One thing I noticed recently during the massive heatwave we had in southern Europe is how we forgot the most basic principles for building in hot climates.<p>For example, we enlarged windows and doors, to the point were, standing behind one that's been cooking in the sun for a couple of hours, you feel the radiant heat a meter away from it. All the older houses around the Mediterranean have smaller windows and doors, to limit the sun (and by extension the heat) from coming in.<p>We've cut down so many trees in the cities and poured so much concrete that some places are radiating heat for hours after sundown, making the night a couple of degrees hotter than it should really be.<p>Those are just a couple examples of poor architectural and city planning, but there are dozens of simple yet efficient techniques and tricks that we should reuse to make our cities more livable. Our ancestors didn't have all the new materials and knowledge we now have, but they were logical and lived with their environment.
Currently living with no AC in a very hot climate for the first time in a long time, and I'd forgotten how horrible it can be to not be able to escape the heat. During the day it's hard to concentrate, and at night it's hard to sleep.<p>What good alternatives are there to AC, however? The comic gives:<p>* Building buildings with less reflective materials.. there's almost none here and it's still damn hot. Obviously the concrete traps heat but I don't really see us not using concrete anymore.<p>* Planting trees for shade. Plenty of trees here, doesn't stop it from being hot as hell inside.<p>* A system for getting out of the way of a heat wave.. which from experience, no one would actually use. The biggest deaths from heat waves here happen since older people insist on going to stores etc. during the day, and predictably faint on the street and die. This is completely preventable already -- they're not gonna use the system.<p>* Growing plants on top of buildings. Maybe this will help? I don't know enough to say.
This “ac is bad” seems to be a frequent thing, not just on HN but in general.<p>Why the bias against cooling technology?<p>No one seems to complain about the environmental impact of home heating in cold climates.
This comic reminded me to get out my swamp/evaporative cooler.<p>If you live in a low-humidity climate (looking at you, intermountain west) an evaporative cooler is like magic! It cools down the room noticeably with very little power.<p>And it adds some MUCH needed humidity into the air during the dry summer months.
Regarding the greenhouse-gas emissions of air conditioners, it's more than just the induced demand for power generation (which in Egypt still depends heavily on fossil fuels [1]).<p>I was a little bit surprised by that callout in the story, so I went looking for info on the refrigerants themselves. If you're old enough to remember the worries about the ozone hole over Antarctica, you might remember that we agreed to phase out CFCs as a refrigerant. They were replaced by HCFCs which are less dangerous to atmospheric ozone (yay) but have a very high impact as a greenhouse gas per unit mass (boo) [2].<p>Ultimately the HCFCs will be replaced with ammonia, propane, and other alternatives which have a lower greenhouse gas effect, on the same order of magnitude as CO2 [3].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.iea.org/countries/egypt" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.iea.org/countries/egypt</a><p>[2] <a href="https://unfccc.int/process/transparency-and-reporting/greenhouse-gas-data/greenhouse-gas-data-unfccc/global-warming-potentials" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://unfccc.int/process/transparency-and-reporting/greenh...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/fluorinated-greenhouse-gases/climate-friendly-alternatives-hfcs_en" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/fluorinated-greenhous...</a>
"Tarik Benmarhnia says [traditional ways of cooling] aren't good enough. He studies extreme heat at UC San Diego"<p>I hope the irony of this man's job is not lost on anybody.
I live in an 18th-century building with small windows that don't let in much sunlight during winter. The walls are 0.5m thick and made of rocks. I close shutters in all of the rooms except the one I'm working in. Despite this, the temperature inside can reach 32°C during the day. I can't keep the windows open at night due to the noise from motorbikes. So I can't sleep without AC and I can't cool down my apartment.
One possible solution to keep the buildings and other structures including automobiles cool is to paint them white. Somehow this is not mentioned much in the media these days.
The solution is to not be biased against AC. It fits extremely well with peak generation from solar power plants. The opposite is happening for heating in winter.
On the plus side, I have very good heat tolerance (I can handle 40C/104F) and beaches are too crowded in southern Europe so I wouldn't mind it if more people stayed home so that I could sometimes have the beach all to myself. Maybe it will even drive down real estate prices in these desirable areas so that I can finally afford to live there.
Here in South Texas the biggest difference I’ve seen in the past 40 years is people getting acclimated to the AC. It seems like too many people think you can only be comfortable inside when it’s 70F, and claim they can’t sleep unless it’s colder.
All these traditional cooling techniques will reduce the temp by a couple of degrees Celsius right? When you're facing 40C can your body even feel the difference?
a termite mount air-conditioning system runs all by itself<p><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/termite-air-conditioning-runs-on-smart-design/a-18698640" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.dw.com/en/termite-air-conditioning-runs-on-smart...</a>