https://xcancel.com/nytopinion/status/1829879853165765055
https://archive.ph/lxKBc
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/31/opinion/heat-wave-air-conditioning-climate-change.html

  • PointAndClique [they/them]
    ·
    2 months ago

    We get brownouts and blackouts during summer when the strain on the grid is too much, when fire cuts off power, and our power stations conk out. AC cannot be relied upon, and increasingly so as demand increases and infrastructure worsens. So learning to live without it is an unfortunate reality. Anyone presenting adaptation as a solution and not a necessity is completely off base, however.

    Edit: fwiw I don't have ac, I just sweat for six months of the year

    • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]
      ·
      2 months ago

      The biggest problem is that pretty much all construction methods and codes in the US have been made with extensive AC in mind. Plenty of places in the world where it gets really hot have developed architecture that mitigates the effects of higher temperatures, like higher ceilings or channeling airflow around central pools, but the US insists on building houses like everywhere is 1950s new jersey. Many houses would be unlivable 6 months of the year without AC. They need to be torn down and replaced with something less energy intensive

        • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]
          ·
          2 months ago

          It's going to be abandoned either way, I believe. The problem is that a country of 300 million people don't have the generational knowledge to do construction on extreme climates without relying on central air and heating.

            • Belly_Beanis [he/him]
              ·
              2 months ago

              I'm seriously wondering what's going to happen to places like that. Higher sea levels and extreme weather (like hurricanes and tsunamis) will drown the coast. But we never see anything about places that are already hot. Is Vegas just going to be a ghost town out in the middle of nowhere when temperatures hit 180°F? Or will people figure out a way to still live there? Indoors will have some sort of cooling and you wear a pressurized suit with cooling and oxygen to go outside?

              Just seems crazy we're just barreling towards a future where we just abandon thousands of miles of land as it all turns into Death Valley.

      • edge [he/him]
        ·
        2 months ago

        They need to be torn down and replaced with something less energy intensive

        Tearing down and building new houses would probably cause significantly more carbon emissions within any reasonable time frame.