Personally, I hate AC. Don't have it in my car or home. I despise having to put on a sweater to go into a grocery store when it's hot outside.

AC is not sustainable. The author makes great points. The waste of fuel to provide it and the impact of that fuel use is just insane. We do need to get back to our roots. Why not design homes and businesses to take advantage of natural cooling? Just planting deciduous trees in the correct place can cool a building. So can attic fans(solar), ceiling fans, cross ventilation, and...... just a simple overhang of the roof. A properly designed roof overhang can allow the low winter sun into the building helping to heat it by solar gain and keep the high summer sun out, keeping the building cool. It works quite well- the coolest spot in my house in the summer is the south facing rooms protected by the roof overhang.

I was in a store the other day which had their AC on but it wasn't working well- the place was hot and humid but they refused to shut the blasted beast off and just open the windows and doors.
I'm all for siestas too- porches, hammocks under trees, lemonade- sounds better than an air conditioned office to me....

We need to face the fact that much of what we've done the past 50 years or so just isn't working or sustainable. Back to the drawing board.....

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We now live in boxes that encourage the need for air conditioning and prevent the body from becoming naturally acclimated to changing weather. Our homes are boxes without natural venting, cars generate heat and asphalt radiates the same and work places have no access to the outside. So we have built places where we are not only detached from our natural surroundings but placed in environments that are quite unnatural. And ironically all those boxes are being built bigger and bigger which will require even more energy to cool and heat. My own experience is that with a fan and a little shade I can keep comfortably cool, and I live in the South. But I admit I am a miniscule minority.

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that our grandparents (or great-grandparents) knew about and that doesn't require a tithe to the electric company:
Place one thermometer outside a southerly window and another inside a southerly room. In the morning, when the two thermometers read the same temperature, close up the house--close windows and doors and draw shades and curtains. In late afternoon or evening, when the two temperatures are nearly the same again, open the curtains and windows and leave them open all night. Repeat the procedure daily. This prevents the thermal mass of the interior of the house (walls, floors, furniture) from warming up during the day and then releasing heat into the air of rooms at night. During the day, temperatures can be up to 20 degrees cooler inside for most of the day.
It's free, it's completely harmless to the planet, and it empowers us to control our own environments and our own well-being.

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We will be using even more air conditioning!

For me, this is a tough issue. Even though I live in the northern tier of states, I am miserable when the heat and humidity kick in. I tend to "hibernate" inside my air-conditioned home and end up with cabin fever. We try to use the a/c only when necessary, but then we're like everyone else, adding to the demand. I open the house at night and close it up in the morning. It doesn't help that we face due west, with little or no shade.

Until a better solution comes along, I'll just keep doing what I can - adding better windows, planting a tree to block the afternoon sun, keeping blinds and shades pulled during the hottest part of the day. Our little house was certainly not built for energy conservation - not in 1969!

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What is a matter of comfort for most is a matter of safety for others.

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My personal rule is to only use the AC on days where the Heat Index is scheduled to hit 90 and I'm going to be home. I think I used it only 10-15 days last year. Anything less than that is quite tolerable.

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Join me and move to Canada. Won't need air conditioning, and eventually won't contribute taxes to fund BushCheneyCo's wars, nor cannon fodder to die uselessly for them.

What could be a more elegant easier solution to two thorny problems?

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is that as US citizens blithely accept the Incumbency's encouragement, aided and abetted by corporate controlled media, to regard global warming as contrived liberal alarmism -- gasoline and airconditioning will become unafforadable to most of us. Thereby solving the problem.

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You can save big on heating/cooling bills that way. An earlier poster also brought up a good point on the thermometer and shades. A/Cs have had their issues but I wouldn't throw these babies out the window yet. We're going to have to take multi-pronged approaches to winning the war against the petrol crisis.

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One problem is the US economic system. In European countries, the adoption of more efficient ways of cooling (or heating for that matter) are implemented with help from government grants. Building public infrastructure is not seen as a problem, whereas in the US systems are built atomistically, with every appartement having it's own system.

For instance, district cooling that works the same way as district heating pumps cool water through pipes over a large area, the water is cooled centrally, by building a heath exchanger in the ocean or in a lake. It is possible to cool entire cities this way with very little energy.

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Although only a small part of the problem, new construction could contribute a large part of the solution. Developers completely ignore the environmental impacts of site orientation. If they took the time to propery orient new homes, that would reduce energy consumption. If they dared to (gasp!) install earth tubes or other "alternative" methods of cooling our costs would plummet. But these techniques are more costly on the front end, so consumers get stuck with cheap homes that end up costing too much to heat/cool.
If new home buyers realized this and started demanding passive heating/cooling design then our country could start to reduce energy consumption. Let's stop being apathetic consumers...

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In the summer I dress for the weather, usually shorts and a woven cotton shirt. When I go to the movies, mall, grocery, restaurant, etc. I freeze to death. I have to change to long pants and bring a sweater. Why are these places kept so cold? Wouldn't the cost and damage of air conditioning be less if the temperature was kept at 74 or 76 or (horrors!) 78 rather than 72 or lower? That is still frequently 20+ degrees lower than outside. My husband's workplace (and everyplace he's ever worked at) are freezing. He sometimes comes home for lunch just to warm up. Winter has similar problems. You dress so you will be warm enough to walk outside and you broil inside. Am I the only one with this problem/observation?

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When I moved south from the Great Lakes Area I was amazed at how COLD many southerners keep their houses and offices. I don't mean cool-- I mean like 68-69∘. Wearing more clothes in July than the Taliban require is a lot of the cause.

I dislike A/C except under the most extreme weather, but it is necessary in most modern construction down here. The only way to get a handle on this is more insulation and much more efficient cooling. I doubt we can tear down all of the buildings constructed since the 1950's and replace them with heavily shaded, deep-porched, high-ceilinged ones.

One unmentioned item- in many dry climates Swamp Coolers are used instead of conventional A/C. The primary coolant is water and not a refrigerant gas. Of course these are the very areas where water is at a premium.

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The author didn't discuss the heat that these AC units are pumping outside. Heating up the air for the rest of us. Thanks a lot!

I also don't understand why the author thinks that people can't use PC or large TVs (32 inch in my house) when it is hot without AC. I do it all the time.

In terms of low cost approaches, I agree with an earlier poster about opening rooms at night. I go for the low cost approach in my bedroom and upstairs by using window fans to draw in cooler air that then gets circulated by ceiling fans.

I am also lucky to have an east facing 3 season porch for those really hot days. I read, listen to the radio and sweat.

The biggest loss was a huge tree, at least 50 feet tall, on the southwest corner of my property, this has cost me late day shade from the sun.

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from the article:
Southerners use a lot more power for all appliances, whatever the season. Of course, northern households consume more fossil fuel for heat, but in the dead of winter, heating cannot be dispensed with.

I think it's a little unfair for the author to characterize heat as necessary in the North yet air conditioning as frivolous in the South. Those weren't Mr. Cox's words exactly, but it's how they came across to me.

No argument from me: having heat in severe winter cold is important. This past winter, my husband and I lived almost completely without heat (it's a long story, but trust me: it wasn't our first choice to do so), and it was really unpleasant, to say the least. We spent our days in coats and wrapped up in blankets, and still got very little work done from the distraction of being so uncomfortable.

So yes, heat=good. It keeps people comfortable and able to be productive, and helps prevent some illnesses and even death in the elderly.

I think some form of cooling in severe summer heat is equally important. It's just unfortunate that air conditioning, the most prevalent form of cooling, has so many detrimental qualities.

We use a variety of alternate forms of cooling our home and ourselves so that we can leave air conditioning as a last resort (and we do live in the South). But after a series of hot days with only little relief during the night, it becomes difficult to even think, and we both typically work from home.

I don't know. Maybe we're too spoiled by the culture in which we were raised. But although I now know I can survive in a colder house in the winter than I would have thought, I don't want to repeat that heat-less winter. Similarly, in the summer, we are always conscious of the amount of energy we consume when we run the AC, but we can only let it get so hot inside before we feel the need to turn it on.

The house should be somewhat cool in the winter and somewhat warm in the summer. And really, if every household and building were heated and cooled with that same idea of in mind, I don't think it would be such a big issue.

But don't get me wrong -- I'm not entirely defensive about this. I'm listening to the message in this article and in the comments, and my husband and I will be discussing ways we can improve our energy consumption footprint. I hope everyone else does, too.

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Leaking equipment, allowing freon to escape, really hastens glabal warming.



I am bummed that we replaced half of a central air systerm, the air handler in the attic, last summer without realizing thatit would not be compatible with the far more energy efficient compressors now coming out. Our air handler uses R22, the bad gas, and will not be compatible with the new ones out that use "Puron", or R410, which doesn't deplete the ozone layer. We will either need to replace the $3,000 air handler we just put in, or have to go with the bad old kind our new ,but being phased out, air handler requires.
So think ahead, read up, and know what you want before something breaks and you are too raggged to look into things!
WWW.consumerreportsonline.org has free articles on air.
States need laws that require leaks be fixed, and not allowing people to just keep adding freon without making repairs.Requiring checks for leaks could be more valuable than just requiring better refrigerants in new systems.

My air conditioning company said that it will not keep adding freon when the householder has refused to fix a leak, but, currently, it is up to the householder. As fly by night underground home repair services abound, we need to wonder how much additional freon is released. There is worse damage than just not paying taxes.

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The real problem here is how much Americans have migrated to desert areas to live--witness the growth in Arizona, Nevada, and California's central valley, all places where humans should not permanently reside. Because we wish to live in these areas, have green lawns, and grow crops, our water supply is dwindling and being damaged, and we must air-condition the universe.

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If the 5.5% figure is true then we spend over 50 million a day and 18 billion a year air conditioning our cars....

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In my experience, most people who 'hate air conditioning' are simply cheap asses who don't want to pay for it. They usually hide behind the 'I'm an environmentalist' moniker BS.

I keep my home at a comfy 68 degrees in the summer, and 65-68 degrees in the winter. It balances out. My Wife has severe asthma and has had life threatening episodes brought on by Cincinnati summers. The summers here are miserable, 95-100 degree heat and unbearable humidity (98 degrees today). AC is as necessary in the summers here as heat is in the winter. My company thankfully keeps the office at 72, and our 100,000 SF warehouse, filled with perishable beer & wine, is kept at 67 year round.

BTW, how much electricity does all of those fans that you cheapskates are running consume?

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Maybe part two of the article will address this point. I hope so. But I can't read this article and the posts without commenting on it. I am an old Texan who remembers the days before A/C came to town: highs over a hundred, high humidity, and in the worst of heat waves, nights that never got below 80 degrees. Truly horrible conditions that actually killed people. I read with interest the posts above that pass on some of our "ancient" wisdom about staying cool. Wisdom that has been largely lost to the general public with the advent of A/C.

But something even more important has been lost to the air conditioning revolution, and that is our sense of community. My old pre A/C house, situated in an old pre A/C neighborhood, has a porch. It has beautiful old pecan trees around it for shade. The neighborhood has sidewalks. People used to use those sidewalks to walk to the store, the park, the library, passing residents fanning themsleves on their porches, stopping to chat just so they could enjoy the respite of a shady spot.

Newer, post A/C neighborhoods in my town are devoid of porches and sidewalks. Each resident lives in their own tightly sealed bubble of privacy, emerging just long enough to scurry to their tightly sealed mobile bubble of privacy which they then navigate to yet another tightly sealed bubble, usually of commerce. There is no chance to build community when each person is so preoccupied with their separate concerns (most of which seem to revolve around earning enough money to pay for all these bubbles!)

I truly believe that this is why Texas has changed in the past 50 years from a sparsely populated hell-hole (environmentally speaking) to a densely populated hell-hole (socially speaking).

Furthermore, the air-conditioning of Texas allowed rich snot nosed Yankee preppies to move here and live comfortably while they stole our oil, and to bring their idiot sons with them so they could fulfil their dumb-ass little boy cowboy fantasies. But I'll leave discussion of the Bush family to a later time.

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"USING AIR CONDITIONING VS. OPENING THE WINDOWS

Air conditioning places more load on the engine, which can affect fuel economy. But opening the windows at highway speeds can affect fuel economy even more by disrupting the vehicle's aerodynamics. ..In our tests we found that using air conditioning had a negligible effect on fuel consumption. While driving at 65 mph gas mileage was reduced in both vehicles by about 1 mpg. The effect of opening the windows at 65 mph was about the same-it might make more of a difference if you drive faster. Because air conditioning can help keep you comfortable and alert and because most modern cars use it to keep windows defrosted, we suggest that the small trade-off in fuel economy for increased safety is worthwhile."

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Uh, oh! The sky is falling! Again!
!!!!!

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Please tell me this is some kind of joke. Take away A/C? And next week: George Bush got elected cuz of A/C? Are you freakin' kidding me?

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...in fact it will be used more as the climate heats up. That's just a fact. Some things can be done though.

How about a little shade? Look at any housing development - especially apartments, condos and townhouses, but family homes too. What's the first thing the developer does? Cut down every tree. Sure, it's easier and cheaper for the builder, but it leaves the buildings baking in the sun. In the summer, the a/c runs 24/7 in my apt, because I'm on the top floor on the west side - without a/c it would be 100 degrees inside. But if there were some shade, it would have to run far less. We've got to get past this approach of devastating an area before building on it - leave some damn trees standing!

People can use external sunshades too. I have one covering the west window (on the outside) - a thin, translucent but tough material that blocks 100% of UV and 60% or so of all light. It keeps the apt 10 degrees cooler just doing that, as it prevents sunlight from ever passing through the window and causing greenhouse warming inside the apt. (The company is
"Coolaroo", out of Australia. The sunshades are tough, attractive and cheap).

Buildings should be built with greenspace roofs, that help control water runoff and keep the building cooler too. Certainly not black tar roofs like so many apt buildings - they just soak up the heat. How much nicer to have a roof garden one could sit in to enjoy the breeze.

But, bottom line, a/c is not going away and will in fact be used more. The crux of all these problems, the root, is our dependence on fossil fuels, and that is what has to be attacked. A major national effort - indeed, a global effort - a Marshall Plan for energy is what's needed. Bush's greatest failure (and there are many) is not fumbling the war on terror, or Iraq, or tax cuts for the rich, or environmental abuses or any of his general incompetency - it's that as an oilman, he has failed to lead the country to an alternative energy future. We need to get off oil and on to nonpolluting alternatives. That's the only real solution, and until that happens, the problem will only get worse, no matter how much tinkering and trimming around the edges we do. And, sorry to say, unless someone comes up with a hydrogen technology that works or something else radically new, and in a big hurry, the solution has to include nuclear. Sure, nuke waste is dangerous and persistant, but it can be contained, and it does not f* up the climate. It's a case of choosing between the lesser of evils - deal with nuke waste, or stew in an overheating world. Time is very short, and the biosphere simply cannot stand much more. I fear it is already too late.

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Living in a small New England town where most of its buildings stem from the early 1800 to 1900 brings to mind a couple things people did to keep cool. One were window shutters that were not designed for decoration but utility. By shutting the shutters and opening or directing the louvers up or down, sunlight would be blocked yet air flow wouldn’t. Another was the actual windows were the top and bottom sash opened. Lowering the top sash and lifting the bottom sash would allow the heat to escape on top and cooler air enters through the bottom.

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c'mon quys, stop it. My sides are splitting!!!

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I recall that prior to the mid to late 50's, most public buildings had old fashioned ceiling fans. When the owners installed air conditioning, they ripped down the ceiling fans and dumped them in the landfill. When the first energy shocks hit in 1974, ceiling fans were rediscovered, and people realised that running a ceiling fan allows the same level of comfort with the thermostat set several degrees higher. The energy saved by turning down the a/c is considerably more than the energy used by the ceiling fans.

So ceiling fans have become popular once again, in the home as well as in public buildings. But to-day's ceiling fans are mostly cheaply made imports with anemic motors and a 5-year life expectancy. What few of those old fans with the real cast-iron last-a-lifetime motors that survived in good working condition, go for a mint on the "collectables" market.

Think of all the energy that would have been saved if public buildings had simply kept their ceiling fans when a/c was installed. Plus the a/c units would have lasted longer due to less wear and tear, and those beautiful old cast-iron motors would still be spinning away.

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I don't agree. Look at France and Chicago during heat waves. And look at Atlanta, Nashville, New Orleans and other places during the summer. Or would you rather have those who can afford to leave do so, leaving those who cannot afford to leave at the tender mercies of the heat?

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I find that I'm most productive when my environment is comfortable. I presume most people are the same way. I recognize the author isn't calling for the abolition of A/C altogether, but we should recognize that even if we want to reduce the amount of energy we use for A/C we should keep "comfortable working spaces" as a top priority and "comfortable living spaces" should be pretty high on the list as well.

We can reduce A/C usage by emphasizing proper energy-efficient building techniques such as shade placement, roof overhangs, light-colored (or energy-producing) roof materials, and proper insulation including double- and triple-paned windows and meticulous insulation of exterior walls. Few consumers should resist these changes since they will increase property value and reduce heating and cooling bills... we just need to get them out there.

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I work in an air conditioned building, ride home in an air conditioned bus..and live in an apartment that has air conditioning. That I never use. Most of my friends wonder about my sanity on days that reach 98 to 105 degrees...I still don't use it.

I have fans strategically placed around my home, and will wet a towel with cold water and place them over the fan to cool the area. I do care about the ecological environment I live in, but that isn't my reason for not using this "wonder" of comfort. I used to live for air conditioned spaces, my home was kept at a constant 68 degrees year round. Over time I found that I just couldn't function when it became "smokin' hot" outside, and I couldn't get warm when it hit 20 below. It seemed my body had lost a natural ability to regulate it's own temperature, and deal with temperature extremes.

So...I bit the bullet. Shut the AC down. I decided to try living without it to see if it made a difference. I admit...I went through hell for about 2 years...and suddenly things seemed to right themselves. I found I was drinking more water because of natural thirst (something I just didn't do before), and I wasn't having to take meds for one sinus infection after the other. I wasn't lethargic due to heat, nor was I having nasty allergy related headaches anymore.

Do I miss it? On very rare occasions I do...but I wouldn't go back to it again. I'm healthier now than I've been since I shut it off 10 years ago. The money saved for the twice yearly cleanings comes in handy too...I just saw the niftiest pair of heels yesterday...

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One final observation: We suggested a plank for both major parties in 1988 at their quadrennial conventions:
Outlaw air conditioning in Washington DeeCee governmental buildings except for the White House and National Archives and maybe Smithsonian. That way the Congress would go home on Memorial Day and not return until Columbus Day. Surely they could do this if they used web communications and we could save money for more important purposes...like meeting with constituents in public places instead of hiding from all but their moneybags?

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all's i can conclude is y'all libs have the next dozen or so elections wrapped up since all you can worry about is the govt. stepping and taking away our A/C. idiots.

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Much of what has been written here does resonate but to suggest that new Construction is part of the problem suggests that not enough consideration has been given to the real problem.
I was a Home Builder for 45 years. For the last twenty years my company was deeply involved by energy saving devices and found that there was an insurmountable resistance on the part of the price conscious home buyer. We provided alternate siting for homes which we offered plus a varity of energy reducing materials and methods of construction. Far from being forced into purchasing cheaper homes buyers actually refused to spend the extra money which the enrgy saving systems cost. We had a list of 12-15 systems which could save energy alongwith the associated costs of such with no added overhead or profit to my company. Time and time again people would hear how much could be saved by a realtively small initial expense but still refused to spend the extra dollars. We attempted to install some systems but quickly found that we couldn't recover the cost associated with them whem other homes were offered at a cheaper price without them.

The probleem lay not with the consciencious builder but with the price sensitive buyer.

People's habits also figured into the waste constantly referred to. People would insist upon leaving their air conditioning off during the heat of the day and then turning it on at the end of the day expecting that the house would quickly become comfortable. They refused to accept the fact that this was false economy because it takes 24 hours more or less to condition the air in a house and remove heat and moisture from carpets and furniture. Thus every day they were supporting an inefficient system of conditioning the air in their homes.

As for car air conditioning , on hot days it is almost intolerable to drive in a car which is hot and dirty from the heat and road debris and gas emissions coming through open windows not to even speak abour the mental and physical condition of the automobile operator. Incidentally I have tested the gas mileage of my car both with and without Air Conditioning and have not noticed a discernable difference.

Of course I do drive a hybrid vehicle which may not have as much differential as a high horsepower auto does. Say that might be an alternative to consider!!!!!!!!

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A snow ball would have a better chance in hell than you Libs banning or "reducing" AC use. That idea will go over like a fart in a space suit. Go ahead and TRY to sell that to the American public. I dare you.

You Libs keep getting farther and farther out in left field. Pretty soon you'll be out in the parking lot with the chicken wing bones and the spent peanut hulls. You are a WACKY lot.

Question for you:

How's that been working for you at the ballot box?

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What this article really points out is that our race to technology may be in the passenger seat of our race to extinction. The real solution to mass consumption of resources (air included) is to reduce demand. Curbing our use of those resources wil lwork only if it's part of a larger solution to curb overpopulation of the earth by a single consumptive species.

I mean, I drive an SUV, I live in the south and run my a/c, my house is a leaky sieve, and it is far to big for my family size. But I haven't had any kids, so I'm probably in the black when compared to the rest ya.

Kidding aside, I wish people wouldn't freak out about articles like this. The author isn't telling us to turn off, just to cool our heels a bit, so to speak. Progressives have been sounding the warning for many years now and their early comments about recycling paper and bottles and overfishing and rainforest conservation got just as much flak as their more recent efforts have. But our species is better off for their efforts, isn't it?

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I tend to not run the a/c as much as my spouse would like, because I like the feeling of fresh air. But not today:

Temp: 95°F
Feels Like: 105°F

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AC has changed the population distribution of the US, filled up the former slave states and the deserts with people who could not and would not live there without it. As the author will no doubt explain next week, AC has given power to the culture of slavery that is the American South, and this culture of slavery (which now includes slavery to the modern American corporation) is what dominates our political life today.

Together with the automobile and industrial fossil fuel based agriculture and food distribution systems, AC has made modern high energy society....

Some day it's all gonna wash away. To some extent we can rejoice in the prospect... but the pain and suffering is going to be immense. If you think about peak oil, the rising price of energy and how it will wash away the foundations of American economic life, you can't exactly be happy.

As life in the former slave states gets harder, it is the poor who will suffer the most.

Yes, sure, it will be good to see the unreasonable assumptions of high energy society (cars, nitrogen fertilizers, AC) get washed away... unaffordable luxuries. There is pleasure to take in watching that spectacle. And yet there is pain in it too.

It's really hard to know whether to feel justified and satisfied as the predictions of environmental/economic tragedy are realized... or whether to feel sympathy for those who believed that consuming more resources than the rest of the world was their birthright.

Were they deluded? Or knowing arrogant participants in their own delusional belief system.

As Jim Kunstler argues in The Long Emergency, the future of great swathes of America in the post peak oil era is going to be very very hard.

Residents of idylic little towns in upstate New York are hardly going to be spared the effects of the collapse.

Will it come quickly, or slowly? So many questions.

But AC... man that's a big one, and its going to get awfully expensive soon.... and unaffordable one day.

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We can have building codes that require the use heat-reflective materials in our southern roofs and reflect a huge percentage of solar heat-gain back where it came from. And we can have better windows, overhangs, keep more trees, all good.

But if you start talking about taking away the AC you are just going to get run over. Try an issue where you have a prayer buddy!!

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"As a device explicitly designed to outrun the Second Law of Thermodynamics"

First of all, that statement is incorrect. There is no "outrunning" the laws of physics. If you think you have out run them, then you didn't have the right law to begin with. You are not outrunning TD by putting heat into the outside. The heat escapes the outside coils by the same principle that it escapes your home into the cold coils inside. Heat moves to equalize itself, as noted in the article.

Second, you mention that AC is not a necessity. I beg to differ. I live in florida. 90-100 degree summers are not survivable for a lot of people. Say goodbye to your retired parents and grandparents and anyone with a heart condition if AC leaves tomorrow; they won't survive it.

AC is no less important than heat is to the north. I could just as easily tell you to "wear more jackets and sweaters in the winter". 90-100 degrees is not the same thing in Florida as it is in Arizona or California. I have been to both. The humidity makes it difficult to breathe down here. Texas is more like Florida, but still not as bad (depending on where you are, state is too big anyway).

But I commend you for noting the business culture in all this. We do push ourselves harder than any other nation (in business at least, not in school). Businesses have been trying to suppress wages and rights since the first worker picked up a rock and started banging on something and getting paid for it. AC is certainly tied to productivity. And we are a productivity driven society. We are no longer interested in doing something well. We are interested in expansion only, and that is not sustainable.

Put you'll take my AC when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Although we could do with more reasonable temps. I freeze to death in the middle of summer because I do IT and I'm near the AC unit that shares the server room.

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Nuckear Power is the short term answer. It does not jibe with big oil and big finance's agenda to keep energy costs high but it would solve the problem. Much of the anti-nuke propaganda comes from big oil and big financial interests. For the long haul funding of fusion energy research is the answer. With proper funding and cooperation with the Euros, Japanese, and Russians, agressive R&D could achieve fusion energy breakeven within a decade. And then we could aircondition the Sahara desert if we wanted to. Not to mention cooling the surface temps of at least the oceanic waters adjuacent to our coastal regions, thus reducing the power of hurricanes as they made landfall.
Liberals who disdain such advances in science and technology are merely dupes of the feudalists who resent the fact that we ever did away with such institutions as serfdom and slavery. They are luddites at heart who despise the rise of a middle class labor force. The anti-technological bias in mass media and in our institutions of higher learning comes from this neo-feudalist crowd and is swallowed hook line and sinker by well intentioned but gullible liberal tree-hugger types. But the fact is, deep in his soul, Al Gore and his ilk are feudalists, bound and determined to turn back the clock. Without advanced technologies, there can be no such thing as a middle class. Rest assured, when Jimmy Carter coined his rubric of "lowered expectations," he wasn't including himself. And neither is Al Gore or others of his ilk.
TagsNOLA

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A couple of summers ago I was in Minnesota. It was probably 85 or so. Folks there looked like they were really suffering. I told 'em, "Hell folks, I seen it this hot at 6am." The man said, "Sure, you're from Texas, you Texans can take that heat!" You bet we can!

I grew up in Galveston, TX in the 1950's. My Grandmother's house in which we lived was built in the 1890's and had huge floor-to-ceiling windows that allowed the almost constant southeast breeze from the Gulf to flow throughout the house. With the 13ft. ceilings and big ceiling fans, there was no need (or so we thought) for air conditioning. I remember going downtown in the summer when big stores like Sears and Penney's had huge A/C units that would blow cool air out to the sidewalk. When my parents bought a newer house, we had an attic fan that pulled air in through open windows and exhausted it out through the attic vents. Even the warmest summer nights were cool enough to sleep comfortably. My parents bought their first A/C unit in 1962. It was one of those 300lb monstrosities that hung half-in and half-out of the window of their bedroom.

My first experience with 24/7 A/C was in the Navy. I was on a new construction ship that was completely air conditioned. Four years of that and I was hooked. When I returned to Texas there was no way I was going to live without A/C.

I live in East Texas now. July, August, and September are the real summer months here, with both temperature and humidity increasing to unbearable levels. So now its programmable thermostats, ceiling fans, tinted double-pane windows, insulating drapes, etc.

So each time I brave the elements traversing between my artificially cooled office, my car, and my home, I think to myself, "Yep, us Texans can really take that heat!"

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In the summer of 1998, (one of the hottest summers in Mid-Missouri in recent years), I was in the middle of a major house remodel and had to do without my A/C all summer. I remember the "pre-A/C" days as we did not get A/C until 1972 (my grandparents bought a single window unit and we would close all the doors in the house except in the living room where the A/C unit was). Luckily my "pre-A/C survival skills" were still intact.

I already had ceiling fans and an attic fan. I ran them all night with the windows open and then closed up the house tight before going to work. The earlier poster described the "two thermometer method" and mine was pretty much the same plan but without the thermometers, just "open at night, closed while at work." I put a window fan in the living room and the bedroom. On the really hot days, when I wanted to watch TV on a weekend afternoon, I used the old "put the fan behind the 50 lb. block of ice in a metal tray" trick. All in all, from May to late September, I only had about a dozen "bad" days. Granted, I had A/C at work but it was still plenty hot outside when I'd get home.

My co-workers, upon hearing my plight, felt so bad for me but by the end of the summer felt that I was psychotic because I was saying, "It's not so bad, really...actually it's been good because I forgot what I had missed." That summer brought a lot of good sensory input that I had missed for years...the cool refreshment of a cold drink on a muggy afternoon...the wonderful leisure of sitting on the porch...the tepid comfort of lounging in a tub of leukwarm water and letting the ceiling fan blow on wet skin after returning to the living room...the lazy somnolent feeling of being "just a little too warm but not terribly warm." Suddenly, the muggy 100% humidity Missouri summers were not nearly as daunting as I'd let them be for many years.

My electric bill in my little house, normally $120 in July/August, went down to $80--another reward. I lost 15 lbs., probably because my metabolism was a little more active (I always say "sweating a little was good for me) and my appetite was less in the heat.

Since then, I have returned to A/C but only in a limited sense. I still open the house at night and only run the A/C part time now, on the hottest days, and the thermostat on the A/C is set for 80 when I do run it. I simply realized I liked the senses and sounds of a hot night without A/C more than I realized. It's not a "whacko" thing, it's a lifestyle choice that brought back some simple pleasures.

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My, my, my, the chickens DO come home to roost, don't they???

Tree Huggers have been successful at keeping any new nuclear power plants from going online since the 70's. This caused power companies to use fossil fuel sources to power their new plants.

Well, now the enviros want us to turn off the AC. That ain't gonna happen. The majority of our electricity could have been coming from nuclear power plants by now. The "energy crisis" in the early 70's should have GUARANTEED that we start building nukes like there was no tomorrow. Over 70 percent of France's electric power comes for nuclear NOW. By God, if the French can do it, we can. A nuclear power plant WILL be coming to a town near you. It's only a matter of time. Get used to the idea.

The citizens of this country are going to blame the far left radicals if their standard of living begins to fall and that will be reflected at the ballot box. Remember Carter's "maliase" speech? There's gonna be some malaise alright. We need to produce MORE power, NOT less. Unfortunately, it seems that the only way to get anything done in this country these days is to wait until a crisis comes along that FORCES us to do what we should have been doing for decades. Not to worry, ADULTS will step up to the plate and we'll be building Nukes, drilling in ANWAR and drilling off the gulf coast shelf.

FYI, where I live, it was 81 degrees with 100% humidity when I went outside at 6:00 this morning. I ain't gonna turn off my AC during July, August and September. I don't care how much it costs. If I've got to pick up cans beside the road to pay for it, so be it.

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My area is having a very hot unusual June. However, so far I have resisted turning on my fans. I don't want an air conditioner, even a small one, and I find that I don't need it. Everytime I see a new central system being put into a local house, my heart drops as I know it will damage the environment unnecessarily. However, I spent a week in Florida this month, and there is no way that one could live there in the summer without an air conditioner. Now that scientists have reached a consensus, and the Administration didn't shut them up, I think more information has to be passed around about globle warming and what can be done by the grass roots ordinary individual to stop it. The response to Al Gore's film seems to show that people want to know more.

We speak about the enormous debt our government is creating and the impact on our children and grandchildren. However, if there is no liveable earth, the amount of the debt will be moot.

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A brand new Air Conditioner is on the market, with exciting patented new technology, that saves 40-75% of the energy of a comparable residential A/C. Available worldwide from Krystal Planet, one of the world's more interesting clean power marketing companies, can be installed for ~$5500 to $6000 (comparable to new high efficiency A/C systems). This proven unit, combined with products recommended by a 10-minute Fast Analyzer interview by phone and accompanying report, can cut peak power consumption by up to 40% at your home and up to 60% of your homes needs at the power plant (due to the multiplier effect resulting from the losses inherent in our inefficient central power plant system). Add a small renewable energy system (solar shingles, rooftop wind turbine) for $10-$15K and have zero elecric bill and an even more significant multiplier effect on reducing carbon emissions. Complaining or despair won't get us anywhere, nor will trying to get people to change their lifestyle. Offer to maintain peoples' modern comforts without lifestyle changes but cut their carbon footprint by putting their home on a low carbon diet with smart affordable products available today, and then tells others what you've done. That is how we solve our climate crisis - and, it's just what the Freedom Plan (www.thefreedomplan.org) calls for.

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...the libs are to blame for the limited supply of oil in the world?

Oh dear, you are desperate aren't you?

There is what there is, and when it is gone it's gone, and the price starts climbing.

You'll be surprised to learn that even a massive nuclear powered system would only have enough uranium for about 50 to 100 years of operation. Good enough for you? Maybe, but hardly a "long term" solution. Or is the limited supply of uranium and it's toxicity a liberal plot too?

I agree with you however that your desperation will lead to energy production.... mostly coal.... some nuclear.

The coal will speed the global warming process, requiring more AC...

The nuclear planets will create an insoluable waste problem... but that will be future generations' problem.

Your post points to the central problem. People will do what they need to survive today, to get through THIS heat wave, and the future be damned. ... if the electrical grid can supply them.

That's a human propopensity isn't it? Can anyone blame them? Should anyone try to stop them? Don't try to stop me! Don't try to stop you!

But just know that every solution out there has costs and the primary cost, from coal burning, is going to make the problem even worse, in a vicious cycle that is likely to extinguish life on this planet.

Those with the means (and you plan to be one of them don't you?) will pay whatever it takes to live. Those without the means? Well we don't really care about them do we?

In the mean time live well and party on, cause the temperature is rising.

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As a resident of west Texas, where the weather is typically very hot and usually dry in the summer (and not too cool even in the winter), I have to say that life here would be almost unbearable without some form of A/C. This is especially true for people who have medical problems.

Few question the need for at least moderate heat during winters, but believe me, excessive heat can be just as life-threatening as excessive cold. The oldest houses, with high ceilings, big windows, etc., may have helped, but I'm sure that my ancestors must have suffered a lot during summer.

When the weather is very dry, as it so often is in western Texas, it is possible to use "swamp coolers" which use less electricity, but also keep the air inside fairly humid, which can cause problems in itself.

To me, the question whether A/C is necessary or not is moot. The old houses with the high ceilings, etc., are going, if not gone, and in today's crime-ridden society, it would be extremely unwise to leave one's windows open all night while one slept!

I see no real alternative to A/C as long as I live in a semi-arid, hot area. Using ceiling fans and floor fans to circulate the cooled air from my window units takes energy too, but it keeps my house within tolerable limits.

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When I was a twenty-something graduate student at the University of Texas, my wife and I lived in Brackenridge Married Student Housing on Autin's notorious Fifth Street.

These buildings were actually surplus World War 2 barracks converted into cheapo tenements for poor, young married students.

We had a three-year-old boy, the heat and humidity were unbearable and my wife was pregnant with our second son. The summers of 1979 and 1980 were the most miserable of my entire life.

I knew a lot of young Yuppie couples in the neighborhood. Most of my neighbors were law students, and all of them were going to work for the ACLU someday. Yeah, right. They gloried in the collection of plywood huts that passed for family housing.

When the University decided to replace the old barracks with air-conditioned, modular housing they organized protests and made signs. But they had the cheapest housing available in Austin, and naturally they didn't want to give it up.

Not me. We moved into the air-conditioned Colorado Married Student Housing units further up Fifth Street, and life suddenly became bearable again. The plywood shacks of Brackenridge were sold to the partying university in San Marcos.

I'm in my 50s now and I live in the much-preferable climate of northwest Nevada. Here air conditioning is a luxury that many are able to go without. I'm one of them. Single-digit humidity and moderate temperatures are a marvel.

But anybody who thinks going without air conditioning in Austin, Texas, is not one hell of a sacrifice is out of their gourd. They were idiots back then, and they're still idiots today. They can keep their hot, sweaty climate, and sweat buckets until their Birkenstocks rot and their graying ponytails fall off.

I refuse to even visit my relatives in Texas during the summer.

When all the fossil fuels are gone, mankind will revert to his old nomadic ways. If it's too hot, you go where it's cooler. If it's too cold you go where it's warmer. The elderly snowbirds in the Airstreams and Winnebagos already have that figured out.

But don't worry about over-population getting in the way of our new nomadic lifestyle. After the wars for the diminishing resources are over, there'll be a hell of a lot fewer of us left in this best of all possible worlds to enjoy the spoils.

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We live in Southern Arizona and use an evaporative cooler. We don't use our air conditioner at all. A little sticky when the humidity goes up, but otherwise comfortable. Are these as environmentally damaging as air conditioning?

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Gee, what happened to those piezo-electric refrigeration units that promised to cool air using a fraction of the energy of today's wasteful compression/expansion systems? They went down the same path as all the other "wondrous inventions of the future" bromides that never saw the light of a commercial day. The fact is, big, established industries do not want their turf stepped on by some new, more efficient upstart – and so we fumble along as we always have while destroying our environment. It sure is going to be "a hot time in the ol' town tonight" when we can no longer run our air conditioning on an overheated Earth – but, by then there may be a lot fewer of us.

My partial answer, here in Southern California, where the night air cools off, is to use a whole-house fan. It evacuates warm house air into the attic and out the gable vents, simutaneously cooling the attic and, through open windows, pulling in cool outside evening air – at less than 1/10th the energy of running our central air conditioning. Works for us...natural air conditioning

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Good for you!!! It's your money, spend it as you see fit.

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It's good to see more people who understand the fundamental issue in all of this; peak oil, next to over-population. It helps us 'Peak Oilers' feel more sane, in an insane and completely in denial country.

http://illdill.org

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I have grown up in Florida. Every summer gets hotter and more miserable. I can't recall a Christmas where it was below 85 degrees.

My escape? Seattle, Washington. Rarely, if ever, gets hot enough to warrant air conditioning, which most buildings lack, anyway.

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Those who wrote : move to Canada to avoid the heat have
never been in Toronto when it hits 95 degrees. Where Toronto differs from most US cities is that the city has done
something about the high energy usage of heating and a/c.
I suggest you google Enwave, this central cooling project is
expected to save 61MW electricity when it hits full capacity.
At the moment it is running at about 25MW

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I am a progressive; but I totally disagree with this diary. I live in Texas, where it is hot and humid in the summer. If you want to see life expectancy in the US drop by about 15 years, just get rid of air conditioning. Older people who can't afford to run A/C die down here all the time. As you get older, your body is less able to take the heat.
According to the author, we should give up our A/C, and experience survival of the fittest.

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The article about the woes of air conditioning is interesting, and thought-provoking. However, as a person who has never tolerated heat or humidity, and who lived without air conditioning until spending several summers on the couch, with symptoms of heat stroke and unable to go out of the house, I have it now, and use it.

There are areas in the United States where people are found dead in their apartments and homes from heat exposure. Add to that increasing global temperatures, and the amount of suffering is heightened. It would seem prudent to design an innovative air conditioning system which is more environmentally friendly, and more energetically efficient--even solar powered.

The comment that Americans have become less tolerant of ranges of heat and humidity intrigues me. As a child, I remember having nausea, diarrhea, and heat stroke from the hot, humid days, and I dreaded the approach of summer. I have vivid memories of my mother doing housework, laundry, and ironing in the miserable heat. We weren't any more tolerant of the heat...there just wasn't any escaping it.

How about thinking of ways to improve the technology, and make buildings more well-insulated? Has anyone got any other ideas?

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Do we need to take the environment seriously? Yes!

Do we need to find alternative means of electricity generation? YES!

Do we need to keep corporations and private operators from doing anything they please with our environment? YES!

Should we take steps to minimize, streamline, and curtail our consumption? YES!

Do we need to get "Holier than thou" about Air Conditioning? NO!

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Extremism is most always unattractive. When a discussion deteriorates into name-calling and hysterics, the opportunity to change minds is lost. Persuasion, not vilification, is the way to go.

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Mr Nunyabinis proves the axiom that saying that someone possesses only 'average intelligence' is really a much more pleasant way to ascribe the quality that was once known as being from the Neanderthal, rather than the Cro Magnon line; in other words, one who uses such affectionate and pithy appelations as 'You Libs' rather than 'My Dear Sirs,' or, more inclusively, 'Ladies and Gentlemen.' Really, if he is trying, as valiantly as he appears to be, to glamorize the cause of conservation/preservation of our environmental "endowment" (to borrow JH Kunstler's word), he is succeeding mightily, in spite of his very spirited self. Kudos to him, for that!

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Your regional bias is showing. Heating up north in the dead of winter is highly desirable, but is not — repeat: not indispensible, any more than A/C is for Southerners in the summer. The Innuit managed to get by without fossil fuel heating for millennia, and they live in a climate whose summer makes a New England winter seem positively balmy.

The simple fact is, both are going away, and relatively soon. We’re running out of affordable energy, at the worst possible time (with global population at record levels, and with India and China now trying to join the First World and saying, “Hey, it’s our turn now! We want the benefits of massive petroleum consumption, too!”). And when it’s gone, it won’t just mean the end of A/C and driving SUVs around. It’ll mean going back to burning wood (with all the environmental problems that entails) for heating. It’ll mean going back to horse-drawn carriages and horseback riding for transportation. But it means far more than that.

People just don’t get it: petroleum is far more than just fuel. It’s also lubricants (machine oil), needed to keep most machines running regardless of what powers them. Even bicycles need the occasional squirt of oil along the chain and hubs.

It’s plastics, the only thing that machines can be made of that don’t require machine-oil lubricants, and which are used for so much in our society. Imagine giving up everything made of plastic of any kind.

It’s pharmaceuticals, including chemotherapy and other drugs that people depend on for their lives, and will depend on even more as the environmental devastation wreaked by fossil fuels and other aspects of civilization (such as ozone depletion) increases cancer rates further.

Most importantly of all, it’s the Green Revolution pesticides and fertilizers that have multiplied the crop yields of the available arable land of the Earth by roughly a dozenfold over traditional and organic methods, and which are the one and only reason that we’re able to even try to feed the 6½ billion people on the planet now, or the 7+ billion expected in a few years just as the endless emergency of peak oil hits in earnest. Without those, we can’t have that many people on the planet, period. We can’t feed seven billion. Nor six. Nor five. Nor four. Nor three. We may be able to feed two billion, if we tear down much of civilization and devote more land area to farming. One billion is more like it.

These are just a few of the petrochemicals that our civilization depends on. The thing is, you can’t make any of those things from solar power. Nor wind power. Nor water power. Nor geothermal power. Nor hydrogen fuel cells (note: even though we do have plenty of hydrogen in the universe, fuel cells also require platinum for their grids, and the whole Earth has about enough platinum, assuming we could devote every atom of it to this sole purpose, to power every American vehicle on the roads today: but only for one year, when the grids would wear out. Then no more platinum, and no more fuel cells. Ever. There’s a reason that platinum has long been more valuable than gold). Nor even nuclear power (fission nor fusion, even if the latter were feasible, which hasn’t yet been demonstrated). Some, but not all, may be able to be made from biodiesel or similar processes such as thermal depolymerization, but not nearly enough.

(Continued in first Reply)

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I would rather give up my car than my air conditioning. It is 103 right now, I work in an office doing computer work. My job would not be possible without air conditioning. Come up with any new way to cool you can, but I will not turn up my thermostat at home nor tolerate higher temperatures at my job.

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Since you wackos believe that AC is killing our planet, then aren't our refridgerators doing the same thing?

Why don't you give up your fridge since the sky is falling? Your body can learn to handle slightly higher bacteria levels in food, and you can do your shopping everyday instead of weekly, like they do in the rest of the world. You better get used to it because when the big energy crash comes you are going to lose it anyway. Along with your stove and of course your energy wasting computers.

Come on folks, it's put up or shut up time.

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Americans are gaining weight. It is harder to stay cool the more fat a person has. The problem is that people stay inside there 65 degree house being lazy getting fatter which will eventually lead to lower AC temps which makes them want to stay inside even more. Get out in the heat do some yard work, exercise lose the weight and you will be just as comfortable at 78 as you were when you kept it at 65. I am very comfortable in my house at 79 with no fans or 82 with ceiling fans on high. I live in texas where the average temperture for the week is about 102. I could not live without A/C and will not tolerate being uncomfortable in my house. If your hot put on a tank top and shorts. I have no problem paying for a high electric bill, but I use my money to reach my goals and dreams not to keep cool.

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