This “ac is bad” seems to be a frequent thing, not just on HN but in general.
Why the bias against cooling technology?
No one seems to complain about the environmental impact of home heating in cold climates.
Why the bias against cooling technology?
No one seems to complain about the environmental impact of home heating in cold climates.
Plus there's the San Francisco factor. AC is simply not necessary there most of the time for most people. Even when it is hot, it is usually hot/dry, and tends to cool down at night. Thus there are many people here who think AC is a needless luxury everywhere because they personally do not need it.
I think this is huge. Extreme heat kills more Americans than hurricanes, tornadoes, or extreme cold. However, the people it kills tend to be poor and far away from the political and cultural power centers in the US.
Plus, if there's a power outage but you live in a house that's naturally cool, the heat won't reach unlivable levels. Hot weather can set off cascading failures in infrastructure: demand rises as everyone's AC kicks in, equipment fails in the heat, fires start, workers at power plants find it difficult to cope with the heat, etc. Passive cooling increases the resilience of the population.
If you’re in the southeast us, traditionally buildings would have awnings, good airflow, etc. Now, cookie cutter commercial construction is a sealed box that relies on HVAC for temperature and moisture control.
Ditto in the north - until energy prices started climbing buildings like hotels were built as large footprint 1-2 story buildings to save capital costs. (Less structural costs, no elevator) Those buildings are impossible to afford heat nowadays, so you’re seeing more multi-story hotels and apartments.
It's worth noting that refrigeration is over a century old now.
Maybe you'll find a lone crazy to validate the persection complex that compels such a mendacious post, and you'll definitely get a little mild "do you really need it at 66F in June?" rhetoric and I'm sure that hits conspicuous consumers right in the feels that definitely matter just as much as reality does--but on the other hand, it is also precisely the folks who care about such things who push for cooling stations and other ways to symptomatically address the worsening heat waves in urban areas, because heat kills and it kills the poor and the old preferentially.
It isn't those awful hippies who have a problem with air conditioning--it's the people who wish that those people (and poor people! lest we forget!) would conveniently disappear. For other people, of course. Those positing that people should just Tough It Out aren't doing so themselves.
I live in Southern Italy, I've had 40 degrees C last month, I still don't use an AC (but I might some day).
Then there's places that hardly get 30C and they blast ac non stop, that makes me mad.
In the day I was mowing the lawn and after 10 minutes sweat was dripping from my forehead (I'm not that unfit). Then I took a cold shower, and after 30 minutes I was swsaty again from the humidity. When I went to bed I switched on the AC...
I find 35C+ in dry regions much more comfortable than this, especially if you have an old stone building that acts as big thermal mass to keep the inside comfortable during the hottest parts of the day.
FWIW, I've seen a lot of material promoting heat pumps in colder climates.
Humans chose to migrate to those climates tens of thousands of years ago when they had no other choice. They arrived to escape conflict, tension, or in search of more resources.
Then they survived in those climates with literal stone age technology, and struggled, but persevered for thousands of years. Finally, in the last 100 years they managed to get comfortable with modern technology.
Asking them to move is asking them to give up hundreds of generations of genetic adaptation, and cultural integration with their location.
On the other hand, the places that people are critical of are those that have expanded dramatically in population only in the last 50 years - places that have never supported significant human populations, but suddenly were able to due to:
* Air conditioning technology
* A sudden, but now expiring, era of cheap fossil fuels.
We're talking about places like Saudi Arabia, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and so on.
These places never supported significant human populations the way that "Northern Europe" has, and is only now able to BECAUSE of AC technology.
Different techniques are needed for hot climates, but I sure as heck don’t see a disproportionate attention on AC vs heating. It all falls under building energy usage, which is a substantial consumer of primary energy worldwide.
You are correct that Heating in cold climates probably is worse. AC has the advantage that the load matches sunny summer weather. At least in Europe - Asia and Eastern USA the humidity at night is an extra problem.
If you use an air conditioner, you pump the heat in your house outside, and you add extra heat outside while pumping it.
Its that "extra bit" that multiplied by millions is what causes wide area effects.