For what it's worth one can augment air conditioning with a small evaporative cooler (swamp cooler). I just dump ice into it. It uses about 75% to 85% less electricity than HVAC. Even on a hot day if I point that at me I get too cold and have to point it away and turn it down. It's not great for electronics but not as bad as all the FUD around it. Just don't point it directly at computers. I add a few drops of I/KI to keep anything from growing in it. Some people use peroxide. I like that the evaporative coolers pull even more dust out of the air than my HEPA filters.
Does this include electricity required to produce the ice?
No, I buy the ice at the grocery store. To make the ice I used required someone to spend a few cents of electricity. It is still significantly less expensive to use an evaporative cooler than HVAC even factoring in ice and the cost of delivering said ice to the grocery store. I could reduce the cost even more by getting my own ice maker, especially if I could find one of the ammonia driven devices from the early 20'th century. Society has stepped backwards in technology in this area. [1]
I should add that ice is optional. It just lowers the temperature of the are a tiny bit. For many people water will be sufficient.
Imagine if the US’s left argued for no air conditioning: they would be called Stalinists communists and be excommunicated from polite society. Yet the policy is not completely unreasonable (albeit one I wouldn’t want personally, especially since I am skeptical to even the best degrowth policies). It is certainly an opinion which should be allowed within a country’s Overton window.
To make the point further, the article states France’s right wing party advocated for installing air conditioning in schools and hospitals. Again, if a US politician did such a thing, they would be considered a Stalinist communist.
The article shows how US’s Overton window is completely disjoint from France’s. I don’t want to make a false equivalence between these two countries as I think France’s two extremes in this article both seem reasonable and the US’s right wing extreme of “we are going to cancel wind mill construction because they’re ugly” is not.
For what it's worth one can augment air conditioning with a small evaporative cooler (swamp cooler). I just dump ice into it. It uses about 75% to 85% less electricity than HVAC. Even on a hot day if I point that at me I get too cold and have to point it away and turn it down. It's not great for electronics but not as bad as all the FUD around it. Just don't point it directly at computers. I add a few drops of I/KI to keep anything from growing in it. Some people use peroxide. I like that the evaporative coolers pull even more dust out of the air than my HEPA filters.
Does this include electricity required to produce the ice?
Does this include electricity required to produce the ice?
No, I buy the ice at the grocery store. To make the ice I used required someone to spend a few cents of electricity. It is still significantly less expensive to use an evaporative cooler than HVAC even factoring in ice and the cost of delivering said ice to the grocery store. I could reduce the cost even more by getting my own ice maker, especially if I could find one of the ammonia driven devices from the early 20'th century. Society has stepped backwards in technology in this area. [1]
I should add that ice is optional. It just lowers the temperature of the are a tiny bit. For many people water will be sufficient.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ72E_KBViU
Imagine if the US’s left argued for no air conditioning: they would be called Stalinists communists and be excommunicated from polite society. Yet the policy is not completely unreasonable (albeit one I wouldn’t want personally, especially since I am skeptical to even the best degrowth policies). It is certainly an opinion which should be allowed within a country’s Overton window.
To make the point further, the article states France’s right wing party advocated for installing air conditioning in schools and hospitals. Again, if a US politician did such a thing, they would be considered a Stalinist communist.
The article shows how US’s Overton window is completely disjoint from France’s. I don’t want to make a false equivalence between these two countries as I think France’s two extremes in this article both seem reasonable and the US’s right wing extreme of “we are going to cancel wind mill construction because they’re ugly” is not.
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