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I don't have a subscription currently so I didn't read the full article but I find it almost impossible to get any work done without air-conditioning on a very

I don't have a subscription currently so I didn't read the full article but I find it almost impossible to get any work done without air-conditioning on a very hot day so limiting their use seems impossible without also impacting productivity and economic output. For this reason the only solution seems to be either a technological breakthrough or the continuation of iterative efficiency gains.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
One could also just move to (northern coastal) California, but that has its own costs.
- ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
  Globally speaking though it's not practical, possible or desirable to have everyone from a hot part of the world move to a cooler part. There will be countries where almost the entirety of it needs air-conditioning, in some cases 24/7/365, at least if they want to attain high economic growth. Could places like Hong Kong or Singapore be successful without air-conditioning tech?
  - a012 8y ago
    I've worked in many office buildings and they cut Air conditioning at 7PM
    - antisthenes 8y ago
      Yes, and those office workers then go home and turn on air conditioning there. The people need AC, not the buildings themselves.
      - a012 8y ago
        Are you sure 100% workers in these countries turn their home AC on immediately after returning home?
        eric_the_read 8y ago
        I'd hope they turn them on an hour or so before they return home; otherwise, it's likely to be uncomfortable.
- pimmen 8y ago
  There's three billion people living in the tropics. I don't know how closely you follow European politics, but letting all of them move to cooler climates simply because they can't stand the heat would upset quite a few in the populist movement over here.
- mikestew 8y ago
  Why, they don't run A/C there? 'cuz they do in Seattle, which I find to be ridiculous. I keep a fleece vest in my office during the summer. There are going to be historians digging through our rubble, trying to figure out what happened four hundred years from now, and they're going to say, "they lived in a temperate climate where it rarely got above 80F, but they ran A/C non-stop for four months out of the year. No wonder the fucking ice caps melted." And I think that's something some commenters are missing: no one is asking India to turn off the A/C. But maybe we don't need to replicate the grocer's freezer section in my office just because the weather finally turned nice.
  - tjr225 8y ago
    I moved to Seattle from the midwest...the crying for A/C during 90 degree days with 0 humidity are laughable.
    - mikestew 8y ago
      Give it ten years. Born-and-bred Hoosier here, with a stop in North Carolina for a while. I am well acquainted with a hot, humid summer. I, too, once mocked the long-time residents in the PNW every summer. Then one day I woke up and found that I also find 85F to be a bit uncomfortable. I've grown soft, but at least I'm aware of it. :-)
  - tzs 8y ago
    Seattle may be over air-conditioned in offices, but when it comes to homes the story is quite different. Seattle has the lowest percentage of households with air conditioning of any of the metro areas included in the Census Bureau's American Housing Survey. The only place almost as low is San Francisco. Here are the five lowest: 33.7% Seattle 36.3% San Francisco 69.9% Portland 72.8% Los Angeles 79.4% Denver and the five highest: 99.5% New Orleans 99.3% Tampa 99.3% Austin 99.3% Las Vegas 99.2% Kansas City https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-is-least-air-conditioned-metro-area-in-the-u-s-census-data-show-so-how-do-locals-keep-cool/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-is-le...
    - 8y ago
the_duke 8y ago
Just open in a private browser window to circumvent the 1 article per month limit.
- ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
  Thanks, I just tried this, it didn't work at first. Then I closed the private window and clicked refresh in the original window and it appeared. Not sure why that worked.
  - the_duke 8y ago
    That sounds like some weird interaction or bug of the private mode. Which browser are you using? Usually works without a problem for me on FF and Chrome Note though that you need to close the whole private browser window between each article to unset the cookies.
    - ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
      Chrome 68.0.3440.106
chrisBob 8y ago
I agree that AC is important and helps lots of people, but the impact can certainly be reduced. People adapt remarkably to warm/cold conditions, but the barrier of pushing through for a day or two is difficult. The only reason offices/homes need to be 72 all summer is that the home/office is 72 all summer so changing the other feel unbearably hot. If you would actually give it a chance you would be comfortable at 80 all summer and 65 all winter. Anecdote follows: So there I was. 2 days into a stay in Kuwait and trying to get some rest. During the day it got up to 130F outside, but it cooled down some at night. The AC in the tents was doing its best, and I was shivering so much I needed to pull out my sleeping bag to get to sleep. I got up and checked the thermometer on the side of the tent, and the air temperature was still 90, but since it was 40 degrees colder than I was during the day, it felt cold.
- free652 8y ago
  80f with 30% humidity = no problem. 80f with 70% humidity = hello no, won’t get used to that.
WorldMaker 8y ago
Humanity had millennia of lower productivity summers before a/c. Do we really need to be 100% productive year round? Would giving summers off to more job categories maybe boost employee morale and things like hobby/vacation spending? We've passed the point where individual laborers typically benefit from the huge productivity gains of their employers, so maybe its time to pay back the increased overall efficiency with fewer labor hours and more free time for the same pay? I think we've passed scarcity in most labor markets, too, but if not we're dangerously close, and halving the total labor hours per person in a year, but doubling the total labor force might be a good idea. Most companies could afford it, even if they would loudly complain about it. That sort of increase in bandwidth of pay would also do well for the economy. I've been joking a lot lately that maybe a/c was a bad idea for the human spirit. It deprived us from natural excuses to need afternoon siestas and summers off for better overall productivity, and it helped industrialization believe people were replaceable parts in machines that could run 40 hour work weeks every single week of the year. That said, I couldn't imagine someone actually running a campaign with a platform of abolishing a/c in white collar office buildings, but it is fun/amusing to imagine. It's an interesting thought experiment: do we really need a/c to get work done?
- ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
  This may work in Europe or other northern countries but some countries are hot (35 degrees Celsius / 95 Fahrenheit) all the time. A summer off to hobby/vacation would mean never working.
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    Certainly, a/c also allowed humanity to live healthier in more places than ever before. Like I said, it's mostly an interesting thought experiment, especially because you can often look up what life was like in your area before a/c. In many cases none of us want to return to 100% of that lifestyle, but sometimes there are interesting answers there. Part of the reason I started joking that a/c was a mistake was a friend noted how much of the drama of Southern US literature surrounds hot weather and commenting on such. There was an idea that all of the "best plays" such as Gone With the Wind, some of August Wilson's plays, and seemingly the majority of Tennessee Williams' plays, devote _a lot_ of the dialog to just how hot it is. That often leads to character's own tensions and dramas boiling out. It shows up in a lot of books at the time too, like Fitzgerald's works (The Great Gatsby). That lead to me joking that maybe a/c has lead to a great suppression of our emotions and a lack of good drama in our lives. It's obviously more a correlation in those works than a causation, but in its own way an amusing thought experiment in the different tempos of life in such places before and after a/c.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

One could also just move to (northern coastal) California, but that has its own costs.

ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
Globally speaking though it's not practical, possible or desirable to have everyone from a hot part of the world move to a cooler part. There will be countries where almost the entirety of it needs air-conditioning, in some cases 24/7/365, at least if they want to attain high economic growth. Could places like Hong Kong or Singapore be successful without air-conditioning tech?
- a012 8y ago
  I've worked in many office buildings and they cut Air conditioning at 7PM
  - antisthenes 8y ago
    Yes, and those office workers then go home and turn on air conditioning there. The people need AC, not the buildings themselves.
    - a012 8y ago
      Are you sure 100% workers in these countries turn their home AC on immediately after returning home?
      - eric_the_read 8y ago
        I'd hope they turn them on an hour or so before they return home; otherwise, it's likely to be uncomfortable.
pimmen 8y ago
There's three billion people living in the tropics. I don't know how closely you follow European politics, but letting all of them move to cooler climates simply because they can't stand the heat would upset quite a few in the populist movement over here.
mikestew 8y ago
Why, they don't run A/C there? 'cuz they do in Seattle, which I find to be ridiculous. I keep a fleece vest in my office during the summer. There are going to be historians digging through our rubble, trying to figure out what happened four hundred years from now, and they're going to say, "they lived in a temperate climate where it rarely got above 80F, but they ran A/C non-stop for four months out of the year. No wonder the fucking ice caps melted." And I think that's something some commenters are missing: no one is asking India to turn off the A/C. But maybe we don't need to replicate the grocer's freezer section in my office just because the weather finally turned nice.
- tjr225 8y ago
  I moved to Seattle from the midwest...the crying for A/C during 90 degree days with 0 humidity are laughable.
  - mikestew 8y ago
    Give it ten years. Born-and-bred Hoosier here, with a stop in North Carolina for a while. I am well acquainted with a hot, humid summer. I, too, once mocked the long-time residents in the PNW every summer. Then one day I woke up and found that I also find 85F to be a bit uncomfortable. I've grown soft, but at least I'm aware of it. :-)
- tzs 8y ago
  Seattle may be over air-conditioned in offices, but when it comes to homes the story is quite different. Seattle has the lowest percentage of households with air conditioning of any of the metro areas included in the Census Bureau's American Housing Survey. The only place almost as low is San Francisco. Here are the five lowest: 33.7% Seattle 36.3% San Francisco 69.9% Portland 72.8% Los Angeles 79.4% Denver and the five highest: 99.5% New Orleans 99.3% Tampa 99.3% Austin 99.3% Las Vegas 99.2% Kansas City https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-is-least-air-conditioned-metro-area-in-the-u-s-census-data-show-so-how-do-locals-keep-cool/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-is-le...
  - 8y ago

the_duke 8y ago

Just open in a private browser window to circumvent the 1 article per month limit.

ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
Thanks, I just tried this, it didn't work at first. Then I closed the private window and clicked refresh in the original window and it appeared. Not sure why that worked.
- the_duke 8y ago
  That sounds like some weird interaction or bug of the private mode. Which browser are you using? Usually works without a problem for me on FF and Chrome Note though that you need to close the whole private browser window between each article to unset the cookies.
  - ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
    Chrome 68.0.3440.106

chrisBob 8y ago

I agree that AC is important and helps lots of people, but the impact can certainly be reduced. People adapt remarkably to warm/cold conditions, but the barrier of pushing through for a day or two is difficult. The only reason offices/homes need to be 72 all summer is that the home/office is 72 all summer so changing the other feel unbearably hot. If you would actually give it a chance you would be comfortable at 80 all summer and 65 all winter. Anecdote follows: So there I was. 2 days into a stay in Kuwait and trying to get some rest. During the day it got up to 130F outside, but it cooled down some at night. The AC in the tents was doing its best, and I was shivering so much I needed to pull out my sleeping bag to get to sleep. I got up and checked the thermometer on the side of the tent, and the air temperature was still 90, but since it was 40 degrees colder than I was during the day, it felt cold.

free652 8y ago
80f with 30% humidity = no problem. 80f with 70% humidity = hello no, won’t get used to that.

WorldMaker 8y ago

Humanity had millennia of lower productivity summers before a/c. Do we really need to be 100% productive year round? Would giving summers off to more job categories maybe boost employee morale and things like hobby/vacation spending? We've passed the point where individual laborers typically benefit from the huge productivity gains of their employers, so maybe its time to pay back the increased overall efficiency with fewer labor hours and more free time for the same pay? I think we've passed scarcity in most labor markets, too, but if not we're dangerously close, and halving the total labor hours per person in a year, but doubling the total labor force might be a good idea. Most companies could afford it, even if they would loudly complain about it. That sort of increase in bandwidth of pay would also do well for the economy. I've been joking a lot lately that maybe a/c was a bad idea for the human spirit. It deprived us from natural excuses to need afternoon siestas and summers off for better overall productivity, and it helped industrialization believe people were replaceable parts in machines that could run 40 hour work weeks every single week of the year. That said, I couldn't imagine someone actually running a campaign with a platform of abolishing a/c in white collar office buildings, but it is fun/amusing to imagine. It's an interesting thought experiment: do we really need a/c to get work done?

ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
This may work in Europe or other northern countries but some countries are hot (35 degrees Celsius / 95 Fahrenheit) all the time. A summer off to hobby/vacation would mean never working.
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  Certainly, a/c also allowed humanity to live healthier in more places than ever before. Like I said, it's mostly an interesting thought experiment, especially because you can often look up what life was like in your area before a/c. In many cases none of us want to return to 100% of that lifestyle, but sometimes there are interesting answers there. Part of the reason I started joking that a/c was a mistake was a friend noted how much of the drama of Southern US literature surrounds hot weather and commenting on such. There was an idea that all of the "best plays" such as Gone With the Wind, some of August Wilson's plays, and seemingly the majority of Tennessee Williams' plays, devote _a lot_ of the dialog to just how hot it is. That often leads to character's own tensions and dramas boiling out. It shows up in a lot of books at the time too, like Fitzgerald's works (The Great Gatsby). That lead to me joking that maybe a/c has lead to a great suppression of our emotions and a lack of good drama in our lives. It's obviously more a correlation in those works than a causation, but in its own way an amusing thought experiment in the different tempos of life in such places before and after a/c.