Yep, and Americans answering with “we’re ok because we have AC” is a Don’t Look Up moment
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.
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)
EDIT: I just remembered that yesterday they unexpectedly had to cut power to 10000 homes for 14 minutes and it wasn’t even a hot day.
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.
Which means whoever does the picking also doesn’t care about anything further away in time than “project declared done, money has been payed”. Time for me to take a break (been lamenting about these things for too long now)
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.
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
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.
Not to mention the care needed in designing and installing such a system so as to not make a mold factory.
Solar panels and air con are a good short-term solution for the symptoms
And by short-term I mean my whole life
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
👍
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
where are these americans saying “we’re ok because we have AC”?
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
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.
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.
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.
Easier to start with the plain truth, something you can see with your own eyes, and work your way to the subtler arguments.
https://archive.org/details/earth_not_a_globe_review_1893-1897_201804/mode/1up
All over the frontpage last week. https://lemmy.today/post/55740469
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.
Nearly every state mandates AC. I haven’t seen a home in the US without it in nearly thirty years.
I know the Northwest and Alaska are special but nearly every other home has it - according to the EIA, about 90% of them.
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!
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.
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 :)
The only ones saying that are the ones thinking beach weather in the Chicago winter will somehow be a good thing.
They’re idiots.
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.
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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.
It was the same thing they did when they ridiculed Al Gore for using the term Global Warming “But it’s still cold when it’s winter” facepalm I have stopped believing educational stats and IQ tests from america to be true. It is so much worse than anyone thinks.
Subsidize heatpumps!
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
That is not at all what they’re implying with this
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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 and you’re just looking for an excuse to be offended bud. Bye
Ha ha ha go take your billionaire brainwashing hate all Americans bullshit with you on the way out stormtrooper
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
floquant @lemmy.dbzer0.com Yep, and Americans answering with “we’re ok because we have AC” is a Don’t Look Up moment
What is? Please enlighten me. What is the solution when I’m baking in my apartment? Die?
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Thought so
the
planet ishumans are really fucked
For want of a more succinct meme - I swear there was one that just said “Silly humans…” | “I’ll be fine.”
This really misses the point. Humans are taking the majority of other species with us. It doesn’t matter that we are not destroying the entire planet forever, of course life will go on, but triillions of animals and plants are going to suffer and die entirely because of our actions.
Eh, from the perspective of Nature that’s kinda just how it goes. Honestly it’s pretty noble that we bother thinking about it at all. Mosquitoes don’t feel conflicted about spreading malaria, and they’ve probably killed more animals than us. Fungus doesn’t feel conflicted about killing plants. More than trillions of animals and plants have suffered and died entirely because of the actions of the rest of Nature.
Species come and go, but the overall ecosystem recovers. We aren’t the first species to wipe out other species, we won’t be the last. Trying to be better is good, but let’s not pretend Nature is some gentle shepherd.
The great oxygenation event pretty much murdered all life on earth. I don’t think the earth cares.
The earth has been hotter, sweatier, and more CO2 filled than this before. It was animal hell and bacteria heaven though. Incompatible with mammals. Crocodile purgatory 🐊
The crocodiles won’t even notice
Biggest bugs you ever saw
Only the living parts.
Business as usual, Venus by Tuesday.
I firmly believe humanity can turn earth into another venus. Some proportion of us would do it just out of spite.
We’re looking at total collapse of the food chain. From the oceans to agriculture.
Won’t anyone think of the shareholders?!
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 🥰
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.
Much of this pollution is because we deliberately maximize consumption. It’s difficult to quantify how much better off the environment would be without a constant economic stimulus that led to petrodollar warfare.
As an Australian, I am shitfucked…
Time to build a robot to look after the dog when I’m gone…
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
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
Once at Brazil we had 52°C
Went to a concert here in central europe and we endured 45 degrees under the sun, people were fainting and getting naked but they didn’t let us in till after a full hour of late opening.
Surely you meant undressing, not literally naked (no underwear). Imagine the smell of thousand sweaty asscheeks
I live in sweltering southern Romania
I took a trip to the Carpathians a couple weeks ago to cool down
Saw two bears in 48 hours in the small town I was in
It’s over. The bears have the high ground
Go Bears
dah bears
Chat, are we cooked?
Well more like Sous vide
Edit: I hate when I think I’m being clever only to keep reading and someone else was just as clever but quicker.
Sous Vide for tender meat.
My meat is very tender and blistered after this fourth of July fifteen hour fap session.
40c in Europe is similar to 55c in Middle East.
Yes, we cooking. Thankfully my country only experienced 2 very hot days, but it was unbearable and I genuinely got scared for my heart after I noticed it’s basically rushing at 120 for second day straight (my resting rate is usually 70)
Don’t cook for me or cook does did it to be as I do so I bake for you, obviously
Anybody else smell toast?
I are toest
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.
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).
Ohh that’s good!
They got hit by heatwave a lot last time, also 40+°c. At that time people doesn’t care because it’s just India.
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
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.
While I was in full survival mode, I saw plenty of people in the midday 40°C heat running their daily half marathon 🤦♂️
A SMALL price to Pay to have REALLY Expensive Oil!
-World Leaders!
It’s fine we just need more of those Dubai-style outdoor AC units /s
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.
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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.
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.
