nobody remembers the massive heatwaves australia had to deal with last year?
We’ll forget about Europe next year when Egypt is covered in snow in July
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Oh hey Texas, how’s your power grid?
I read an article recently that they massively upgraded their power grid after those winter outages and they should be just fine now. So probably better than you expect.
One of my coworkers lives in Texas and frequently reports losing power in the middle of meetings. Don’t know if it’s true or just him trying to play it off. But he’ll drop from a call and reconnect on his phone every so often.
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I hear that the US as a whole is going to be experiencing rolling blackouts and about 60million people will be effected. I doubt Texas will fair well during that time.
The power grid operators have been warning they can’t keep up with the demand data centers and rising temperatures are creating. But when have we ever listened to experts so of course we haven’t done anything to help the situation.
*fare
*affected
Thanks I always struggle with that one.
texas will suffer far worst, since thier outdated grid isnt connected to the rest of the country.
Never forget that the fact it’s separate is INTENTIONAL and the fault of TEXAS
They always have to be the special little snowflakes that they are, so scared of science and logic.
That’s not true! We told people to not go easy on the air conditioning!
I mean Mamdani asked people to set their AC to 78 to help the situation and he was called an evil commie for doing so.
except you don’t actually “get it” as you keep votinc against anyoe that hints at a solution
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I probably did… I was half drunk when I posted
Either I’m misunderstanding their comment or you are. To me, “it” meant the temperature (40°C), which they very much do get. This is why they mentioned A/C, right?
I think you’re right.
My reading of their comment (the parent comment, not the one you replied to) was that they were commiserating about the awful heat and being thankful for the fact that they have AC while also highlighting that the heat can quickly turn deadly if you’re not prepared for it.
The person you replied to on the other hand: I’m interpreting their comment as treating all of Texas (if not the US) as a singular political body (basically: who wins the election got 100% of the vote) and is blaming the commenter for the outcomes of those elections and the current heat waves. They also seem to be taking the parent commenter’s comment as an angle for attacking them as if they would attack somebody directly responsible for what’s going on.
This is unfortunately quite common online with people. Also IRL but people are less inclined IMO to be so rash and confrontational IRL than online as online you can “fire from the hip” with comments without any fears of repercussions really.
I think both are right, they do get what those temperatures are like and is why they mentioned AC. However what they don’t understand is that if its that bad for Europe imagine how much worse it will be for places like Texas.
Vote blue no matter who! That will fix it!
Like that time we elected the president who literally made a movie about how climate change is a big deal!
Ditto Queensland. 40+ isn’t pleasant but there are well established ways to handle it here.
A home designed to insulate against Northern European winters turns into a death trap in sustained high temps like this.
That’s not how insulation works
It kind of is. Architecture is actually really hard.
Yes because modern Scandinavian homes have huge uncovered well insulated windows to allow the sun in as a free radiator during winter. I calculated my living room window to be somewhere between 3000W-5000W worth of radiation. Due to the high insulation this doesn’t dissipate during the night in a heatwave, so it doesn’t matter if the outside temp is 18°
Why? Because housing regulations dictated it. No one expected 2018 levels of heatwaves to be the new norm (except all the experts).
My old apartment reached temps of 35° measured at midnight for weeks in the 2018 heatwave despite the outdoor temp not rising much above 30°. Morning temps where around 28° with all windows open. If the morning baseline was lower the night temps might have been possible to sleep in but the insulation kept temps high throughout.
Open all fucking windows during the night and close them and barrier them from the outside during the day.
Maybe read the last part. My current apartment is much better than my old one since I can actually create a wind tunnel, but even then it doesn’t lower it below 25°
And any apartment I’ve had didn’t allow for adding anything to the outside unfortunately. The apartments just weren’t designed for summer comfort.
I see your point. I do not see how you cannot cover the outside of thr window yet. I live on the 4th floor of an absolutrly insulated building in a much hotter region than Scandinavia. Covering window and letting air go during cooler nights keep temperature at approx -6 compared to outside temp. If outside temp doesnt go below say 26 during the night, then its air conditioning either way, regardless of insulating (but with insulation it remains cooler for longer).
It is physically impossible to get to the windows, there is no balcony. I’d need a boom lift to get to them. Modern Scandinavian designs simply didn’t account for proper shading of windows and if you’re in an apartment you’re shit out of luck.
This is what I do, living likewise in a well insulated northern house that sees sustained high temps.
I’d gladly take my well insulated home during any heat wave over a poorly insulated one. Anyone who thinks less insulation is the solution is misunderstanding the problem.
It’s fine to be frustrated by high temps. It sucks. But insulation is a friend in your fight against high temps, not a foe. Use insulation to resist heat rise during the day and use heavy ventilation at night to exhaust and exchange for cooler air. The alternative is to have low insulation and accept indoor temps being constantly pinned to outdoor ambient which is a recipe for discomfort.
Works perfectly when it’s still 35°c in the middle of the night 👍🏻
If its still 35 during the night then it will rise to that temperature inside regardless of insulation. Maybe more quickly without it. The point was insulation. If the min night temperature is 35, then you have air conditioner or you die.
I’m Dutch and in a similar situation. There’s these stick-on sun screens with suction cups: https://huizedop.nl/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/novalux-zonwering-met-zuignappen.jpg
Works wonders, can be made to size, they’re relatively cheap. Hope it’ll help.
Great stuff.
I live in a rental on 4th floor, unfortunately I can’t add anything to the outside of the windows… And putting anything on the inside risks trapping the heat in the glass and cracking it.
It’s fine to put aluminium foil on the inside. Sunlight is reflected out without heating up the glass. That’s what worked for me anyway.
As long as there is no space for air to get trapped between the glass and a reflector, it’s no issue to put it on the inside (although its more effective when on the outside) - those foils that can be put on the window using a little bit of water do a good job. Biggest problem are dark objects when only away a few centimeters from the glass - those will crack the window in no time.
At least where i live, non-permanent modifications that use things like suction cups don’t need approval from a landlord.
modern Scandinavian homes have huge uncovered well insulated windows to allow the sun in as a free radiator during winter
Which of course is why you pull down the blinds to limit heating of surfaces inside during the day and let the insulation keep heat out.
Due to the high insulation this doesn’t dissipate during the night in a heatwave, so it doesn’t matter if the outside temp is 18°
Which is why you of course open windows during the night to cool things off when temps are lower.
it’s not perfect, and helps less with high nighttime temps, but it makes the proper insulated home work with you and not against you as much as possible.
You need the blinds on the outside of the window, otherwise this helps minimally, especially if the whole southwest facing wall is glass, which turns the apartment into a greenhouse.
During the heatwave, night was the only time I could cool the room with portable AC, provided all windows were closed to not let heat in.
We have a massive south facing side filled with windows (and two double glass doors), covers about 80% of the living area, all blinds mounted inside. We still had 9°C lower temps inside compared to outside during the worst hours of the heat wave. Yes 28°C is still hot, but much better than the 37°C we had outside.
oh, my friend, i’m sad to say that this planet has been as fucked as a toddler at a republican invite-only soiree for a long time already u.u
Our fate was sealed since the 1960s.
The timeline branch where we avoided this was the one where Nixon was executed for treason. We are, unfortunately, obviously in one of the variations of the world where that did not happen.
(edit: i know he was only sworn in by 1969 and resigned in 1974 but the prerequisites for dragging his sick bastard carcass to justice were supposed to have been laid out in JFK’s second term. … Which also didn’t happen in the timeline where we have had the misfortune to find ourselves)
Yeah, some colleagues from India expressed their concern last week, because they heard how hot it was here.
Felt really weird to have that be actual concern and not just them mocking us, because they’re used to + equipped for worse temperatures.
What surprised me was that even people from india living in europe complained so much about the heat. They were in full survival mode, just as the rest of us
While I was in full survival mode, I saw plenty of people in the midday 40°C heat running their daily half marathon 🤦♂️
Infrastructure and activity patterns in India are usually designed to help survive the heat. Those in (northern) Europe generally are not. We are not a different species, lol.
They got hit by heatwave a lot last time, also 40+°c. At that time people doesn’t care because it’s just India.
I mean if I was Indian I would be terrified right now, as such heatwaves in Europe suggest that the El Niño comming this year will be big. Which means the Monsun will be way smaller than usual. Which is suboptimals as India specially the Mumbai region relies on the Monsun for drinking water.
This hear’s El Nino was stronger than usual and the Monsoon is weaker. But we knew that a few months ago, following the heatwave in SEA (and weather forecasts).
It’s fucked, and we were warned decades ago and did nothing but drill, baby, drill.
A lot of people will die. Which I’m pretty sure they’re fine with, less people= less expenses for social welfare programs, lower property values, and so on
“They” being the people in charge of our world-wide MegaForce economy, think JP Morgan and those who “serve” terms at The FED. (in actuality, they take turns reaming us, inflation is how central banks raise taxes without congressional approval).
The Epstein class has talked about raising the kill line for awhile. Warren Buffett stated back in 2013 that the rich were starting a war on the poor, the poor just weren’t told anything about it
Kinda crazy to catch up the Fed in this.
You ate currently killing someone. Right bow, at this moment, as you read this.
Is it yourself, or the class invested in the petroleum industry?
You’re doing one of the right now. Which is it?
cecinestopasunecommunication
Yeah, because you don’t know the language
Damn, heatstroke is no joke, it even shown in typed word.
Yep, and Americans answering with “we’re ok because we have AC” is a Don’t Look Up moment
It’s definitely not ok, but when treating the root cause will take decades if not centuries (which we absolutely should still do), perhaps it makes sense to look into treating the symptoms as well
Solar panels and air con are a good short-term solution for the symptoms
And by short-term I mean my whole life
There is no treatment for the root cause, lol either we continue to pump co2 into the atmosphere or we stop. Either way, temperature increase is locked in for roughly a century at this point. We lost the fight for a livable planet. The human extinction event continues
The problem is that treating the root cause is not profitable. So it will never happen. Ever.
That’s not true. There is plenty of profit to be made with selling stuff that helps reduce energy use, selling energy that uses less fossil fuel (or produces less CO2), undercutting competition with more efficient methods, etc.
The tech world talks a big game about disruption and making billions or even trillions from it. You don’t think there are people who want to make trillions disrupting fossil energy companies?
That would make the oil lobby sad though
Why? Won’t they just get to sell more fossil fuels to meet the electricity demand while politicians endlessly drag their feet on cheaper, renewable alternatives?
EDIT: Oh you mean treating the root cause, yeah true
To my knowledge a lot of ACs can’t even operate at those temperatures, or only in a degraded fashion. The optimal maximum outside temperature of mine apparently is 35°C. After that the radiator can’t get rid of the heat fast enough to have the inside unit work at full capacity.
There are genius ways to build homes that get cooled down even without electricity. See the “earthship” design for example, routing fresh air through pipes in the ground where it cools down, going through the home as the hot air gets sucked out by a “thermal chimmey” (literally creates airflow by using the sun). If we combined that with good insulation to avoid the sun heating up walls and windows we’d have liveable temperatures inside even at 50°C outside. But western countries not even remotely progressive enough for such a radical but necessary structural shift, so even right now we keep building houses designed to trap heat.
Generic residential units are designed to move heat in the ranges they are operated under. Desert units exist that could work in much hotter conditions. Systems can be made to cool way up past 50°C.
But cooling the inside of a house/car is way different than trying to farm crops/animals in that heat.
We’re gonna end up having to go with geothermal heat pumps instead of radiators trying to dump heat in +40C air. this guy modified a window unit and was surprised at how well it did. Results @49 minutes. We should also be tripling our insulation requirements to cover the next 50 to 100 years.
Most of downtown Toronto has been cooled by deep lake water in Lake Ontario since 2004. Cuts electricity use by 75%.
Just realize the hole he dug is probably the bare minimum to handle the heat load from the smallest window AC. It takes a lot of digging to cool a real AC unit. And European homes aren’t known for have large yards.
There’s places with district heating from back in the days that people still invested in new infrastructure. We could do the same with cooling but I’m afraid the neoliberal rot has penetrated too far at this point.
Heating is easier than cooling. For heat you just run a set of lines from the source to the homes, same as plumbing. To dump that heat into the ground, the field you need grows very quickly. A small town would need a large, and probably deep field of pipes. The cost would be huge. Geothermal is great, but digging is hard, so it’s relatively expensive. Every project needs to be individually considered, to determine if it’s really the way to go.
You can dig straight down, and run the ground loop vertically, but it’s surprisingly expensive to dig the hole. Like 15-40k expensive.
I gotta say I understand the cost. Dig a full size grave by hand some time. It’s freakin exhausting. And sure, an excavator can do it in minutes, but that means you’re paying for time on a very expensive machine.
It was so hot last week, I had to move my fucking pepper pants inside.
losing a chunk of the growing season is going to go poorly in the near term
That’s some spicy legwear!
For hot nights!
Not this american. Ive been screaming my head off about how the machery our society runs on is all designed to run in a specific temperature range, and we are nearing the upper edge of that range now.
Most residential air conditioners can only manage a split of 30°F. That means if its 110 outside, your AC will struggle to keep the inside temp colder than 80°F. Sure, there are solutions for this. But they arent being implemented becsuse that is a problem for next quarter.
Anyone who says that doesnt understand our government hasnt modernized our electric grids at all. They cannot handle these ac demands and the ai datacenters they’re forcing down everyones throats.
yeah, its the new form of climate denial
The new climate denial? Using wealth to insulate yourself from discomfort and change
If I didn’t have AC, my very old asbestos ridden apartment would be over 110° farenheit. That’s 43° Celsius. I guess Europeans don’t give a shit about the giant corporations though. They just expect us and our pets to die.
Uhm, ok. No one is saying that AC is useless. Just that it’s not a solution to our planet boiling.
I guess Europeans don’t give a shit about the giant corporations though. They just expect us and our pets to die.
Bro what
I agree it’s not a solution but a shitty band aid. Still, fighting with each other just let’s the nazi billionaires rob everyone on earth blind and they are causing so much more warming than regular citizens
Yeah blame all Americans and not the giant fucking corporations accelerating this shit ten million times more than the regular American
You say that as though corporations are fucking everything up for their own amusement, rather than in the service of making sure the “regular American” gets their luxuries for cheap.
Which luxuries? I agree that America is one of the biggest baddies when it comes to overconsumption, but fighting with each other just let’s the nazi billionaires rob us all blind
Who is fighting each other? No one’s saying that climate change is the fault of American citizens using AC. Just that “Oh it’s 45°C outside, guess I’ll pump up the conditioning and stop thinking about it” is not the way forward
What is? Please enlighten me. What is the solution when I’m baking in my apartment? Die?
floquant @lemmy.dbzer0.com Yep, and Americans answering with “we’re ok because we have AC” is a Don’t Look Up moment
That is not at all what they’re implying with this
floquant @lemmy.dbzer0.com Yep, and Americans answering with “we’re ok because we have AC” is a Don’t Look Up moment
Did you see the movie? I get a feeling that you haven’t.
matthurtme directing the conversation towards blame is in and of itself a Don’t Look Up moment lol
No I’m just sick of the hate all Americans shit when we’re fighting for our lives against a fascist Nazi government that is brainwashing people to fight each other instead of the fucking president of don’t look up but as a male
I have and the movie is apt except I don’t remember a bunch of people lumping Harris voters in with literal Nazis just because we’re all in the United States. Which part of the movie was that again?
I’m done trying to convince you that no one is saying that bud. Bye
Ha ha ha go take your billionaire brainwashing hate all Americans bullshit with you on the way out stormtrooper
where are these americans saying “we’re ok because we have AC”?
The truth is a lot (probably most) of Americans don’t have AC. It wasn’t really needed in most places until a few years ago. A lot of people rent and a lot of states don’t legally require AC in a rental. Because of that landlords refuse to install AC. If states started requiring it things would look a lot different.
Mostly MAGA looking to literally die on that hill, (or expect thier grandchildren to)
I spent three hours convincing a couple MAGAs on nextdoor that global warming is real and we’ve known for nearly 100 years. Had to go into remedial science mode and explain why greenhouse gasses trap heat in, complete with videos showing CO2 experiments like they do in high school. One guy begrudgingly agreed but the second guy was shook. I think he started coming to terms with the fact he’s blindly believed lies and started questioning other “truths”.
There may be hope, but he might’ve just turned Fox on after and stuck his head back into the sand.
I’d love to believe you convinced people on Next Door of anything. I usually only troll there. Place is a cesspool.
That it is. I’ve never actually had much traction getting them to listen, it’s usually just them going silent after providing data/info to back my stance.
Changing worldviews is hard.
I was raised on a steady diet of fox news. When I finally became traveled enough to realize it was bullshit, I had to come to dozens of separate now seemingly obvious conclusions before i had a half-decent picture. Even CNN, ABC, CBS have their own stuff to sell. The media is a business, and it sells.
I was raised on Fox as well, was even a founding member of my schools young conservative club. Global warming was actually one of the topics that broke me free of that bullshit mindset. I told a few friends global warming was bullshit and they were like “bro you’re dumb, here’s how we know it’s real.” I understood enough science to get it was happening as well as the implications. That got me questioning everything the news said, which had me coming to those same realizations you did.
All over the frontpage last week. https://lemmy.today/post/55740469
It’s been the defining sentiment to the story when discussed in the US. The GOP has taken to the rhetoric of comparing heat deaths in Europe to gun deaths in US, as in Europe is being far more irresponsible not installing AC than US is not controlling guns (their words).
Magaites with ac are in for a treat when winter eventually arrives
This comment makes no sense. Am American am not maga but just FYI a/c also means central heating we have them bundled in 99% of buildings. If you are referring to the Texans who froze to death… They had heat just no electricity to run the heaters due to the transmission lines being down.
Dont worry youll figure it out eventually
The only ones saying that are the ones thinking beach weather in the Chicago winter will somehow be a good thing.
They’re idiots.
I sure hope their electricity grid can handle it when everyone turns on the AC and data centers also start pulling extra because it’s so hot.
Even in the U.S., we use a lot more energy heating homes than cooling homes. Around 43% of our total in-home energy usage is on heating, and about 8% is on cooling.
Heat waves don’t cause nearly as big of a strain on our grid as winter storms, because AC doesn’t consume as much energy as even our efficient heat pumps in the winter.
That’s because a heat pump that can lower the temperature by 10°-15°C is really all you need in the hottest part of the summer, whereas in the winter raising the temperature 25°C isn’t uncommon.
Really? This is wild. I’m in a hot part of the US and it’s 95F/35C and humid daily here. I’m honestly really surprised with how much AC blasts here that heating still takes up the majority of nationwide energy consumption.
Just think about it in terms of the number of people and number of days per year where they need to raise the indoor temperature by a certain amount, compared to the number of people and days needing to lower the temperature.
If you’re looking at a place where it’s 95°F during the day and 85°F at night, and you like to set the temperature to 75°F, you’re only cooling it 10-20°F by time of day.
But if you’re looking at a place where it’s 35°F during the day and 15°F at night, and you want to heat things up to 65°F, you’ve gotta change the temperature by 30-50°F throughout the day.
Even when you’re comparing absurdly hot weather to absurdly cold weather, you’re still comparing something like 110°F to 0°F. You’re still looking at a 70°F swing versus a 35°F swing towards comfort.
Throw in the fact that combustion of fuels (fossil fuels like heating oil or natural gas, or other fuels like wood in a fireplace) is usually only about 1/3 or 1/4 as energy efficient than the equivalent temperature change by heat pump, and you can see how much more energy intensive the typical indoor heating setup is compared to the typical indoor cooling setup.
Some of it is obscured by the fact that fossil fuels are much cheaper per unit energy than electricity from the grid, so that heating bills aren’t as expensive in the same ratio, but in terms of actual energy used, it’s a big difference.
At least in my country (Netherlands) the neoliberals have decided every single fucking thing needs to turn a consistent profit and the company who handles the grid is only allowed to upgrade when there is “utility and necessity” which in essence means any time they want to upgrade in anticipation of future demand everyone involved drags their feet.
The result of that policy is that now there is a ridiculous waiting list for commercial grid connections and there are plans to also restrict new high capacity residential connections. For a country that has been run by businessmen for the past 20 years we sure seem to have an awful lack of long-term vision.
Don’t even get me started on the attitude that people here have towards A/C. We don’t live in a country that’s only hot for 1 week a year anymore but lots of ppl just won’t accept that. I guess it’s climate coping/denial combined with wanting to feel superior to Americans.
We will be cooked (literally)
For a country that has been run by businessmen for the past 20 years we sure seem to have an awful lack of long-term vision.
Well thats why, why would they ? why would voters elect them
Lots of temporarily embarassed millionaires + red scare propaganda still carved into people’s minds
Business men are myopic and not strategic for 30 years into the future? I am so shocked! 🙀 😲
They optimized their profit, just not yours you gotta understand. I.e the money is not gone it’s just somewhere else.
It’s crazy to me because surely you would be extracting more wealth from working people (and raising the blessed holy statistic known as GDP) with a grid that actually works and can take on new customers. I know they’re evil but I guess they’re also just stupid.
Take my upvote. I too fail to see how “make something work well, get more money” isn’t the obvious default choice for businesses
Because making it work well costs more than making it work barely, and those costs are ultimately profits not being paid to shareholders now.
Those making the decisions get paid their bonuses based on the now, not the maybe, in the future.
It’s really that simple.
Its like they only know the R in ROI. This short term thinking is the main driver of enshittification I think.
Thank you. I still hate they don’t think about anything else at all, but this explains it
Stuff like infrastructure should most of the time not be privatized and remain in state hands.
As a business you just need to outbid your opponent for the electric grid or whatever. Then you do the bare minimum to say you delivered within budget etc. People are sheep and won’t notice until they are sitting in the dark.
The company that had a realistic cost in their offer was probably not picked.
Don’t forget that’s also what richer asian countries think(China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia)
America is the world’s bad guy, I agree, but not all fucking Americans voted for this fucking shit
An overwhelming majority either voted for climate change or didn’t vote.
No idea why that’s such a hot take by them. So many people have AC here. Houses, establishments, public areas, and increasing for obvious reasons.
AC here are nearly always split units though. Our windows don’t slide up, so harder to install that type of AC unit that sits on the sill.
AC here are nearly always split units though. Our windows don’t slide up, so harder to install that type of AC unit that sits on the sill.
I have windows that slide sideways, and an AC unit with two pipes (intake and exhaust) that go through a piece of plastic sitting in the window’s rail.
It’s terrible. Super loud, and the room gets hot again in a couple minutes after I turn it off.
Split units are almost always illegal to install because of local urbanism laws, or apartment lot rules.
Yes, this, fucking this. I do have a monoblock device because I’m not allowed anything else (Germany, apartment). I’m literally designing and printing stuff to mod it to dual-pipe (because for whatever reason the free market won’t even give us THAT) and also to route the cold air directly into another room so my ears won’t fall off. Of course the moment it’s off everything’s fucking warm again… and since the only room it can be in is by BEDROOM to cool down my living room for the day I have to get up at least at 8 AM even on weekends when it’s warm to open the window (directly to a loud street) to start the thing (65db baby, let’s go!).
I’m fucking pissed about all of this. But heeey, at least the building traps heat perfectly during winter, right? Just cooks everyone in the summer. But that’s “beautiful sun”, so I guess it must be good. Argh. 💀
And guess what… no sliding windows. In fact I have no normal windows even, just window doors. Those fucking taped on textile “air stops” will always detach eventually because of the underpressure the AC creates.
You know what extreme heat can also cause? Blackouts.
And it happens all of the time because of the increased load on the grid from everyone cranking their AC.
Your AC is useless without power.
My house is fully off grid with a 36kW solar system and 86kWh battery setup. There are times where I can get down to the wire but ultimately that’s when it’s a prolonged rain /storm scenario.
The hotter it is the more likely the sun is shining, so I have zero concerns about a blackout situation. Realize this isn’t viable for most people but I sure am glad I took the plunge.
The reason that “it’s ok we have AC” is a dumbass small brain take is that the “it” that is allegedly ok in this scenario is global warming. AC won’t save most of the planet from the consequences of our choices and actions.
Still though.
In europe we average out somwhere between 3 to 4000kwh per year for a household, where in the US it’s 10k upwards, which looks like a dramatic difference.
But we haven’t really looped in the fact that in Europe we mainly rely on natural gas solutions for climate control/heating, hot water and cooking.
Ofcouse they also use gas in the US, and invariably the fact that we don’t really cool our houses in the summer still works out to a lower usage overall i’m sure, but as we also shift to heat pumps I’m sure this’ll change.
Most people don’t cool their house because they can’t, not because of some principle against it. When people start replacing their gas heaters with heatpumps they can, and i’m sure they will.
We also can’t ignore we don’t really have those Arizona climates here. Americans that complain about any lack of AC also forget that.
I think for the future we need to get green energy for very cheap here in Germany and Europe. Everything should be electric including mobility, cooling, heating etc.
The future is not looking bright right now with the governments we have but I think technology wise that’s the future.
If I didn’t have AC, my very old asbestos ridden apartment would be over 110° farenheit. That’s 43° Celsius. I guess Europeans don’t give a shit about the giant corporations though. They just expect us and our pets to die.
Weird strawman here. No one’s saying to not use AC, it’s just not the solution to the actual problem and we shouldn’t pretend that it is because it’s convenient and “good enough” for now.
It’s not a straw man as an American who voted for Harris. I hate trump just as much as the rest of world does. The hate all Americans shit is mostly why I decided to humanize myself. We’re not all fucking maga nazis
Happy for you, I guess. Maybe next time you’ll bring an actual argument to the discussion :)
Don’t worry, we’re in the middle of a massive culture war at the moment, so there’s absolutely no chance we can take steps to stop it unless we find a way to bury MAGA for good
Release the Epstein files. The Nazi billionaires are doing a perfect job getting everyone to fight one another instead of them while they rob us all blind
OK I’ll release them
Thanks
It’s fine we just need more of those Dubai-style outdoor AC units /s
What are these?
I had a quick look but most links were tiktok… Just a oversized freestanding AC unit that they like to run in outdoor seating areas in Dubai. Not sure how widespread they are that’s the only place I’ve ever seen them.
Figures they would do that there. Actually, swamp coolers should work well there (I’m assuming it’s dry there). Mist systems also work surprisingly well in dry climates.
Fuck that those are just over priced over sized swamp coolers which uses water. Even though water emits nothing or near nothing, swamp coolers/evaporative coolers are highly ineffective and you’d be filling it with water quite a lot or you’d be hooked to a water line and unless they were fully able to be 100% disassembled and cleaned and unless people actually cleaned them they’d be just mildew sources running in your homes.
Propane refrigerant is the best for the ozone. It’s just not used in mini splits in the US. If propane was used we’d be fine. https://www.npga.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/NPGA-Enviro-1pg-555283.pdf and all you gotta do is change a filter and ask someone to come over and recharge it once a year. It’ll never be phased out and it’s highly effective as a refrigerant.
While I was being deeply unserious and think Dubai is a grotty place that should not serve as an example of how to do anything, I really appreciate the sentiment of and detail in your comment.
It won’t take alien invasions, it won’t take world wars using nukes. It will simply be humans living day to day, consuming and altering everything they cross paths with.
Yep it’s gonna be us destroying ourselves
Listen to or read the first chapter of The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.
I read that two weeks ago right before the EU and US heat waves, was surreal, and not in a good way.
Yes, but noIt was 130 degrees outside!?
Was that measuring the metal of the truck?
Where was this?
Let me put it this way:
My grandparents built a brick house in the early 1950’s in northern Germany. My parents built on that foundation and doubled the size in the late 1980’s. Air conditioning was not a thing back then. You just didn’t need it at all.
For decades this house has kept a relatively cool 24-25°C (~75°F) during peak summer months. Just due to the way it was built.
That hasn’t been true for the past ~10 years anymore.
And it’s the same with almost all German infrastructure. Our traditional ways of building things are not fit for the frequent high heatwaves we’ve been experiencing this last decade. Even hospitals are generally not AC’d except for maybe ER and operating rooms. It’s fucking miserable
But at least now we are doing every thing possible to combat climate change, right?
Sure.
No 🥰
My garden isn’t the same anymore these past few years. I think it’s the change in climate. Plants are struggling.
I have a different problem with my garden - nothing will grow because it won’t stop raining. Which is what climate change has changed for me locally.
Last 2 years were drought conditions and now its raining almost every day and I just want some heat ugh
Same here. Cucumbers were doing great and then the heatwave hit & they died inside a week. Going to have to put a sun screen up over my raised beds.
I won’t say we’re not fucked, bedause we are, royally even so. But there is a little caveat, at least for non-european parts of the world: Europe currently warms faster than any other area. We’re getting our Karma.
