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This person lives in a mild climate zone
by djitz 5y ago
This person lives in a mild climate zone
- boomboomsubban 5y agoThere's at least a billion people that live nearer to the equator than anyone in Europe or the USA and don't have air conditioning.
- tshaddox 5y agoNearness to the equator is not the only relevant factor to the importance of AC. If you turn off the AC in many places in the USA in the summer, lots of people die.
- boomboomsubban 5y agoThose places already have lots of people die from heat waves, and modern society still functions.
- tshaddox 5y agoNote that the original comment didn’t say “modern society.” It said “modern life” and was very clearly describing the commenter’s ability to keep their own household running.
- boomboomsubban 5y agoI didn't take "How much longer before modern life is no longer possible, I wonder..." to mean "how long until I'm forced to call in a specialist." The rest of their post is personal though, so I'm not confident in my interpretation that "modern society" would mean the same thing.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Those places already have lots of people die from heat waves AFAIK; the pieces where lots of people tend to die from heat waves in are the places where there isn't a regular annual need for AC.
- boomboomsubban 5y agoI don't know where that would refer to in the US. Illinois? Oklahoma? Missouri?
- cratermoon 5y agoWhich, in the US, is Hawaii and some of the minor islands, and maybe parts of Alaska.
- nradov 5y agoalso Maine (in most years)
- cratermoon 5y agoI knew a guy who lived in Maine before he moved to Nevada. He said the weather was 'not fit for man nor beast'
- derefr 5y agoLatitude isn't the only thing that determines climate. Phoenix AZ is a lot hotter than Ecuador, Kenya, or Indonesia. Also, this isn't just about cooling; it's about heating, too. Imagine living in Saskatoon SK without a working heat source. Nobody does that. If you're not relying on electric/gas heat in such places, you're relying on fire.
- ahelwer 5y agoHeating is extremely simple compared to cooling. There will never be a part shortage for heating appliances. A space heater is basically some high-resistance wire and a fan.
- stenius 5y agoOne important factor is that there are design decisions made which are optimized for air conditioning such as buildings without any windows that open.
- neither_color 5y agoIm from a tropical country and houses are built with consideration for airflow, such as concrete walls with no insulation, gaps in the roof, etc. Also, days are shorter(no 8 pm daylight). American suburban homes are built with central AC in mind of course I dont expect people to know how to deal with heat without experience living in hot countries.
- lovecg 5y agoThis is somewhat true for older (say, 1920s) American houses. There’s some consideration for airflow and making sure that the tree shade on the roof creates a strategic sun heat gradient.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> There's at least a billion people that live nearer to the equator than anyone in Europe or the USA and don't have air conditioning. Nearer to the equator pretty consistently means less seasonal variation in temperature, it does not mean higher summer peak temperatures.
- kalleboo 5y agoThey're also less economically productive than people in cooler climate or with air conditioning. Lee Kuan Yew, founder of modern Singapore: "Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency."