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Air conditioning only works for things inside of buildings. Not so good for the plants and animals our lives depend on. And it raises the heat outside of build

Air conditioning only works for things inside of buildings. Not so good for the plants and animals our lives depend on. And it raises the heat outside of buildings. Not so good for people who have to be outside, think first responders etc. "just turn on the AC and keep burning the world down" isn't really the answer.

lazide 4mo ago
Weirdest argument to keep letting 100k grandmas die from heat every summer I’ve ever heard.
- bad_haircut72 4mo ago
  They're not saying dont do it, just that its not really a total solution
  - zeusdclxvi 4mo ago
    They are saying not to do it though and their arguments are awful
- Noaidi 4mo ago
  100k grandmas die from heat every summer because of our ignorance of climate change and a propaganda machine that denies that it is real.
  - Larrikin 4mo ago
    Is this an argument to do nothing and let people die because there exist awful people in the world that want to profit from climate change? You can do walk and chew bubble gum in this fight.
yieldcrv 4mo ago
[flagged]
xoa 4mo ago
>And it raises the heat outside of buildings. No it doesn't. Seriously, where does this meme even come from? It should be pretty obvious just from a solar insolation map that AC is just noise vs the sun. The energy usage is tiny vs vehicles or non-heat pump heating and only electric. What changes temperature overall is the balance of thermal retention by the atmosphere vs radiation into space, hence why net increases in GHG are so dangerous. And at the ground level similarly how heat is dumped to atmosphere. Greenery, whites, shade etc is good, asphalt, mass standard glass is bad (hence many cities being heat islands). Old, leaky units sure, we absolutely should work to reduce that. But it's astonishing how people claim AC makes the outdoors hotter so consistently.
- Noaidi 4mo ago
  > No it doesn't. Yes, it does. It may be small temperature increase but AC use increases outside temperatures. It is just physics. Here is a simple diagram: https://www.lozierheatingcooling.com/filesimages/heatPump.jpeg https://www.lozierheatingcooling.com/filesimages/heatPump.jp...
  - Larrikin 4mo ago
    Give a chart with actual numbers on the increase in temperature versus the sun. Not a diagram from an elementary science textbook on how air conditioners work.
    - Noaidi 4mo ago
      I’m not debating that the sun is stronger heating source. I’m just saying air-conditioning increases climate change because it uses fossil fuels and also the law of thermodynamics dictates that he will be created in this instance.
      - hn_throwaway_99 4mo ago
        > I’m just saying air-conditioning increases climate change because it uses fossil fuels It would actually be a much better global warming mitigation strategy to install bidirectional heat pumps (A/C in the summer, heat in the winter) that runs on electricity (which is increasingly produced using renewables) and then get rid of fossil-fuel burning furnaces.
AstroNutt 4mo ago
It's just a heat transfer. Refrigerant inside the evaporator picks up heat and transfers it to the condensing unit outside. They don't create heat. It was there in the first place, just a different location.
- epgui 4mo ago
  They don’t create energy, but they do create heat. It’s entropy, can’t avoid it.
- brookst 4mo ago
  Wait so they’re perfectly efficient?
- MobiusHorizons 4mo ago
  Yes heat pumps move heat that already existed from the cold side to the hot side, but they also consume some energy to fight entropy, meaning they pump more heat to the hot side than they remove from the cold side. This is a net heat gain, equivalent to the energy consumed in running the AC. The value may be considered negligible compared to other sources, but it can still be on the order of 500w per room, which adds up quickly if everyone is doing it. Of course air conditioning is reasonably well suited to be a solar load during peak hours, but in most parts of the world if everyone just installed AC units like are common in many parts of the US it would mean a huge amount of extra fossil fuels burnt.
jdkoeck 4mo ago
That kind of thinking kills more people each year in Europe than guns do in the USA. Let that sink in.
- robocat 4mo ago
  So the stats say we need to encourage more guns and shooting deaths in the US... Maybe Europe should sell guns to the states - ideally sold in €
- Levitz 4mo ago
  It's not an apples to apples comparison. 80%+ of deaths because of heat in Europe are 65+ years old. When you start handling that range you've to take into account that these people are going to die because of something, save a guy from heat here and that's an extra death because of cancer 4 years later. Now I'm not saying it's a thing to be ignored, but be wary of playing quick and dirty with statistics.
  - jdkoeck 4mo ago
    That’s a fair point. More years of life lost due to gun deaths. I still like to draw a parallel, because they’re both deaths that we have the means to prevent, but the culture perpetuates the problem. That culture needs to change (doable in Europe with regard to AC because heatwaves will snap people out of denial, much harder or impossible to solve the gun culture problem in the US).
ericd 4mo ago
> "just turn on the AC and keep burning the world down" isn't really the answer. This is an outdated attitude. PV solar panel output correlates really well with air conditioning demand, no need for storage. Overcool your thick-walled masonry buildings during the day as a form of energy storage.
bandrami 4mo ago
I have a proposal to place a small, intelligent demon in every windowsill in the UK...
userbinator 4mo ago
"just turn on the AC and keep burning the world down" isn't really the answer It is, because we're not going to be here forever, so might as well make the best of it. Trying to stop entropy by making everyone's lives worse is ultimately futile, but a certain group of activists have certainly been trying...

lazide 4mo ago

Weirdest argument to keep letting 100k grandmas die from heat every summer I’ve ever heard.

bad_haircut72 4mo ago
They're not saying dont do it, just that its not really a total solution
- zeusdclxvi 4mo ago
  They are saying not to do it though and their arguments are awful
Noaidi 4mo ago
100k grandmas die from heat every summer because of our ignorance of climate change and a propaganda machine that denies that it is real.
- Larrikin 4mo ago
  Is this an argument to do nothing and let people die because there exist awful people in the world that want to profit from climate change? You can do walk and chew bubble gum in this fight.

yieldcrv 4mo ago

[flagged]

xoa 4mo ago

>And it raises the heat outside of buildings. No it doesn't. Seriously, where does this meme even come from? It should be pretty obvious just from a solar insolation map that AC is just noise vs the sun. The energy usage is tiny vs vehicles or non-heat pump heating and only electric. What changes temperature overall is the balance of thermal retention by the atmosphere vs radiation into space, hence why net increases in GHG are so dangerous. And at the ground level similarly how heat is dumped to atmosphere. Greenery, whites, shade etc is good, asphalt, mass standard glass is bad (hence many cities being heat islands). Old, leaky units sure, we absolutely should work to reduce that. But it's astonishing how people claim AC makes the outdoors hotter so consistently.

Noaidi 4mo ago
> No it doesn't. Yes, it does. It may be small temperature increase but AC use increases outside temperatures. It is just physics. Here is a simple diagram: https://www.lozierheatingcooling.com/filesimages/heatPump.jpeg https://www.lozierheatingcooling.com/filesimages/heatPump.jp...
- Larrikin 4mo ago
  Give a chart with actual numbers on the increase in temperature versus the sun. Not a diagram from an elementary science textbook on how air conditioners work.
  - Noaidi 4mo ago
    I’m not debating that the sun is stronger heating source. I’m just saying air-conditioning increases climate change because it uses fossil fuels and also the law of thermodynamics dictates that he will be created in this instance.
    - hn_throwaway_99 4mo ago
      > I’m just saying air-conditioning increases climate change because it uses fossil fuels It would actually be a much better global warming mitigation strategy to install bidirectional heat pumps (A/C in the summer, heat in the winter) that runs on electricity (which is increasingly produced using renewables) and then get rid of fossil-fuel burning furnaces.

AstroNutt 4mo ago

It's just a heat transfer. Refrigerant inside the evaporator picks up heat and transfers it to the condensing unit outside. They don't create heat. It was there in the first place, just a different location.

epgui 4mo ago
They don’t create energy, but they do create heat. It’s entropy, can’t avoid it.
brookst 4mo ago
Wait so they’re perfectly efficient?
MobiusHorizons 4mo ago
Yes heat pumps move heat that already existed from the cold side to the hot side, but they also consume some energy to fight entropy, meaning they pump more heat to the hot side than they remove from the cold side. This is a net heat gain, equivalent to the energy consumed in running the AC. The value may be considered negligible compared to other sources, but it can still be on the order of 500w per room, which adds up quickly if everyone is doing it. Of course air conditioning is reasonably well suited to be a solar load during peak hours, but in most parts of the world if everyone just installed AC units like are common in many parts of the US it would mean a huge amount of extra fossil fuels burnt.

jdkoeck 4mo ago

That kind of thinking kills more people each year in Europe than guns do in the USA. Let that sink in.

robocat 4mo ago
So the stats say we need to encourage more guns and shooting deaths in the US... Maybe Europe should sell guns to the states - ideally sold in €
Levitz 4mo ago
It's not an apples to apples comparison. 80%+ of deaths because of heat in Europe are 65+ years old. When you start handling that range you've to take into account that these people are going to die because of something, save a guy from heat here and that's an extra death because of cancer 4 years later. Now I'm not saying it's a thing to be ignored, but be wary of playing quick and dirty with statistics.
- jdkoeck 4mo ago
  That’s a fair point. More years of life lost due to gun deaths. I still like to draw a parallel, because they’re both deaths that we have the means to prevent, but the culture perpetuates the problem. That culture needs to change (doable in Europe with regard to AC because heatwaves will snap people out of denial, much harder or impossible to solve the gun culture problem in the US).

ericd 4mo ago

> "just turn on the AC and keep burning the world down" isn't really the answer. This is an outdated attitude. PV solar panel output correlates really well with air conditioning demand, no need for storage. Overcool your thick-walled masonry buildings during the day as a form of energy storage.

bandrami 4mo ago

I have a proposal to place a small, intelligent demon in every windowsill in the UK...

userbinator 4mo ago

"just turn on the AC and keep burning the world down" isn't really the answer It is, because we're not going to be here forever, so might as well make the best of it. Trying to stop entropy by making everyone's lives worse is ultimately futile, but a certain group of activists have certainly been trying...