To Ban Air-con

[chaosmaker]

On a rapidly heating planet, shouldn't we be looking for ways to build/fit housing for all sorts of extreme weather?
Air-con just makes it hotter for everyone overall as it adds heat into the environment and makes it worse overall.

Try living in Australia, where it's regularly over 40C in the summer, without Air Con. It would be thoroughly miserable and people would die.

If you don't want it, don't have it. Personally I'll be using everything available to keep my baby cool in dangerously hot temperatures. Including air-con.

You can pry my AC from my cold, dead hands. It’s as necessary now as a boiler is for heating and hot water, you going to demand they be banned too as I suspect they’re not doing much to help the planet either?

I was hoping your message was going to say that they are incredibly high in energy and carbon use so aren’t an efficient way to cool. I agree that building methods (think of the way building design and materials in Mediterranean countries cool buildings - tall close together, shutters on the outside, marble and stone) naturally cool - I agree that these should be used first rather than ozone guzzling machines that are terrible for the environment.

building houses with verandas, sash windows, locating windows on the cooler side of the house and many other things can help to significantly reduce house temperatures in the summer but this doesn’t happen
Solar panels to power the air con whenever it is installed as well

But in the Mediterranean most places have air con?

We live in a very old house and it's beautifully cool even in weather like this. I agree that we should be looking to improve building practices- some new builds are boiling hot because they have been built cheaply and with no thought for airflow etc.

I'd rather see rules about ensuring good design and build quality for new houses to ensure that air con isn't needed, than an air con ban. Some people have particular needs for a cool environment. That said, I completely agree about the normalisation of air con meaning that we are just hurrying faster towards climate breakdown.

Well it is terrible for the planet but it’s tough without it.

I am environmentally conscious but am about to install two air to air heat pumps for our upstairs.

We have solar panels and batteries and we heat our house with oil since there is no gas and so air con, which will also heat the house in winter and move us away from using so much oil, is a sensible investment.

We also have multi fuel log burners downstairs to supplement the heat. We use our own wood from our own land so zero transportation miles and also better for the environment than using our central heating.

No. Ban AI first. Why should we all boil while the super rich devastate the planet with AI

No they don't. Most homes in the med have shutters and lots of shading.

And here we all are with our paper straws whilst private jets fly overhead and wars are being started and big countries polluting.

Nice username🤣

Are you against heating in the winter too?

Successive government's have ignored for decades that building regs could be changed to ensure much better insulation, glazing and building design to ensure warmer homes in winter which don't need heating and then they are much cooler in summer. However, they have chosen instead to allow building companies to throw up millions of cheap crappy little houses for maximum profits and they will undoubtedly not last as well as older properties. Not to mention a lack of investment in renewable.

Trains would be unbearable without air con.

MangoMilkWhip
And here we all are with our paper straws whilst private jets fly overhead and wars are being started and big countries polluting.

To be fair us all going abroad on holidays isn’t great either

I presume you have heating in your house?

Better building design and regulation would go a long way to avoiding aircon. I lived in a 2000s new build which was lovely and warm in the winter, and like a furnace in the summer, even at 20 degrees. House was insulated to the brim with no thought for managing summer heat.
In contrast I've lived in concrete and stone built houses in countries where summer is regularly 40 degrees which were cool in summer and warm in winter.

We definitely need better home design and insulation in future but retrofitting our older housing stock would be hard.

If I need air con in future I'd install it guilt-free because I have solar panels and a battery. If every house had that it would have a low carbon footprint.

If I was in charge I'd ban plastic lawn and extensive paving and force people and councils to plant trees. They make such a difference! Even walking on lawn is considerably cooler than walking on hard paving.

Anyway I have no plans to enter politics....

I do think it should be compulsory for all new builds to be very well insulated and to have solar panels plus batteries and air source heat pumps. Brise soleil should also be compulsory on south facing windows. It's so short sighted not to do this.

Ban AI and multiple long haul flights per year.

Maybe twenty years ago, but now anywhere you go will have aircon.

flying commercial does nothing. It’s the private jets that are the problem.

I don't need aircon, I love the heat and can happily work in 30 degrees, but I'm not carrying any extra weight.

For some people, who are carrying extra weight, this weather can be lethal. Sub-cutaneous fat is nature's insulation and can cause people to overheat rapidly.

The elderly and small children can also overheat easily. So no, you can't ban aircon.