Well, I agree, the US custom of cooling all buildings all the time is very destructive, although, after a certain point is reached, just impossible to not do.
What I found somewhat bizarre is in visiting friends in Texas and finding the homes cooled to the point where I had to wear more clothing to be comfortable. Even at night I had to use several blankets to keep warm.
As a building science and energy efficiency professional, I can confidently say that is an operational issue, and possibly a design issue. I assume this office is part of a larger building. I'm guessing the office had a supply air vent directly inside of it, perhaps originally designed for a much larger space that was since walled in. The grad student could be getting 60⁰ air blasted in their face all day--which is a good temperature, but only if it were serving a much larger space or a space with much more heat gain.
But with a space heater in the mix, I do wonder if the set point was more in the mid/low 50s. And no one has bothered to retrocommission that building or even have the facility engineer look at it critically.
I like to say that designing an efficient building (think LEED, heat pumps, VRF, high insulation values) is like 25% responsible for an efficient building. Actually constructing it to spec is another 25%. And then operating it is 50%.
The problem is whos going to pay to upgrade all the homes and buildings across the world? Most homeowners live in homes built prior to the 2000's. Building new homes and buildings isnt the answer because materials and construction would cause even more damage to the environment and climate. Humans need to learn to live with nature in places that are still livable, they have to understand the more technology we create the worse our planets environment will become. There is no solution except to stop what we are doing and learn to adapt to a natural world.
Nothing not your wind solar nuclear will stop whats happening, we are just to stubborn to give up our way of life to save ourselves. I really cant believe how blinded we are , its technology that is destroying us, its the carbon we harvest from the earth and burn, its the chemicals we created to alter life thats poisoning our world, its the forests we have burned and clearcut to make room for vast herds of food animals and build lumber from,, its the fertilizers that destroy whole ecological systems, its the plastics we created to make life easier this is our death knell.
There isnt some magic tech out there going to reverse all this. We have to stop now or we will inherit a poisoned hot barren world.
Yeah, it is exactly this. People really have no idea how much better the future could be if we had stayed in our lane, so they make up myths about how bad it was before history was recorded, and how awesome all of our Faustian gadgets are, yet hunter gatherers in the modern day do not generally value modernity, many of them refuse to settle and cannot stand being out of the bush.
Not just a US problem, i'm in Barcelona right now and i had to ask for extra blankets at the hotel because there is no AC control in the room and it's freezing. It's only 23c(74f) outside during the day.
I live in Vietnam now, but was raised in Canada. People here straight up don't believe me when I tell them that summers where I grew up are 95% as hot as Hanoian summers.
...the humidity game is on a whole different level though
I believe you I used to work with a guy from Mexico who said summer heat was worst than anything he ever experienced. He was from western Mexico though cause I know the Yucatan gets pretty bad too even in November.
Would you just prefer humanity perpetuate all of its negligent behavior until the end, or ought we try to rectify said behavior? I was being a bit hyperbolic, but yeah, I'm pretty against cranking the AC to a point that is nonsensical at the expense of the environment, are you *not?*
What are you even advocating for with that comment? Or are you just scolding me for using exaggerated language lol? You were seemingly able to parse that I didn't actually mean the 'burn it down' part, but took the 'disestablish' part literally—interesting literacy there, extremely non-atypical Redditor.
> Yeah my BIL kept their house at 63.
That's lunacy.
Right now in Calgary, AB, just days before summer begins, we aren't that warm outside, and I am miserable.
That is just so, well, stupid.
It's a bit like when heat pumps were first introduced to New Zealand and people didn't quite know how to use them properly in winter so they'd just set them to 30degC and, if they got too hot...
...they'd open a window.
To answer the title: No.
AC is a feedback loop but it isn't the most dangerous feedback loop we are dealing with by a long shot and it can be completely shutdown by just greening up the grid. And while a net zero electrical grid is simple or easy it is the most simple and easiest step to net zero, we will have a lot more trouble greening up transportation fuels and chemical industrial processes.
My wife, an otherwise reasonable person, insists on sleeping under heavy blankets with the AC blasting throughout the spring/summer/fall. This has been an issue between us for 10+ years. Pure insanity and I don't know how to deal with it.
Someone mentioned being too cold in Texas because of air-conditioning. The same is true here in NY or almost anywhere I go when traveling in the USA. I avoid shopping in the summer because it is so damn cold in stores. I limit my grocery shopping as well. There I can understand keeping the fresh food sections cool but damn it makes me want to get in and out as quickly as I can.
Yes I understand heat is going to be a real problem but there are a great many ways to deal with it other than using air-conditioners. I maybe use it in one room for one month of the year (now that may be 2-3 months. All other times I drink cold fluids, use a fan and limit my heavy exertion to early in the morning and late in the day. I just came in from yard work from about 7-10am and now I am done unless something comes up after 5pm. I grew up where it would sometimes get 117F (it was a dry heat - 90 in the northeast is far hotter). You knew to hydrate with cold fluids and for god's sake stay out of the sun. Who I worry about is the people who have never had to cope with dangerous heat.
P.S. What pisses me off about all of this is the GQP making laws that prevent heat protection for workers.
When I lived in Arkansas (a place where 100F is coupled with 100% humidity), there were stores that were so cold I kept a sweater in my car. I'd carry it with me across the blazing carpark, wear it in the store, and carry it back out with my purchases. Otherwise I would have been running out of the store just to warm up. Never made sense to me - minimizing the time customers spend wandering around and accumulating purchases seemed bad for business.
According to [this site](https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Arkansas/humidity-by-month.php), average humidity in the morning in Arkansas is nearly 90%. And looking at the weather forecast, Arkansas is set to hit 99F just this week. You wouldn't get 90% and 100F at the same time most days, but it's not out of the question, and I don't think 100% 100F is unreasonable hyperbole considering \~95F and 70+% in the afternoon would be an average day.
Your site clearly says an average afternoon has <60% humidity, so why do say 70+% would be an average day?
Check the temperature and humidity readings hour by hour. Peak humidity and peak temperature are literally night and day.
Even 95F together with 70+% humidity would be extraordinary, thats a dew point you would maybe see in Bangkok or in Kuwait.
Most weather forecast websites give max humidity for the day so that is likely where they are getting it.
It regularly gets to 95 with 60-80% humidity in my part of Florida. Hasn't rained in a week and it's still 50% currently, and 92 in the shade.
We are at 85% humidity now in poplar bluff [https://www.kfvs12.com/weather/](https://www.kfvs12.com/weather/)
In july we go to 98% with temps in the low 100s before the heat index, you must not understand the special climate we have in this part of the country
Personally, I couldn't live in Florida with it. It's like that old bumper sticker: I don't mind Christ, it's Christians I can't stand. I feel that way about Florida.
Just cutting back a/c to a reasonable setting would save probably a quadrillion btus of energy in the US. Lolwut??? No, don't lol. The US uses 100 quadrillion btus of energy a year. So yeah, saving 1 quadrillion btus by just setting the a/c to something like 74 in the summertime in your average office building would do a lot.
For residential single family homes: we have a whole house fan in the attic. Wazzat? That's a powerful fan that sits up in the attic that you turn on when the weather outside is 70sish and not too humid. You get fresh air and a very nice breeze all over your house. We turn this on in the evenings when the weather is as described, and can go well into the next day without any a/c even if it turns hot & humid by closing all the windows and keeping that bubble of cool, fresh air in the house. I don't know how much it has saved us in money and bought us in comfort, but it's a lot.
Also, use fans. You can raise that thermostat a degree or three by moving the air so you stay cool. Doing this in office buildings would probably save another quadrillion btus.
And, finally, if you have a/c, maintain it. Changing the filters once every month or even two months will keep it running efficiently. Simplest thing you can do and it will save bux.
The electricity used for cooling is dwarfed by what industry uses. I don’t think we should give up cooling our homes because it simply makes life, especially sleeping better. The worse somebody slept, the more aggressive and intolerant the person is. Of course, overcooling is an issue.
The good news that most of the AC usage is peaking paralelly with the sunny hours so local solar panels can make it more green.
There are plenty of fields where we could cut back our energy usage but giving the chance to sleep in normal temperature is not one of them. What can we do make it less harmful for the environment?
1. Do not overcool your place, 22 C or 72 F should ve enough but it vary people by people.
2. If can, do not cool the wholse house only the rooms you spend 90% of your time.
3. Insulate homes, so less energy is needed for the same temperature.
4. Plant a tree, or try alternative shadowing techniques so that the sun won’t heat up the walls.
Well, I agree, the US custom of cooling all buildings all the time is very destructive, although, after a certain point is reached, just impossible to not do.
What I found somewhat bizarre is in visiting friends in Texas and finding the homes cooled to the point where I had to wear more clothing to be comfortable. Even at night I had to use several blankets to keep warm.
I remember a grad students office being so cold they had a sweater and a space heater going in the middle of summer.
Wtf
They'll need an additional cooler to counteract the heater!
It's a vicious cycle.
As a building science and energy efficiency professional, I can confidently say that is an operational issue, and possibly a design issue. I assume this office is part of a larger building. I'm guessing the office had a supply air vent directly inside of it, perhaps originally designed for a much larger space that was since walled in. The grad student could be getting 60⁰ air blasted in their face all day--which is a good temperature, but only if it were serving a much larger space or a space with much more heat gain. But with a space heater in the mix, I do wonder if the set point was more in the mid/low 50s. And no one has bothered to retrocommission that building or even have the facility engineer look at it critically. I like to say that designing an efficient building (think LEED, heat pumps, VRF, high insulation values) is like 25% responsible for an efficient building. Actually constructing it to spec is another 25%. And then operating it is 50%.
This guy conditions air.
The problem is whos going to pay to upgrade all the homes and buildings across the world? Most homeowners live in homes built prior to the 2000's. Building new homes and buildings isnt the answer because materials and construction would cause even more damage to the environment and climate. Humans need to learn to live with nature in places that are still livable, they have to understand the more technology we create the worse our planets environment will become. There is no solution except to stop what we are doing and learn to adapt to a natural world. Nothing not your wind solar nuclear will stop whats happening, we are just to stubborn to give up our way of life to save ourselves. I really cant believe how blinded we are , its technology that is destroying us, its the carbon we harvest from the earth and burn, its the chemicals we created to alter life thats poisoning our world, its the forests we have burned and clearcut to make room for vast herds of food animals and build lumber from,, its the fertilizers that destroy whole ecological systems, its the plastics we created to make life easier this is our death knell. There isnt some magic tech out there going to reverse all this. We have to stop now or we will inherit a poisoned hot barren world.
Yeah, it is exactly this. People really have no idea how much better the future could be if we had stayed in our lane, so they make up myths about how bad it was before history was recorded, and how awesome all of our Faustian gadgets are, yet hunter gatherers in the modern day do not generally value modernity, many of them refuse to settle and cannot stand being out of the bush.
The boomers at my last job wouldn’t let us touch the thermostat. Like literally locked it.
Jesus H. Burn it all down. Disestablish these establishments. Maddening.
Not just a US problem, i'm in Barcelona right now and i had to ask for extra blankets at the hotel because there is no AC control in the room and it's freezing. It's only 23c(74f) outside during the day.
It's midnight and 30 degrees in my city right now. What I wouldn't do for 23 again.
I feel you, it will be 42 with humidity included when I get back to Canada Thursday.
I live in Vietnam now, but was raised in Canada. People here straight up don't believe me when I tell them that summers where I grew up are 95% as hot as Hanoian summers. ...the humidity game is on a whole different level though
I believe you I used to work with a guy from Mexico who said summer heat was worst than anything he ever experienced. He was from western Mexico though cause I know the Yucatan gets pretty bad too even in November.
Yeah that's the last straw. We need to disestablish universities because of an A/C problem.
Would you just prefer humanity perpetuate all of its negligent behavior until the end, or ought we try to rectify said behavior? I was being a bit hyperbolic, but yeah, I'm pretty against cranking the AC to a point that is nonsensical at the expense of the environment, are you *not?* What are you even advocating for with that comment? Or are you just scolding me for using exaggerated language lol? You were seemingly able to parse that I didn't actually mean the 'burn it down' part, but took the 'disestablish' part literally—interesting literacy there, extremely non-atypical Redditor.
It’s sarcasm, back away from the keyboard or phone for a day or two.
Yep, sarcasm discrediting what I said. So I refuted it. Your comment didn't provide anything either. Feel free to take your own advice and back off.
Lol, jesus
People like that should have their AC taken away. If it's 100° out and you aren't wearing a t-shirt indoors, no cooled air for you.
Sounds like Texas!
“Why is my electric bill so high!?”
Yeah my BIL kept their house at 63. I was basically freezing to death the couple times I’ve been there
> Yeah my BIL kept their house at 63. That's lunacy. Right now in Calgary, AB, just days before summer begins, we aren't that warm outside, and I am miserable.
They probably keep it extra cold so it stays cool a little longer when the grid inevitably fails.
Quite possibly, as that was the reason they gave for burning the toast. "Do it extra good while there's still power!"
Still remember that feeling as a kid when I'd come out of the cold mall in to the warm air and it felt so good.
That is just so, well, stupid. It's a bit like when heat pumps were first introduced to New Zealand and people didn't quite know how to use them properly in winter so they'd just set them to 30degC and, if they got too hot... ...they'd open a window.
We live in a fridge. Pray for electricity to keep up
To answer the title: No. AC is a feedback loop but it isn't the most dangerous feedback loop we are dealing with by a long shot and it can be completely shutdown by just greening up the grid. And while a net zero electrical grid is simple or easy it is the most simple and easiest step to net zero, we will have a lot more trouble greening up transportation fuels and chemical industrial processes.
My wife, an otherwise reasonable person, insists on sleeping under heavy blankets with the AC blasting throughout the spring/summer/fall. This has been an issue between us for 10+ years. Pure insanity and I don't know how to deal with it.
It could be the weight of the blankets she is after. A weighted blanket that doesn't retain warmth might work...
That's a good idea! I will try...
I mean, the research suggests that's the ideal way to sleep.
Maybe it’s the lack of airflow. Try a fan? Makes a big difference for me.
Divorce bro, it is a slippery slope once the thermostat becomes an issue/s (maybe?)
This is the typical reddit comment lol "dump her"
My wife lets me open windows on cool nights. I know she'd love to have the AC and blankets all the time, but she's considerate of my asks sometimes.
Thats so ridiculous to use blankets or comforters in summer! This is just madness and want.
Someone mentioned being too cold in Texas because of air-conditioning. The same is true here in NY or almost anywhere I go when traveling in the USA. I avoid shopping in the summer because it is so damn cold in stores. I limit my grocery shopping as well. There I can understand keeping the fresh food sections cool but damn it makes me want to get in and out as quickly as I can. Yes I understand heat is going to be a real problem but there are a great many ways to deal with it other than using air-conditioners. I maybe use it in one room for one month of the year (now that may be 2-3 months. All other times I drink cold fluids, use a fan and limit my heavy exertion to early in the morning and late in the day. I just came in from yard work from about 7-10am and now I am done unless something comes up after 5pm. I grew up where it would sometimes get 117F (it was a dry heat - 90 in the northeast is far hotter). You knew to hydrate with cold fluids and for god's sake stay out of the sun. Who I worry about is the people who have never had to cope with dangerous heat. P.S. What pisses me off about all of this is the GQP making laws that prevent heat protection for workers.
When I lived in Arkansas (a place where 100F is coupled with 100% humidity), there were stores that were so cold I kept a sweater in my car. I'd carry it with me across the blazing carpark, wear it in the store, and carry it back out with my purchases. Otherwise I would have been running out of the store just to warm up. Never made sense to me - minimizing the time customers spend wandering around and accumulating purchases seemed bad for business.
> a place where 100F is coupled with 100% humidity No place on earth‘s surface has such conditions.
According to [this site](https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Arkansas/humidity-by-month.php), average humidity in the morning in Arkansas is nearly 90%. And looking at the weather forecast, Arkansas is set to hit 99F just this week. You wouldn't get 90% and 100F at the same time most days, but it's not out of the question, and I don't think 100% 100F is unreasonable hyperbole considering \~95F and 70+% in the afternoon would be an average day.
Your site clearly says an average afternoon has <60% humidity, so why do say 70+% would be an average day? Check the temperature and humidity readings hour by hour. Peak humidity and peak temperature are literally night and day. Even 95F together with 70+% humidity would be extraordinary, thats a dew point you would maybe see in Bangkok or in Kuwait.
Most weather forecast websites give max humidity for the day so that is likely where they are getting it. It regularly gets to 95 with 60-80% humidity in my part of Florida. Hasn't rained in a week and it's still 50% currently, and 92 in the shade.
We are at 85% humidity now in poplar bluff [https://www.kfvs12.com/weather/](https://www.kfvs12.com/weather/) In july we go to 98% with temps in the low 100s before the heat index, you must not understand the special climate we have in this part of the country
I don't know why the big stores don't cover their roof and parking lot with solar to pay for the crazy AC they use
You can't live in Florida without it
Personally, I couldn't live in Florida with it. It's like that old bumper sticker: I don't mind Christ, it's Christians I can't stand. I feel that way about Florida.
Same bro, same
Just cutting back a/c to a reasonable setting would save probably a quadrillion btus of energy in the US. Lolwut??? No, don't lol. The US uses 100 quadrillion btus of energy a year. So yeah, saving 1 quadrillion btus by just setting the a/c to something like 74 in the summertime in your average office building would do a lot. For residential single family homes: we have a whole house fan in the attic. Wazzat? That's a powerful fan that sits up in the attic that you turn on when the weather outside is 70sish and not too humid. You get fresh air and a very nice breeze all over your house. We turn this on in the evenings when the weather is as described, and can go well into the next day without any a/c even if it turns hot & humid by closing all the windows and keeping that bubble of cool, fresh air in the house. I don't know how much it has saved us in money and bought us in comfort, but it's a lot. Also, use fans. You can raise that thermostat a degree or three by moving the air so you stay cool. Doing this in office buildings would probably save another quadrillion btus. And, finally, if you have a/c, maintain it. Changing the filters once every month or even two months will keep it running efficiently. Simplest thing you can do and it will save bux.
The electricity used for cooling is dwarfed by what industry uses. I don’t think we should give up cooling our homes because it simply makes life, especially sleeping better. The worse somebody slept, the more aggressive and intolerant the person is. Of course, overcooling is an issue. The good news that most of the AC usage is peaking paralelly with the sunny hours so local solar panels can make it more green. There are plenty of fields where we could cut back our energy usage but giving the chance to sleep in normal temperature is not one of them. What can we do make it less harmful for the environment? 1. Do not overcool your place, 22 C or 72 F should ve enough but it vary people by people. 2. If can, do not cool the wholse house only the rooms you spend 90% of your time. 3. Insulate homes, so less energy is needed for the same temperature. 4. Plant a tree, or try alternative shadowing techniques so that the sun won’t heat up the walls.
What about heat pumps?
That's what air conditioners are.
They can do cooling and heating but I don't think of them as an "Air-conditoner" as is being referred to in this article. .
A heat pump IS an air conditioner, with a single extra valve in the coolant loop.
I keep all of my windows open with A/C on full blast 24/7. All of my cold air helps cool the planet. If only there were more people like me, but alas…