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Comment by dodobirdlord | Hacker News Reader

A large fraction of the human population have been living in parts of the world where the external environment is lethal for months of the year for thousands of years. It’ll certainly be an interesting development when air conditioning becomes a matter of life and death the way heating in winter already is in much of the world, but air conditioning is also much less energy intensive than heating.

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I don't think it is reasonable to compare other hostile environments to one where humans are literally incapable of being outside for extended periods of time. Even in harsh cold climates, it is possible to wear suitable clothing, or build a fire. That is simple, resilient, low tech and low carbon. Requiring a structure with AC and power is a much larger challenge.

Furthermore, a lot of the areas that will suffer from fatal wet bulb temperatures do not have the wealth to provide AC to everyone. This will drive mass migrations of people on a scale we have never seen before, destabilizing neighbouring countries (or more likely, leading to mass murder).

Finally, this is another positive feedback loop: more AC required -> more energy required -> more severe global warning.

Cooling and dehumidifying a residence to a non-lethal temperature and humidity doesn’t take all that much energy or particularly expensive or sophisticated technology. And emissions from the residential electricity generation required isn’t a particularly pressing concern. Intermittent power capacity like solar and wind is most available at the same time it’s most needed for driving residential air conditioning, and large countries like India, China, Brazil, Nigeria etc that are going to be facing this issue don’t have the same paranoia about nuclear power that’s so common in the West.

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