Edit: i’m okay with this article. The economic ghoulism at the start seems like it’s there to either lure ghouls in to the core argument, or appease their editors who know most people aren’t going to read past the first paragraph. The real meat of it is highlighting the unbelievable suffering that is going to happen, and that ac is the only real way to even briefly mitigate.
Original post: Are they doing this from an “old people, and eventually everyone, will literally die without powered a/c as the climate gets worse” perspective or a “but my treats!” Perspective.
Because i agree with the former. Heat stress both kills outright and also greatly taxes the health of vulnerable people over time, and when it gets bad enough it’ll start killing healthy people as well as the elderly or infirm so it’s not enough to have a/c selectively as things continue to get worse.
It’s an absolutely miserable catch-22. A/c draws a great deal of power, but without it vulnerable people will, and already are, dying in great numbers. Many parts of the world cannot make due with even the best passive cooling systems and will need powered a/c.
I sincerely believe that at some point fairly soon we’re going to start seeing people transitioning to a nocturnal way of life, working at night when it’s cooler and hiding from the noon sun in the most insulated place they can find. Like basements, earthship houses, underground resting rooms.
There are going to be places where it’s just not possible to work during the day no matter how much the bosses abuse the workers. At some point physics will just knock you down.
As a Houston resident, I’m here to confirm “No A/C” / “No Heating” is just social murder.
Case in point, Texas Prisons.
Every summer, Texas prisoners and officers live and work in temperatures that regularly soar well into triple digits. More than two-thirds of the state’s 100 prisons don’t have air conditioning in most living areas, putting tens of thousands of men and women under the state’s care in increasingly dangerous conditions. Climate change is expected to bring even hotter summers.
The heat has killed prisoners and cost millions of taxpayer dollars in wrongful death and civil rights lawsuits, with a recent fatal heat stroke reported in 2018. In 2011 — a blisteringly hot summer that the state climatologist has compared to the current one — at least 10 Texas prisoners died of heat stroke, according to court reports. The death count is likely higher since scientists have found extreme heat is often overlooked as a cause of death.
This is becoming a concentration camp tier problem for anyone living in Southern climates. If these folks lived anywhere else, they’d be added to “Victims of Communism” memorials under “Gulag”.
cost millions of taxpayer dollars in wrongful death and civil rights lawsuits
Good to see our priorities are straight. Yeah, some lives were lost, BUT THE MONEY!
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they need to mandate it for all prisons because right now they just let the heat kill prisoners and no one seems to care
The top comment
Ah, the Post Editorial Board: demanding that the people trying to mitigate the damage from climate change they’ve been warning us about for over fifty years while saying not a word about the major corporations still making record profits from preventing any action addressing it.
The lives of some human beings might be saved by A/C, at least for as long as the power stays on. What about animals and plants? Crops? What about deaths and destruction from super-powered storm cells?
Why does the Post Op Ed team value worker productivity over mitigating the effects of climate change? Valuing fourth quarter profits over the planet is how governments and multinational corporations got us into this mess in the first place.
It’s like living in an apartment complex where several of the residents love starting fires, and ignoring them while haranging the fire fighters about how they must fight the fire in a way that saves lives while making it harder to put the fire out. Why are you ignoring the way in which the pyromaniacs who started the fire continue to see human life as valueless?
Yeahhhhh. I have seen almost no one even try to reckon with what a wet bulb event means for wildlife. We can protect at least some people, but vast regions are going to end up completely depopulated of animal life very abruptly. Shit’s real, real, real grim.
I do think the comment, while correct, is going far beyond the scope of the article. All the stuff they’re talking about is already locked in, there’s no stopping it now. The author is discussing one means by which some people can be saved, and the moral ramifications of the poorest people in the world being the ones who will most desperately need cold air.
Major corporations really are the culprit. People using A/C in their homes is nothing compared to the wealthy using it in their empty vacation houses or half vacant, dying malls at night when they’re closed. Insisting on having people return to office buildings for work is another large building wasting A/C. Making cars the only form of transportation is another.
As the climate gets worse, you won’t be able to walk or bike anywhere. The obvious solution is trains, but good luck getting US lawmakers and their car company constituents to implement mass transit.
Christ we’re going to have to… well, we probably won’t, but pedestrian tunnels in cities just to get them off ground level. Put them 100ft down where it’s cool all the time.
Yah I was wondering about this the other day in a different thread. What happens to places like Las Vegas or Phoenix that are already insanely hot? Do they just become ghost towns? You won’t be able to go outside if those areas all turn into Death Valley. Humans can only survive about 10 minutes in 120°F. What happens when it’s 150° or higher?
Even if people plan on going underground during the day, I dunno how above-ground infrastructure will do. I think you start running into other problems like buildings warping or water evaporating through glass.
Heat pump good. Only electric device with an average efficiency of over 100%.
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Right? Nothing should ever be built again that doesn’t have like 3 foot thick walls of highly insulative material.
Capitalism addresses a capitalism caused catastrophe by moar capitalism
Perfect system
“It is a moral imperative to profit off of a disaster we have caused.” -Capitalists
We don’t have to give up air conditioning. Almost the entire climate impact of AC is the energy use (a small amount is from leaked refrigerant). Make the grid green. 90% of my electricity comes from green sources.
