Free Republic

When did indoor air become cold and clean? Air conditioning is one of those inventions that have become so ubiquitous, that many in the developed world don’t even realize that less than a century ago, it didn’t exist. Indeed, it wasn’t so long ago that the air inside our buildings and the air outside of them were one and the same, with occupants powerless against their environment. Eric Dean Wilson, in his just published book, “After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort,” dives deep into the history of this field. It took more than just...

Far-left Time Magazine, one of the country’s chief conspiracy theorists pushing the Climate Change Hoax, openly advocates having air-conditioning banished.

I am writing about energy supply modernization because it is thought more as an article of quasi-religious belief than as an actual process involving engineering. Electric Car Recharging Subject to sufficient supplies of lithium for batteries and copper and rare earth metals for electric motors, electric cars have a great technical future. However, changing technology can result in changing job opportunities since vehicle-making jobs might forcibly be relocated by governments to countries that supply the essential raw materials. Vehicle manufacturers should endeavor to build multi-year crucial raw material stockpiles. An electric car might go about 280 miles on 70kwh of...

summer temperatures forces southerners into their homes where the HVAC (Heat, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning) system could be recycling the airborne virus throughout homes, grocery stores, and office buildings. At an online event hosted by the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness, Harvard Medical School professor Edward Nardell noted that states using high levels of air conditioning in June due to “high temperatures” have experienced “greater increases in spread of COVID-19, suggesting more time indoors as temperatures rise.” This mimics the increase in illness that occurs in the winter when we spend “more time indoors.” Instead of pulling in hot and humid...

COVID-19 cases are spiking across Southern and Western states just as rising summer temperatures are drawing people indoors to seek relief in the air conditioning. But can air conditioning facilitate the spread of the coronavirus? The question comes as states are allowing indoor businesses to reopen, as well as allow increasingly large gatherings of people. But concerns about air conditioning are making their way into reopening policies in some states. Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak “There’s some reports that malls, bars, certain social clubs with air conditioning, that air conditioning may not be cleansing the air of the virus,...

Opening windows in buildings, including our homes, may prevent the spread of the coronavirus, scientists believe Experts in health, the built environment and microbiology at the University of Oregon and the University of California, Davis, made the recommendations by reviewing existing studies on germs including SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes COVID-19 disease). They also looked at data on other members of the large coronavirus family of bugs which trigger severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). They published their findings in the journal mSystems

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is taking Democratic efforts to combat climate change one step further, releasing a plan on Wednesday that would address “environmental racism.” The $1.5 trillion plan would more heavily invest in low-income and minority communities in the form of job-training programs and technologies. “Our crisis of environmental injustice is the result of decades of discrimination and environmental racism compounding in communities that have been overlooked for too long,” according to the new plan. “The same communities that have borne the brunt of industrial pollution are now on the front lines of climate change, often getting hit first and...

Full Title: Set Your Air Conditioning to 78 Degrees During the Day, 82 Degrees at Night, Federal Agencies Recommend Looking to beat the heat without breaking the bank? Energy Star, the federal program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy, has some tips — but you might not like them.Energy Star recommends that, in order to reduce costs and energy usage, you should set your thermostat as high as comfortably possible through the summer.Specifically, they say you should set your thermostat to 78 degrees while you’re home.Spending the day out? Turn that thermostat up 7 degrees to 85.Then,...

Here it is, July:And the country is plunged into a lot of hazy, hot and humid weather. I predict that August will bring more of the same.Summer in the northern hemisphere is often unbearable especially in the deep south and the concrete heat traps of urban centers. Or at least it was unbearable before Willis Carrier invented the air conditioner in July of 1902. Ironically it was invented not to make us more comfortable but rather to make us more productive. Carrier was called in to figure out how to allow a printing factory in Buffalo, NY to continue operations when...

Air conditioning is a sexist and unnecessary luxury that’s killing the planet, according to the New York Times. This is what a Luddite looks like. This is what a backwards, anti-science, anti-progress, spoiled, imperialist, bullying bigot of a Luddite looks like. This, right here. You know, we always laugh at this whackery; we always dismiss it and write it off to left-wing lunacy that no sane country will ever allow … and then the next thing you know men are marrying men, mentally ill men in skirts are sharing restrooms with our daughters, and we’re all being forced to bake...

It is one of the great dilemmas of climate change: We take such comfort from air conditioning that worldwide energy consumption for that purpose has already tripled since 1990. It is on track to grow even faster through mid-century - and assuming fossil-fuel–fired power plants provide the electricity, that could cause enough carbon dioxide emissions to warm the planet by another deadly half-degree Celsius. A paper published Tuesday in the Nature Communications proposes a partial remedy: Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (or HVAC) systems move a lot of air. They can replace the entire air volume in an office building...

The number of non-homeless people sleeping in McDonald’s restaurants across Hong Kong in southeast China has increased six-fold over the past five years, a new study has found. The study, organized by Junior Chamber International’s Tai Ping Shan, was conducted in June and discovered that 334 people have slept in a McDonald’s restaurant nightly over the past three months — a six-fold increase from a study conducted in 2013, which showed only 57 people routinely slept in McDonald’s. According to the research, reported by South China Morning Post, 84 of 110 24-hour fast food branches had seen regular overnight sleepers....

I was talking to two friends in their twenties recently, about our travel experiences in foreign parts, and we circled around like an airplane looking for a landing place before we all agreed that foreign parts are all very well, but they’re not… comfortable. Now, sometimes it’s worth it to endure some discomfort in the name of travel — of seeing new places and broadening your horizons.  I put up with an awful lot of it when I was a kid, traveling by train across Europe.  It was worth it because I had stuff to see and places to go....

How much electricity is required to charge an electric car versus running an air conditioner. My county pushes electric cars big time but always blames AC for excessive power usage during a heat wave. While I am certain there are more AC units than electric cars, wouldn't unplugging a charging car make a significant contribution toward reduced energy usage during a crisis? What about electric heaters? Do they use as much as an AC?

How do you deal with extreme heat? I have zeroed in on a strategy that works very well for me. I am retired, on a limited budget, do not own a swimming pool; limited retirement income.I am also lucky to own a 41-year old house, with the originally installed ac/heating unit capable of maintaining a 33-degree differential between outside and inside temperature, apparently indefinitely. Limited only, so far, to the amount I am able to afford for pay for the energy. I do a minimum of work inside the house and keep the thermostat between 78-82, keep the large screen...

With President-elect Donald Trump now in office, the HVAC industry remains hopeful and optimistic about its future under a Republican-led government. Takeshi Ebisu, president and CEO, Goodman Mfg. Co., suggested a unified federal government was a good thing for the HVAC industry. “The federal government has been experiencing an extended period of gridlock where no major pro-business legislation has been passed or deregulation has occurred. It’s a good thing for the HVAC industry when you have a government that is action-oriented.” However, Ebisu also noted it was too early to tell how the new administration and Congress will impact the...

Negotiators from more than 170 countries on Saturday reached a legally binding accord to counter climate change by cutting the worldwide use of a powerful planet-warming chemical used in air-conditioners and refrigerators. -snip-While the Paris agreement included pledges by nearly every country to cut emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels that power vehicles, electric plants and factories, the new Kigali deal has a single target: chemical coolants called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, used in air-conditioners and refrigerators.-snip-And while the Paris pledges are broad, they are also voluntary, often vague and dependent on the political will of future world...

Eliminating refrigerants known as HFCs could prevent a leap in global warming After being directed for almost 30 years at substances that destroy ozone, the Montreal Protocol will for the first time target a group of greenhouse gases. Beginning today in Kigali, Rwanda, member states of the United Nations are finalizing the terms of what could be the largest commitment to reducing global warming since the Paris Agreement on climate last December. Delegates are likely to take till the meeting’s final day on Oct. 14 to hammer out the knotty details of an amendment to the protocol. Ideally, the...

It’s time to come out of the closet. Or, more precisely, the sweat lodge. My family lives without air con­ditioning, except for one antique, ­semi-comatose window unit that “cools” the bedroom to approximately the same temperature as Dallas at dusk. Our house in Philadelphia was built in the 1920s, when people were tough and resourceful. For most of the year, the house is cool and pleasant, as long as there isn’t a mash-up of continuously scorching days and epic humidity, when the air is putrid, stagnant and, if it were a color, would definitely be mustard. Which would be...

Secretary of State John Kerry reached a new height of idiocy this past week by suggesting air conditioners were just as dangerous as ISIS. The remarks came in Vienna where Kerry was representing the US in negotiations aimed at reducing emissions that contribute to global warming. “Granted, the terror attacks carried out by these misguided individuals are splashy,” Kerry observed. “Dozens die and even more are maimed and injured, but the fact is that these effects are small-scale and of limited duration and consequence. We easily overlook some of the offsetting benefits. The people killed cease to be carbon emitters....