, or less, etc, it is all explained by AGCC. This though is an implicit admission that we are no longer talking about science, but rather religion, where lack of falsifiability is not a bug but rather a feature.

Anonymous said...

One doesn't become acclimated to being slick with sweat for hours; one gets used to always putting up with it. My year in Thailand (without A/C) convinced me of that.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Making world wide decisions on how other people should live, based on your OWN conditions is another narcissistic characteristic of the Global Warming crowd. The concept that the weather in your area may be conducive to no A/C for example while other places are unbearable without the luxury of A/C ..never seems to occur to them.

Clue. Everyone isn't YOU. Every place isn't like YOURS.

I once went on a business trip to the headquarters of my Broker Dealer firm. It is in a famous large midwestern city on the Mississipi. Summer! Humidity! The day temperature was only in the mid 80 degrees but the humidity was so high that the sweat on our bodies never evaporated. Stepping outside was like being slapped in the face and then wrapped up in a wet hot towel.

We had a dress code to adhere to for some meetings. Suits, nylons, heels. My makeup was sliding off my face. Sweat pooling under my clothing. Hair going limp from the sweat on my scalp. Fuck this place!!!

When we got back on the plane to come home the humidity followed us. Getting off the plane to make a connecting flight in Arizona we were faced with a 105 degree day and hardly any humidity. What a freaking relief!!!! The sweat evaporated. The weight of the humidity was lifted. 85 degrees....HELL. 105 degrees HEAVEN.

Daniel Jackson said...

Ah yes, noblesse oblige: the arrogant ideological white man telling all those dark skinned folks that they cannot use their AC. B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T.

AC is all over the world and is a life saver. I lived for a year in Madurai, Tamilnadu, where the AVERAGE annual ambient temperature is 42 degree Celsius. Hot.

I lived in South Florida and in Tidewater Maryland so I know what HOT is like. I hate it.

As to French winters, most French in the south use that ecologically appropriate WOOD to heat. Most French houses in these parts are constructed (up until ten years ago) from river stone. They are very cold and take lots of wood. Moreover, even though seventy five percent of French electricity is nuclear, the taxes on a kilowatt hour are ASTOUNDING. France is VERY cold in the winter and heating is cher.

There is a wonderful description of a French winter in Tropic of Cancer when Miller was teaching in the south. The headmaster gave him a daily allotment of coal in a small bucket. He writes it was NEVER enough. French don't really do much in the winter. Starting in the spring, they start cutting wood for next winter.

Yep. Let's get rid of AC. Sure.

Michael K said...

The sweat evaporated. The weight of the humidity was lifted. 85 degrees....HELL. 105 degrees HEAVEN.

98 today and not quite hot enough to go in the pool yet.

Cookie is explained by his story of working as a dishwasher in Florida.

Boiled brains.

Brian said...

They would send us home (without pay) when it hit 120 degrees in the galvanizing room.

Been there done that. The paint booth wasn't much better.

Bruce Hayden said...

“Perhaps it's about the need for more nuclear power, to power all those air conditioners.

And to charge all those electric cars!”

Last week visited the People’s Republic of Boulder to watch my kid’s defense of their dissertation (scheduled unfortunately right by the stadium at the same time as campus wide graduation there), and then being “hooded” (added ceremony when PhD candidates walk and get their fake diplomas) later in the day. Got to know their advisor a bit. Both of us had worked at Sandia Labs in Albuquerque at some point in our careers. In his case it was right before grad school, where they were working on fusion (I was there in the early 1980s when they were still concentrating on nuclear weapon design). He was pessimistic about the Big Science solutions, like the National Ignition Facility at Livermore (I had worked as a patent atty on some of the technology there), but was a lot more excited about some of the newer approaches that look to be much more modular and scalable. And there, fusion seems to be following fission. There are a number of really good ideas in fission being finally tested, with prototypes being built. Pretty much they are all “fail safe”, which means that they can’t melt down, because when they start to get out of control, they automatically shut down. Just like with space exploration, there is a lot of money out there to be made, and a bunch of tech billionaires who want to be the ones doing so. And, opposing them, trying to shutdown any advances in nuclear power generation, no matter how safe and clean, are the Luddite environmentalists who now control the regulatory apparatus. Which is maybe a long, meandering, way of saying that the only real hurdle to safe, cheap, and relatively clean cheap (fission, then fusion) nuclear power, is the government.

Anne in Rockwall, TX said...

How are all those climate scientists going to run their programs to get a hockey stick if their computer overheats?

Where is your consensus now?

MountainMan said...

This is just another one of those articles based on "If present trends continue..." Well, present trends never continue. If you look at all such predictions over the past 40 years or so most of India and Africa would have already been depopulated by mass starvation; the polar ice caps would have melted and all our coastal cities would be under water; peak oil would have been reached and we would be facing a dire energy situation due to rapidly declining production, blah, blah, blah. Such writers have no sense of history and of the impact of human innovation. The future is very bright if the naysayers and doom mongers would just go away and let society get on with it. More electricity and A/C for the rest of the world, particularly the poorer areas in the tropics, will be a good thing for humanity and bring a big improvement in people's lives. But people like this write just can't stand that.

Michael K said...

Which is maybe a long, meandering, way of saying that the only real hurdle to safe, cheap, and relatively clean cheap (fission, then fusion) nuclear power, is the government.

The most successful KGB project in history. It has even survived the end of the KGB.

brylun said...

What 20th century invention/discovery caused the most human change?
1. air conditioning
2. birth control
3. antibiotics

Real American said...

amazing how the watermelons shift from "climate change" to "global warming" when it suits them. Increased A/C use may cause cooling and not warming, especially if people keep leaving their windows open, i.e., engage in conduct our fathers warned us against - trying to cool off the whole outdoors.

Yancey Ward said...

I lived in western CT for about 20 years- didn't ever use air conditioning. There were only about 20-30 days in that entire time I wished I had it.

However, in TN it is pretty much required- old people simply can't take the heat and survive. It wasn't a problem in the past because there weren't a lot of old people, and the one that were were the strongest of the type.

MayBee said...

I *do* like the idea that people would stop begging for year round school.

Robert Edick said...

Time for leisure suits to make a comeback.

Jim at said...

What is the perfect temperature of the Earth, leftists?

When did it happen?

Jim at said...

Cult-Left, eh? I like it. Must scurry over to reddit /thedonald/ and get it into the vernacular.

I prefer the crtl-left. It's more accurate.

MadisonMan said...

@Bruce Hayden, something is wrong with your timeline. Almost 30 years ago was, alas, the late 80s/1990 -- and the environmental crisis then was ozone hole. So if Wirth was talking about global cooling then, as an environmentalist, he was just babbling.

The cause of Global Cooling back then -- Bryson here was a big proponent -- was orbital dynamics with a bit of aerosol forcing thrown in. This was the early 80s though, and it really died down (except for Nuclear Winter talks) by the mid-80s. CO2 was not a player in global cooling.

JaimeRoberto said...

From what I've read, most of the warming is supposed to come at nights and during the winter, so global warming will also reduce energy consumption. I wonder why that wasn't mentioned?

lgv said...

Stupid people can write for Wapo, obviously.

All the good things that could happen could happen anyway, or could happen with 8 feet of snow and freezing weather.

"the nation [would enjoy] a respite from the promulgation of more laws, the depredations of lobbyists, the hatching of new schemes for Federal expansion and, of course, the cost of maintaining a government running at full blast."

Isn't that why people voted for Trump?

Also, another example of extrapolating into absurdity. We could always solve the whole issue by going nuclear. Then we can have our A/C and reduced CO2 emissions. That's what we want, isn't it?

Rusty said...


"Also, another example of extrapolating into absurdity. We could always solve the whole issue by going nuclear. Then we can have our A/C and reduced CO2 emissions. That's what we want, isn't it? "

I really don't care.

tcrosse said...

India and China will figure this out on their own. No need for WaPo to worry its pretty little head about it. Besides, most climate deals give them a pass, anyway.

mikee said...

I grew up in a non-air-conditioned house in North Carolina. We had a large fan that pulled air from the house into the attic, thus creating air movement at least. I lived through the summers without hardly ever dying from heat. My mother had central AC installed the year I left home for college. I have yet to forgive her for waiting that long, but again, nobody died from lack of AC.

If the promise of Solar Power is real, I should be able to put panels on my roof to run my AC (and the rest of my appliances) with some kind of battery storage on site. Or are they lying about the wonders of power from the sun? If so, I'll accept a thorium nuclear reactor in my neighborhood.

Saint Croix said...

I think air conditioning played an under appreciated role in the improvement of race relations in the South. Racial segregation, and racial hostility, went hand-in-hand with damn uncomfortable weather. I think AC made the South a way, way, way more hospitable environment. And I think we underrate how much the weather affects the mood of people.

If we want peace in the middle east, and happiness? AC units. Cool people down. You're in the damn desert, you need some AC.

People who want to regulate air conditioning because air conditioning causes a hotter planet are so damn stupid I don't know what to say to them. I'd hit them upside the head, except I'm so damn cool and happy I don't have time for that.

Birches said...

St. Croix makes a compelling point. I know I'm more disagreeable when I'm hot. Not to mention that marital intimacy is less appealing in the heat. Much nicer to snuggle in the cold. I suppose this is a very strong argument for AC.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

What is the perfect temperature of the Earth, leftists?

When did it happen?


When civilization accommodated quite well to it.

If right-wing barbarians are so anti-civilization, so opposed to civilization, then why don't they just come out and admit it?

Freeman Hunt said...

All I can think is, "How wonderful for all those people who are going to get air conditioning!"

Robert Cook said...

"Cookie is explained by his story of working as a dishwasher in Florida.

"Boiled brains."


You musn't have been a very good doctor.

Freeman Hunt said...

One sees pictures of people stuck living in the heat. They don't look like they enjoy it.

Anonymous said...

Hahaha yeah talk to me when they've stopped air conditioning private jets, and we can go on from there to discuss residential. I remember all those old people dying in France the year of the heat wave. (Was it just that one year? Or is that an annual August tradition in France?)

Come to think of it, why don't we have this discussion after we've gotten rid of private jets? If we're so worried about energy consumption, we could do away with all first class travel. Make everyone pack in together in coach class, no a/c. Just fans will suffice.

If you can't handle it for a three hour flight, nobody is gonna want it full time.

Bruce Hayden said...

“The cause of Global Cooling back then -- Bryson here was a big proponent -- was orbital dynamics with a bit of aerosol forcing thrown in. This was the early 80s though, and it really died down (except for Nuclear Winter talks) by the mid-80s. CO2 was not a player in global cooling.”

You may be correct overall - but my memory is distinctly that Wirth was talking about CO2 caused Anthropogenic Global Cooling. Had to listen to the same speech three times that year.

Joe said...

nobody died from lack of AC.

Happens in Phoenix every summer.

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Bilwick said...

People would need less air conditioning if they spent more time naked. Just saying.

Bilwick said...

MountainMan, remember in the early Sixties people predicting we'd be working only a few hours a week? And worrying about the social consequences of it? I for one never worried about having too much leisure. I have so many interests that I looked forward to putting in minimal time working for The Man and then spending all that leisure time on self-cultivation. Never happened. The "problem" of too much leisure went the way of those flying cars we were all supposed to have by the year 2000.