5 ms·

Personal anectode. I already can't bear summer. I don't have AC, as most people don't have it here in Switzerland. Even offices tend to not have them. There a

by kharak 6y ago

Personal anectode. I already can't bear summer. I don't have AC, as most people don't have it here in Switzerland. Even offices tend to not have them. There are 1 to 2 months a year where my productivity sinks, enjoyment of life plummets and I just want it all to be over. I also barely see any snow anymore, if I don't hike in the mountains. I love snow. The change is real and I hate it. Couldn't it be global cooling instead of warming? Damn physics.

alt_f4 6y ago
You live in an extremely rich country, surely you can afford to install an AC unit if it impacts you as much as you're saying. Seems like that has a much better shot at solving your problem than waiting for the world to address global climate change.
- gswdh 6y ago
  I’m in the UK and we often have the same problem (a month or two in the summer of unbearable heat) but most companies refuse to spend just for those one/two months.
- _nalply 6y ago
  You don't understand Switzerland. More people rent in Switzerland than elsewhere. Switzerland also has an oceanic climate and usually doesn't have hot summers. AC units aren't a thing in Switzerland, however this is changing slowly.
  - polotics 6y ago
    Oceanic climate? Not much? No hot summers? Last century, right?
- ornornor 6y ago
  Electricity is pricey here, and it can be tough to negotiate with your landlord to take the window out and properly secure an ac unit. Besides, offices, shopping malls, gorvernment buildings... none of them usually have ac. I hate walking in my town‘s Rathaus it’s always so hot and stuffy in there. I don’t know how the people working there real with it all summer long. And it’s a brand new building too.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sveme 6y ago
  AC has the unfortunate side effect of accelerating climate change.
  - yostrovs 6y ago
    Heating does as well. Perhaps the Swiss should forgo that too. They are some of the richest people on Earth, having benefited more than most from the fossil fuel age. Remember, Russian oil oligarchs, Saudi oil barons, and all other anonymous nasty fossil fuel producers have parked their money in Switzerland for a very long time.
- tarsinge 6y ago
  I’m grateful AC are frowned upon in Europe. Putting a band-aid by consuming even more energy is insane in large scale, with the perverse effect of hiding the problem and delaying awareness.
  - pochamago 6y ago
    AC literally saves lives. Calling an invention that prevents thousands of deaths a year a bandaid seems kind of callous to me.
    - tarsinge 6y ago
      I’m talking AC in the context of large scale deployment in whole regions, not specifically for people with health problems and/or elderly.
      - pochamago 6y ago
        It's not just the sick and elderly who die of heatstroke
  - humanrebar 6y ago
    Heating freezing temperatures to livable takes more energy than air conditioning. Logically, we should frown upon living in cold places with extended winter more than we frown upon living in places that require air conditioning.
    - tarsinge 6y ago
      Sure, I‘m not debating AC vs Heating, but that installing AC alone in the majority of the millions of European homes that don’t have it because it’s starting to get too hot in the summer is not only not a solution to the general problem but can have perverse short term effects. My point about being grateful is that I hope it’ll push more awareness and starting action now, compared to the US where prevalent AC might hide the issue longer. But that’s just a thought.
- DanBC 6y ago
  > surely you can afford to install an AC unit Lots of people rent and they can't install AC. Lots of buildings in Europe are somewhat old and have controls over what you can or can't do with them (I live in England in a property that was built in 1820 and is gradeII listed, which means we're restricted on the kind of work we can do without getting permissions). The age of the buildings also means that AC is harder to install (getting ducting installed can be really difficult) and is less efficient. I have single-pane sash windows with large gaps. In England there are 22m households. Domestic heating is a significant source of CO2. Adding aircon on top would be pretty concerning. There's a lot of poor quality housing built in the 1970s and 1980s that should be knocked down and rebuilt, and if we did that we could have much better insulation, and shutters over windows, and so on. But this is hard to do.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    I don't know how effective they are, but there are floor AC units where all you have to do is stick the heat output tube out a window.
polotics 6y ago
If this helps: Switzerland being away from oceans is early with warming. What you are experiencing now is in NYC or the Bay still 5 to 10 years off. Being early does give you a better chance to adapt, and the rest of the world will catch up.
overheadnoise 6y ago
I moved to Germany in 2010 and experienced a winter for the very first time. I remember having to wear “pants under my pants” (thermal layer), I bought a thick wool coat, I wore scarves for the first time in my life. (I grew up in Southern California.) I remember one day looking out my window and seeing it start to snow and I could see the snow build up higher and higher on all the bicycle seats outside my window. I remember coming back indoors and how everyone just knew to instinctively stomp their feet outside the door and again inside on the mats, to knock out whatever bits of snow was stuck on shoes. I remember thinking how every time I walked out the door I had to suit up properly like I was gearing up for battle in a video game. This happened again the next year and I slowly got used to it and none of that routine stood out to me anymore. What stood out though was a few years back I remember thinking one day “where’s the winter?” because the weather was just cool but not cold, and snow amounted to just a few mm if it even stuck around. Two years ago I finally couldn’t deal with it anymore and bought a portable AC unit. It made living in my flat bearable and was something for me to look forward to at the end of the day since my office wasn’t air conditioned. My energy bill is higher now in the summers and I feel bad for contributing to climate change, but without the AC I just can not live, merely survive.
- chewz 6y ago
  And yet last year in July Germany observed record-setting cold. The summer in Eastern Europe had been very cold from July on. The moderate climate of Western Europe is changing probably due to changing jetstream (which is probably result of cooling patch in Atlantic Ocean which is probably the result of melting glaciers in Greenland). But paradoxically what makes West Europe summers hotter makes Eastern Europe cooler in summer. Moving from London to Minsk and from Paris to Smolensk might seem like a cool idea for summer. https://watchers.news/2019/07/07/record-cold-july-temperature-in-parts-of-germany-rare-july-frost-ravages-saxony/ https://watchers.news/2019/07/07/record-cold-july-temperatur... https://www.ft.com/content/591395fe-b761-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea203 https://www.ft.com/content/591395fe-b761-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea...
chewz 6y ago
Don't you have mountains in Switzerland? I have been living in Sumatra and Flores where you usualy get moderate climate from 1000 meters above sea level..
Izkata 6y ago
That may yet happen: If the global temperature increases enough, the melting ice in Greenland (and probably elsewhere) would dump a lot of freshwater into the Atlantic. This would likely interrupt the thermohaline circulation of the oceans, which brings warmth from the equator to western Europe. Weird interactions like this are why activists largely switched from "global warming" to "global climate change" - both exist, but one leads to the other and they don't refer to the same thing.

by kharak 6y ago

alt_f4 6y ago

You live in an extremely rich country, surely you can afford to install an AC unit if it impacts you as much as you're saying. Seems like that has a much better shot at solving your problem than waiting for the world to address global climate change.

gswdh 6y ago
I’m in the UK and we often have the same problem (a month or two in the summer of unbearable heat) but most companies refuse to spend just for those one/two months.
_nalply 6y ago
You don't understand Switzerland. More people rent in Switzerland than elsewhere. Switzerland also has an oceanic climate and usually doesn't have hot summers. AC units aren't a thing in Switzerland, however this is changing slowly.
- polotics 6y ago
  Oceanic climate? Not much? No hot summers? Last century, right?
ornornor 6y ago
Electricity is pricey here, and it can be tough to negotiate with your landlord to take the window out and properly secure an ac unit. Besides, offices, shopping malls, gorvernment buildings... none of them usually have ac. I hate walking in my town‘s Rathaus it’s always so hot and stuffy in there. I don’t know how the people working there real with it all summer long. And it’s a brand new building too.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sveme 6y ago
AC has the unfortunate side effect of accelerating climate change.
- yostrovs 6y ago
  Heating does as well. Perhaps the Swiss should forgo that too. They are some of the richest people on Earth, having benefited more than most from the fossil fuel age. Remember, Russian oil oligarchs, Saudi oil barons, and all other anonymous nasty fossil fuel producers have parked their money in Switzerland for a very long time.
tarsinge 6y ago
I’m grateful AC are frowned upon in Europe. Putting a band-aid by consuming even more energy is insane in large scale, with the perverse effect of hiding the problem and delaying awareness.
- pochamago 6y ago
  AC literally saves lives. Calling an invention that prevents thousands of deaths a year a bandaid seems kind of callous to me.
  - tarsinge 6y ago
    I’m talking AC in the context of large scale deployment in whole regions, not specifically for people with health problems and/or elderly.
    - pochamago 6y ago
      It's not just the sick and elderly who die of heatstroke
- humanrebar 6y ago
  Heating freezing temperatures to livable takes more energy than air conditioning. Logically, we should frown upon living in cold places with extended winter more than we frown upon living in places that require air conditioning.
  - tarsinge 6y ago
    Sure, I‘m not debating AC vs Heating, but that installing AC alone in the majority of the millions of European homes that don’t have it because it’s starting to get too hot in the summer is not only not a solution to the general problem but can have perverse short term effects. My point about being grateful is that I hope it’ll push more awareness and starting action now, compared to the US where prevalent AC might hide the issue longer. But that’s just a thought.
DanBC 6y ago
> surely you can afford to install an AC unit Lots of people rent and they can't install AC. Lots of buildings in Europe are somewhat old and have controls over what you can or can't do with them (I live in England in a property that was built in 1820 and is gradeII listed, which means we're restricted on the kind of work we can do without getting permissions). The age of the buildings also means that AC is harder to install (getting ducting installed can be really difficult) and is less efficient. I have single-pane sash windows with large gaps. In England there are 22m households. Domestic heating is a significant source of CO2. Adding aircon on top would be pretty concerning. There's a lot of poor quality housing built in the 1970s and 1980s that should be knocked down and rebuilt, and if we did that we could have much better insulation, and shutters over windows, and so on. But this is hard to do.
- Izkata 6y ago
  I don't know how effective they are, but there are floor AC units where all you have to do is stick the heat output tube out a window.

polotics 6y ago

If this helps: Switzerland being away from oceans is early with warming. What you are experiencing now is in NYC or the Bay still 5 to 10 years off. Being early does give you a better chance to adapt, and the rest of the world will catch up.

overheadnoise 6y ago

I moved to Germany in 2010 and experienced a winter for the very first time. I remember having to wear “pants under my pants” (thermal layer), I bought a thick wool coat, I wore scarves for the first time in my life. (I grew up in Southern California.) I remember one day looking out my window and seeing it start to snow and I could see the snow build up higher and higher on all the bicycle seats outside my window. I remember coming back indoors and how everyone just knew to instinctively stomp their feet outside the door and again inside on the mats, to knock out whatever bits of snow was stuck on shoes. I remember thinking how every time I walked out the door I had to suit up properly like I was gearing up for battle in a video game. This happened again the next year and I slowly got used to it and none of that routine stood out to me anymore. What stood out though was a few years back I remember thinking one day “where’s the winter?” because the weather was just cool but not cold, and snow amounted to just a few mm if it even stuck around. Two years ago I finally couldn’t deal with it anymore and bought a portable AC unit. It made living in my flat bearable and was something for me to look forward to at the end of the day since my office wasn’t air conditioned. My energy bill is higher now in the summers and I feel bad for contributing to climate change, but without the AC I just can not live, merely survive.

chewz 6y ago
And yet last year in July Germany observed record-setting cold. The summer in Eastern Europe had been very cold from July on. The moderate climate of Western Europe is changing probably due to changing jetstream (which is probably result of cooling patch in Atlantic Ocean which is probably the result of melting glaciers in Greenland). But paradoxically what makes West Europe summers hotter makes Eastern Europe cooler in summer. Moving from London to Minsk and from Paris to Smolensk might seem like a cool idea for summer. https://watchers.news/2019/07/07/record-cold-july-temperature-in-parts-of-germany-rare-july-frost-ravages-saxony/ https://watchers.news/2019/07/07/record-cold-july-temperatur... https://www.ft.com/content/591395fe-b761-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea203 https://www.ft.com/content/591395fe-b761-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea...

chewz 6y ago

Don't you have mountains in Switzerland? I have been living in Sumatra and Flores where you usualy get moderate climate from 1000 meters above sea level..

Izkata 6y ago

That may yet happen: If the global temperature increases enough, the melting ice in Greenland (and probably elsewhere) would dump a lot of freshwater into the Atlantic. This would likely interrupt the thermohaline circulation of the oceans, which brings warmth from the equator to western Europe. Weird interactions like this are why activists largely switched from "global warming" to "global climate change" - both exist, but one leads to the other and they don't refer to the same thing.