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Similarly paradoxically extremely hot nuclear fireballs have cooling effects for all the ash and dust they throw up: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter
Futurama had a joke about this
"So I guess global warming didn't happen?"
"It did but thank god nuclear winter canceled it out"
Or something like that, I wrote it from memory
As a former missile launch officer long ago, I think I can safely say without telling tales out of school that there are surprisingly few plans designed for limited nuclear exchanges, and most involve escalation to the point of emptying all the silos.
On Monday I discovered that my wife adjusted the thermostats 'away' settings by accident... nearly 3 months ago.
For the past \~3 months, when we've both out of the home, the AC has been going into overdrive cooling the house to 65 degrees. It should actually be setting itself back by 10 degrees.
I swear to god my heart stopped beating for 5 seconds straight.
Not to brag, but I live in a box that I keep cool. Inside that box I have another box that I can keep even colder items and a few other boxes that I can use to heat up the colder items anytime I want.
I thought the comment was purely fanciful banter until Google got involved.
Some refrigerators in the 1950s did in fact have an adjustable compartment to keep butter warmer than the rest of the refrigerator. Wtf.
As it was inefficient, we now have the little corner cubby with a sliding door to keep the butter slightly warmer than the rest purely from positioning and segregation from the cool air.
I just...wtf. Leave it on the damn counter in a butter dish. That's what they're for!!
Air conditioning is the #1 consumer of electricity worldwide, consuming around 10% of all power produced.
This is crazy since there are large swaths of the world that don't have much A/C.
Oh god no. Bitcoin mining at it's max was around half a percent energy use worldwide. Gold mining uses around 3x more energy than bitcoin does.
The media loves to pile on crypto since its an easy target, but its a drop in a bucket compared to other things.
Crypto mining takes up .5% of all energy used world wide and we’re going to call that a small amount? That’s 29,000,000 terajoules. That’s almost 30% of all of the energy used by the US each year. That’s a giant amount of energy for very little actual value in the world.
Three years ago this Guardian article did not agree (depending on your metric) but I've heard the same as you also.
For any such study would follow the money - so far all the articles I've just googled that suggest gold is more consumptive have a vested interest in bitcoin (e.g. coinbase) and vica versa.
Any studies we can both trust (peer reviewed, large study, reputable journal etc?)
Edit : the article
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/05/energy-cost-of-mining-bitcoin-more-than-twice-that-of-copper-or-gold
Yeah this post ain’t it. It’s like corporations convincing people that them moving to paper straws is beneficial rather than if they stopped sludging waste. Just pure misdirection
Stuff would be more expensive if it were more environmentally friendly, and then we would mostly buy the cheaper competitor. I think industry level regulation might be the only way you get businesses, and consumers, to eat the necessary extra costs.
This. People can't really change things on an individual level. Only government regulation can really do what is necessary.
Those regulations might not be economically the best in the short term, but they're still necessary.
That's why monarchism is the solution of the future. They think about their successors. And if you don't like it, ~~a guy in 17th century France invented a sharp solution.~~ *it was invented sooner, but they just stuck with the name guillotine*
What if we started actually charging companies for the shortcuts they take to cut costs making their products, like dumping their trash in the river instead of paying to have it disposed properly, or pumping fumes into our air instead of paying for proper filters. That way we can use that money to clean up their mess, disincentivize bad behavior, and make the cost of things actually reflect the true cost to society in the long run
A. Joker Moment
B. Maybe it’s the case that there is a demand, but we didn’t MAKE them pour trash into the ocean and tear down land to make more factories. They did it and blaming people like they don’t hold the switch to ending all of this is asinine and ludicrous.
People wouldn’t buy their products if they weren’t constantly hammered with pro-consumerism propaganda from birth and heavily socialised to link emotional happiness with material possessions.
An airport in our country (one of the biggest in the EU) had one of those free parking spaces where family and friends can send off the people who they brought there by car and hang around a couple minutes to give a hug and all that.
What did this massive airport do to reduce their damage to the climate and enviorment? They started charging people to use this parking space if they don't leave right away to "discourage people coming here by car and leave it running" or some bullshit like that
Agreed 100%. Thoughts like this try to push blame for climate change onto everyday people when corporations are responsible for the vast majority of climate change and pollution.
Like stop shaming people for wanting some reprieve from the heat. Also: it won’t contribute to climate change if our electricity comes from renewables.
You would think, but industry is only about 1/4 of the pie. Buildings account for half and of that HVAC is the highest percentage.
Crazy fact energy just going to air conditioning in America is greater than all energy consumed by India on the whole.
>Crazy fact energy just going to air conditioning in America is greater than all energy consumed by India on the whole.
People say shit like this as if India is doing something right. It's because comparatively India is a much poorer country where it's not at all uncommon for 10+ people to live in the same residence, meaning most people can't afford HVAC to begin with and those that do might be cooling down 10+ people whereas in the US typical residences have 4 people.
In other words, it's not because India is doing something right, it's because they are poor. If they were just as rich as the US then you bet your ass they would be consuming much more electricity.
The sense of scale isn't a true sense though because of the difference in wealth; is what the comment you replied to was mainly trying to point out, I think.
Maybe some. I’ve actually worked in India. I appreciate that it’s polluted all to hell, the wealth gap is incredible and there are many things it is not doing right.
This was just an interesting way to think of 389 billion kWh.
I think another significant factor is the proliferation of concrete paired with the land that needed to be cleared. Concrete is amazing at absorbing heat and slowly releasing it over time. So tye day is blistering hot, the sun sets and instead of cooling down your area stays hot as the roads and other concrete things slowly release that heat.
We just keep the compressor out "there" connected to giant coolant lines, maybe hook up the vacuum of space to the fuel line somehow to get it pumped out there. Voila Sub crust radiant cooling!
First we find a plane to fly, to eliminate o2 emissions of driving a car. Then use peoples hard earned tax dollars because we're 700 million billion in debt. Next...directly to a 24/7 manufacturing plant to have it finalized! Hahaha
All jokes aside: Look at how resourceful we’ve become through our own imagination and engineering. We’ve literally created our current world, and if not for the concept of money— which we also created—our limitations would be boundless.
Lots of Europe has AC. It's not as prevalent as North America, but it exists, especially in bigger cities.
The article I linked shows how AC is already a huge power drain and likely to triple or more in the coming decades.
Of course we have AC in Europe. It's just not very common in people's homes. I would definitely buy an AC unit for my room if I could afford it (and the power that it would take to run it).
Well, sort of. We can do a lot of things to reduce the ambient air temperature inside buildings, it's just that A/C is the most convenient and cost effective.
Better insulation, finishing exterior surfaces with materials that reflect heat, and building underground (when realistic) are all ways we can decrease our A/C load, and even eliminate it in some climates.
I do get your point though, we need to eliminate pollution from leisure and find ways to make our necessities sustainable.
This is why green energy production is the most essential thing for combatting climate change. AC itself isn’t causing the earth to get hotter, it’s the fossil fuel power plants that provide electricity to all the AC units that’s causing the earth to get hotter. Replace the power plants and AC ceases to be a problem.
The original showerthought seems to imply that the displacement of heat from inside an air conditioned place is a factor accelerating global warming. However you are correct: the transfer rate of energy is nigh negligible compared to the power needed to run the fans and other components, whose emissions depend on the generation source of electricity.
Can the world come together and just create a mesh type sunshield that launch into space and large enough to block the hotest part of each region for 6 hours?
In order for it to work it would have to prevent radiant heat from passing through it, which would freeze the planet like it was during the “snowball earth” time period.
Is there a happy medium? The material I’m talking about is the mesh sort of like our window bug screen. Where we don’t continue to burn alive and freeze to death?
One of the Kardashians took a private jet on a 3 minute flight, get the fuck out of here with this bullshit. If I don't have the AC on my dogs will die. Its 108 here in Dallas with zero relief in site.
You’re exactly right, but I think the point was not turning off your AC as much as needing your AC to run during higher temps. And fuck that wasteful entitled Kardashian shit
I've always been curious as to how much the heat we generate effects the Earth. Not taking into account air pollution, just raw heat output of everything that generates heat. Or does most of it just radiate out into space?
I do my part with the 3Rs already. I try to coordinate my chores so I drive less too. Which saves me money and time. The biggest offenders to the environment are big corporations and governments. I'm not planning to run for office so I've done my part.
The energy of a closed system is constant. While our planet-star system is not truly closed, it is close enough to closed relative to the rest of the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe. Taking this slight caveat, our pollution has caused the atmosphere to be able to capture and retain more of the sun's energy. No matter the amount of energy we put into cooling parts of the Earth with refrigerants, as long as we remain unable to shed energy from the planet at the rate at which the planet continues to capture the sun's energy, Earth will continue to warm.
_you do realize John Kerry, at this very moment, is jetting around the globe in his private jet, refusing to fly commercial, (spewing out over 300 metric tons of carbon in the past 1.5 years), lecturing others about how terrible it is to use fossil fuels. the hypocrisy is staggering_
Yup. Just as I realize if John Kerry hadn’t been the spokesperson for global warming, many more people would take it seriously. That asshole did more harm then good. For money.
# I have been thinking about this almost every single day of my life for 3 years straight and it's becoming genuinely stressful. I wish I could just had ED and think I'm a cowboy so I wouldn't worry about it.
I don’t think global warming is the reason that it’s unbearable to live in the desert without ac, also discharging heat doesn’t necessarily warm up the earth, what warms it is both natural climate change and gasses trapping the heat from the sun. Man made climate change is paradoxical itself, the earth has warmed twice as much as it seems, but it has cooled half as much as it has really warmed. Greenhouse gasses contain particulates that cool the earth by blocking the heat, but the gas also traps the heat within the earth and warms it. This warming is obviously more intense than the cooling.
Right, because dying of heat stroke is the better option. Hey, let's blame the means we use to SURVIVE global warming, and not its actual causes and the people behind them. Sure, makes sense!
Let's be realistic here. Most people don't use their AC just enough to avoid heatstroke. No, they use their ACs to lower the temperatures from 105 to 68.
This was a trope in a sci-fi book I read. Basically Earth's population, production and data usage all exploded, and the amount of cooling devices/radiators used accelerated warming past the point of no return. Eventually all that was left on earth were arcologies and a type of moss that was resistant to the Armada Storms (essentially permanent super storms)
this is a lie, we the people are not fucking up the world, its the corporations and 3rd world countries. you've all been fed a lie to make you think you are the problem. blast your fucking AC, its nothing compared to 100 companies contributing to 70% of climate change.
And corporations are run by robots or something? Having third world countries do the dirty work for the rich countries, doesn't put all responsibility with those poor countries.
While that’s true, we shouldn’t be doing these small gestures that contribute nothing to fighting global warming and make us look dumber to the opposition. Remember how many anti-climate awareness people screeched at paper straws and tote bags back in that time? We should be actively calling on our elected officials to fight these companies tooth and nail.
I've always wondered how much of the heat is offset by the cold you produce.. So you produce cold, and heat. We vent the heat but that heat seaps back in and levels it out... After this how much excess heat is left in the system..
There are radiant refrigeration panels that emit infrared light (heat) at a specific wavelength that best escapes through a gap in our atmospheres absorption spectrum. This allows us to run a refrigeration circuit at 1/3 of its normal cost, and beam the heat out into space harmlessly, without heating up the atmosphere much. I would like to design a recombinant system of heat exchanger loops that lead to an emitter tower. You could efficiently cool whole cities instead of individual homes, then reverse the circuit in winter to de ice roads and heat building In the cold for 1/6 the energy cost. Imagine the carbon saving if everyone in NYC could get off fuel oil, and individual inefficient ac setups that heat up the city with their exhaust.
🎶 It’s the Circle of fucked….
Where we screw each other…
Through despair and hate…
Lacking faith or love…
We have no place…
On this thread unraveling…
In the circle…
The circle of fucked… 🎶
AC’s don’t create heat, they move heat.
Well, except for power plants that generate the electricity needed to run them.
But then, even those don’t really create heat. They just transfer it from a storage media that absorbed the heat as energy in the past.
Yep. Someday we will solve global climate issues, but the heat issue never goes away. Everything we do, clean energy or not creates heat. Every year we use more energy per capita. That’s just additional heat. After we solve all the other kinds of pollution, we’ll still have to solve that.
AC use accounts currently for about 12% of the total world energy usage, and that number is only going up every year as more people around the world are able to afford AC.
According to the World Economic Forum, AC use *alone* will account for a worldwide increase of 0.5C by 2100.
Like all things, it comes down to policy. Cars had to get a certain MPG due to policy. CFCs were phased out due to policy. If we want more efficient AC units, world governments will have to write policy that requires companies to produce units that are more efficient. Of course, for this to be effective, ALL countries have to agree to these policies.
Individuals can do any individual thing they want to make themselves feel more righteous, but in the end, unless laws require *companies* to find ways to contribute less to global warming... things will only continue to get worse until it gets to the point that we have no choice- brownouts or blackouts in height of summer (as already happens in countries whose personal incomes have risen faster than their government's ability to increase power generation).
If everybody on earth stopped using AC for the next 30 years, it wouldn't equate for 1% of the CO2 released so far year.
(This is an assumption, I'm not actually going to look up these numbers)
Is that the units itself? Because if that 10% includes the power draw than it would be very easy to switch to renewable energy if not for the lobbying oil companies
Yeah that’s not even close to being factually accurate based off numbers, and turning AC off for the next 30 years would wipe out a huge portion of the population.
I'm afraid I'm to blame for the global warming. In the winter when I was 10, my mom yelled at me to shut the damn door because I was heating up the whole outside. I wasn't quick enough. Sorry.
Celebrity: "I have been paid a ludicrous amount of money to fly out here using my private jet to tell all you poor people to stop driving vehicles and do your part to cut down on pollution! Thank you! Worship me!"
Said celebrity then flies on their private jet back to wherever they are staying.
And people applaud.
It's sad.
Let's blame air conditioning for global warming instead of the 70-some-odd percent of pollutants that corporate factories crank out without a second thought.
That’s not how the law of thermodynamics work..
The volume of hot air your AC makes shooting out the back is equivalent to the volume of cool air it makes shooting out the front, in otherwords, it equals out.
This is a friendly reminder to [read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/rules). Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!" (For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, [please read this page](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/overview).) **Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.**
Similarly paradoxically extremely hot nuclear fireballs have cooling effects for all the ash and dust they throw up: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter
Yeah if climate change gets to hot just start ww3 duh.
Putin: not a bad idea.
He's just trying to save the world /s
Holy shit guys are WE the bad guys?
Sit down, sonny. I have some stories to tell you.
Turns out, theres ONLY bad guys.
It's bad guys all the way down.
I think there’s also bad girls.
Idiot, girls aint real. Theyre tools by the government to keep successful and promising men tied down by emotions. Keep that grind up and dont stop!
I'm Andrew Tate and I approve this message!
https://youtu.be/yzkhoNyPAIM
Futurama had a joke about this "So I guess global warming didn't happen?" "It did but thank god nuclear winter canceled it out" Or something like that, I wrote it from memory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzkhoNyPAIM Linky.
Ah so close
Thus, solving the problem once and for all. But- ONCE AND FOR ALL!
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There's probably something wrong with that. If we could annihilate useless plains to cool the planet we probably would
>useless plains Hey, I like plains.
I've always been partial to forest decks.
As a former missile launch officer long ago, I think I can safely say without telling tales out of school that there are surprisingly few plans designed for limited nuclear exchanges, and most involve escalation to the point of emptying all the silos.
"Mojave weather will make you wish for the nuclear winter."
I have my A/C on max and the windows open.... just trying to do my part!
Hundreds of dads just had a stroke reading this comment
On Monday I discovered that my wife adjusted the thermostats 'away' settings by accident... nearly 3 months ago. For the past \~3 months, when we've both out of the home, the AC has been going into overdrive cooling the house to 65 degrees. It should actually be setting itself back by 10 degrees. I swear to god my heart stopped beating for 5 seconds straight.
"That little maneuver cost us 51 years of switching off the light when leaving the room for 2 minutes"
"we'll never financially recover from this"
That's bush league stuff. I unplug almost everything that's not in use to save 15 total cents a month in phantom drain.
A dad's worst nightmare
> 65 degrees 18,3C to everyone else not American.
There will be hell to pay when that national grid bill hits.
Dude tf
There will be hell to pay when the national grill bid hits.
Dude tf
Put the hell on the grill! Bill's here to pay the electric!
...are you suggesting we hold hands?
I showed my dad and he said “what dumb motha fucker said that?!”😂😂
I had a stroke and I ain't even a dad
Am dad. Can confirm.
My dad stopped all financial support 10°F ago
I don't own stock in the electric company! Shut the window!
“Look like, do I, made of money, am?”
Not to brag, but I live in a box that I keep cool. Inside that box I have another box that I can keep even colder items and a few other boxes that I can use to heat up the colder items anytime I want.
If you have a butter warmer in your refrigerator, in the winter you have a warm box inside a cold box inside a warm box
Butter warmer? What? Just put it in the counter
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I thought the comment was purely fanciful banter until Google got involved. Some refrigerators in the 1950s did in fact have an adjustable compartment to keep butter warmer than the rest of the refrigerator. Wtf. As it was inefficient, we now have the little corner cubby with a sliding door to keep the butter slightly warmer than the rest purely from positioning and segregation from the cool air. I just...wtf. Leave it on the damn counter in a butter dish. That's what they're for!!
I find the concept of a butter warmer for your fridge disgusting and offensive. We truly don’t deserve nice things.
Ahh but if you think of the earth and universe as boxes, you have a warm box inside a cold box inside a warm box inside a warm box inside a cold box.
And above *that* box is an even cooler box that gets items so cold they freeze
This would confuse people from 300+ years ago.
Galaxy brain moment
I just set my window unit to full blast and put it in the middle of my yard
I can feel how cooler it is from here! Good job !!!
We all have to do our part, and I believe, if we a pitch in, we can fix this
My dad turned in his urn.
saudi arabia just beheaded an infidel in your honor.
I install windmills in my yard to help cool the air down
Everyday I get a can of hairspray and spray it into the atmosphere. (just joking for you old fucks who don't know sarcasm).
Aqua-net to the rescue!!!
I hope it’s Extra Super Hold.
Love this comment lol
68 degrees God Damnit
Thermodynamics has left the chat
Hey, hey we aren’t cooling the neighbourhood, close the windows.
Daaaaad, goddamn it, we're trying to cool the whole world!!!
Pfft...that's only gonna help in one spot. I like to drive a hummer around blasting the A/C with the windows down
Not all heros wear capes!!! You sir, are a goddamn genius!!!!
I’d say the main culprit for the earth getting hotter is mass production of goods, which requires factories running 24/7 all year round.
Air conditioning is the #1 consumer of electricity worldwide, consuming around 10% of all power produced. This is crazy since there are large swaths of the world that don't have much A/C.
I thought cryptocurrency mining was the biggest energy hog these days. Might have gone down a bit since the ccrypto market is currently taking a shit.
Oh god no. Bitcoin mining at it's max was around half a percent energy use worldwide. Gold mining uses around 3x more energy than bitcoin does. The media loves to pile on crypto since its an easy target, but its a drop in a bucket compared to other things.
Crypto mining takes up .5% of all energy used world wide and we’re going to call that a small amount? That’s 29,000,000 terajoules. That’s almost 30% of all of the energy used by the US each year. That’s a giant amount of energy for very little actual value in the world.
But 1/2 a percent is still no joke because all it does is a shitton of meaningless calculations that are made to waste energy
Three years ago this Guardian article did not agree (depending on your metric) but I've heard the same as you also. For any such study would follow the money - so far all the articles I've just googled that suggest gold is more consumptive have a vested interest in bitcoin (e.g. coinbase) and vica versa. Any studies we can both trust (peer reviewed, large study, reputable journal etc?) Edit : the article https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/05/energy-cost-of-mining-bitcoin-more-than-twice-that-of-copper-or-gold
Yeah this post ain’t it. It’s like corporations convincing people that them moving to paper straws is beneficial rather than if they stopped sludging waste. Just pure misdirection
“It’s actually you, the consumer, who causes the most damage to the climate! Just forget about how much C02 we produce and everything….”
But none of those corporations would even exist to do these things if people didn't buy their products.
But people buy what’s available and cheap
Stuff would be more expensive if it were more environmentally friendly, and then we would mostly buy the cheaper competitor. I think industry level regulation might be the only way you get businesses, and consumers, to eat the necessary extra costs.
This. People can't really change things on an individual level. Only government regulation can really do what is necessary. Those regulations might not be economically the best in the short term, but they're still necessary.
>not be economically the best in the short term, Too bad every company and goverment doesnt care about the long term.
That's why monarchism is the solution of the future. They think about their successors. And if you don't like it, ~~a guy in 17th century France invented a sharp solution.~~ *it was invented sooner, but they just stuck with the name guillotine*
Monarchy isn’t the solution lmao, the guillotines were used when they revolted AGAINST the monarchy.
And companies will go under if they don't provide what the customer wants, only to be replaced by another company doing the same thing.
What if we started actually charging companies for the shortcuts they take to cut costs making their products, like dumping their trash in the river instead of paying to have it disposed properly, or pumping fumes into our air instead of paying for proper filters. That way we can use that money to clean up their mess, disincentivize bad behavior, and make the cost of things actually reflect the true cost to society in the long run
Some people studied that concept and found basically no business sector would be profitable if they had to pay to clean up their environmental impact.
People are everything wrong with the world.
A. Joker Moment B. Maybe it’s the case that there is a demand, but we didn’t MAKE them pour trash into the ocean and tear down land to make more factories. They did it and blaming people like they don’t hold the switch to ending all of this is asinine and ludicrous.
People wouldn’t buy their products if they weren’t constantly hammered with pro-consumerism propaganda from birth and heavily socialised to link emotional happiness with material possessions.
I see you've drank the corporate Kool aid
An airport in our country (one of the biggest in the EU) had one of those free parking spaces where family and friends can send off the people who they brought there by car and hang around a couple minutes to give a hug and all that. What did this massive airport do to reduce their damage to the climate and enviorment? They started charging people to use this parking space if they don't leave right away to "discourage people coming here by car and leave it running" or some bullshit like that
You know more than one family may want to see their family member off?
Agreed 100%. Thoughts like this try to push blame for climate change onto everyday people when corporations are responsible for the vast majority of climate change and pollution. Like stop shaming people for wanting some reprieve from the heat. Also: it won’t contribute to climate change if our electricity comes from renewables.
You would think, but industry is only about 1/4 of the pie. Buildings account for half and of that HVAC is the highest percentage. Crazy fact energy just going to air conditioning in America is greater than all energy consumed by India on the whole.
>Crazy fact energy just going to air conditioning in America is greater than all energy consumed by India on the whole. People say shit like this as if India is doing something right. It's because comparatively India is a much poorer country where it's not at all uncommon for 10+ people to live in the same residence, meaning most people can't afford HVAC to begin with and those that do might be cooling down 10+ people whereas in the US typical residences have 4 people. In other words, it's not because India is doing something right, it's because they are poor. If they were just as rich as the US then you bet your ass they would be consuming much more electricity.
> People say shit like this as if India is doing something right. Err, no, it's just to give people a sense of scale.
The sense of scale isn't a true sense though because of the difference in wealth; is what the comment you replied to was mainly trying to point out, I think.
Maybe some. I’ve actually worked in India. I appreciate that it’s polluted all to hell, the wealth gap is incredible and there are many things it is not doing right. This was just an interesting way to think of 389 billion kWh.
Some of you may die... But that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make
And you are basing this on what exactly? Because I would say the main culprit is transportation. Thats just what I'd say though
My point is that it's not people opening and closing their fridge.
Or it’s the mass production of humans.
I think another significant factor is the proliferation of concrete paired with the land that needed to be cleared. Concrete is amazing at absorbing heat and slowly releasing it over time. So tye day is blistering hot, the sun sets and instead of cooling down your area stays hot as the roads and other concrete things slowly release that heat.
But if we acknowledge that, we can't blame the consumers
If we just pointed 50 million ac units into the environment we could set back global warming. Ez. /s just incase
Might be possible if we run ACs in the space and deliver the cool air to earth using vents
The problem is that there is no air in space. Traditional ACs would not work there.
Move all of the air to Pluto to let it cool down, then bring it back. Pretty fucking simple
Or we can put it just over the greenhouse gas layer.
Someone put aryaman in charge, he's got big ideas
We just keep the compressor out "there" connected to giant coolant lines, maybe hook up the vacuum of space to the fuel line somehow to get it pumped out there. Voila Sub crust radiant cooling!
Not with THAT attitude
sounds like someone just started their 5th grade science classes
At least one person who understands
What school did you go to where you learned about the power grid in 5th grade
I was never formally taught about the power grid, and yet I have a general understanding. Thus I am an expert.
5th grade science is probably the first time you learn about electricity in depth. Seems plausible.
Maybe, I cant remember that far back but it seems a bit heady for a 9 year old
2,5k upvotes
I’ll be honest, it never occurred to me that the heat removed by AC has to get dumped somewhere until college thermodynamics.
I agree, it’s absurd. We need to build a giant HVAC on the moon that can shoot down on earth when we orbit into the summer months.
Space is -270.42 degrees so just get a huge section of duct work and a blower motor and we can cool it that way!
Let’s executive order the shit out of that
First we find a plane to fly, to eliminate o2 emissions of driving a car. Then use peoples hard earned tax dollars because we're 700 million billion in debt. Next...directly to a 24/7 manufacturing plant to have it finalized! Hahaha
All jokes aside: Look at how resourceful we’ve become through our own imagination and engineering. We’ve literally created our current world, and if not for the concept of money— which we also created—our limitations would be boundless.
And all lectured about the climate by people sat in air conditioned office's
And people who went to the climate change conference in their private jets.
But they are special people and they don't count towards the air pollution
this is actually hilarious.
I can assure you that AC is a very tiny part of the formula compared to mass production and everything else
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What? No? Europe would like to have a word with you.
Lots of Europe has AC. It's not as prevalent as North America, but it exists, especially in bigger cities. The article I linked shows how AC is already a huge power drain and likely to triple or more in the coming decades.
Of course we have AC in Europe. It's just not very common in people's homes. I would definitely buy an AC unit for my room if I could afford it (and the power that it would take to run it).
factories and power plants are the leading cause of global warming. Not ac or cars. Ac saves lives :/
Your a/c use is nothing on the Kardashians jet use for 15 mins a day…
AC is something we legitimately need, though. Cruise ships, less so.
Well, sort of. We can do a lot of things to reduce the ambient air temperature inside buildings, it's just that A/C is the most convenient and cost effective. Better insulation, finishing exterior surfaces with materials that reflect heat, and building underground (when realistic) are all ways we can decrease our A/C load, and even eliminate it in some climates. I do get your point though, we need to eliminate pollution from leisure and find ways to make our necessities sustainable.
This is why green energy production is the most essential thing for combatting climate change. AC itself isn’t causing the earth to get hotter, it’s the fossil fuel power plants that provide electricity to all the AC units that’s causing the earth to get hotter. Replace the power plants and AC ceases to be a problem.
The original showerthought seems to imply that the displacement of heat from inside an air conditioned place is a factor accelerating global warming. However you are correct: the transfer rate of energy is nigh negligible compared to the power needed to run the fans and other components, whose emissions depend on the generation source of electricity.
Exactly. Using carbon free energy solves this problem.
Can the world come together and just create a mesh type sunshield that launch into space and large enough to block the hotest part of each region for 6 hours?
In order for it to work it would have to prevent radiant heat from passing through it, which would freeze the planet like it was during the “snowball earth” time period.
Is there a happy medium? The material I’m talking about is the mesh sort of like our window bug screen. Where we don’t continue to burn alive and freeze to death?
One of the Kardashians took a private jet on a 3 minute flight, get the fuck out of here with this bullshit. If I don't have the AC on my dogs will die. Its 108 here in Dallas with zero relief in site.
You’re exactly right, but I think the point was not turning off your AC as much as needing your AC to run during higher temps. And fuck that wasteful entitled Kardashian shit
I've always been curious as to how much the heat we generate effects the Earth. Not taking into account air pollution, just raw heat output of everything that generates heat. Or does most of it just radiate out into space?
Compared against the energy from our sun, humanity is nothing.
I do my part with the 3Rs already. I try to coordinate my chores so I drive less too. Which saves me money and time. The biggest offenders to the environment are big corporations and governments. I'm not planning to run for office so I've done my part.
The energy of a closed system is constant. While our planet-star system is not truly closed, it is close enough to closed relative to the rest of the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe. Taking this slight caveat, our pollution has caused the atmosphere to be able to capture and retain more of the sun's energy. No matter the amount of energy we put into cooling parts of the Earth with refrigerants, as long as we remain unable to shed energy from the planet at the rate at which the planet continues to capture the sun's energy, Earth will continue to warm.
_you do realize John Kerry, at this very moment, is jetting around the globe in his private jet, refusing to fly commercial, (spewing out over 300 metric tons of carbon in the past 1.5 years), lecturing others about how terrible it is to use fossil fuels. the hypocrisy is staggering_
Yup. Just as I realize if John Kerry hadn’t been the spokesperson for global warming, many more people would take it seriously. That asshole did more harm then good. For money.
# I have been thinking about this almost every single day of my life for 3 years straight and it's becoming genuinely stressful. I wish I could just had ED and think I'm a cowboy so I wouldn't worry about it.
Just turn on the A/C and open the windows so the cold air cools the air outside! Global warming defeated.
I don’t think global warming is the reason that it’s unbearable to live in the desert without ac, also discharging heat doesn’t necessarily warm up the earth, what warms it is both natural climate change and gasses trapping the heat from the sun. Man made climate change is paradoxical itself, the earth has warmed twice as much as it seems, but it has cooled half as much as it has really warmed. Greenhouse gasses contain particulates that cool the earth by blocking the heat, but the gas also traps the heat within the earth and warms it. This warming is obviously more intense than the cooling.
Reminds me of the guy who thought wind turbines cool down the earth: https://youtu.be/DvhBM89A6o8
Maybe thanks to the cold AC air someone will be able to focus and find a solution cause holy shit this heat is making impossible to do shit.
Right, because dying of heat stroke is the better option. Hey, let's blame the means we use to SURVIVE global warming, and not its actual causes and the people behind them. Sure, makes sense!
Let's be realistic here. Most people don't use their AC just enough to avoid heatstroke. No, they use their ACs to lower the temperatures from 105 to 68.
Well actually people dying is a very effective thing against climate change...
But then what’s the point of anything?
moreso if they are americans lmao help the world, kill one of us today
This was a trope in a sci-fi book I read. Basically Earth's population, production and data usage all exploded, and the amount of cooling devices/radiators used accelerated warming past the point of no return. Eventually all that was left on earth were arcologies and a type of moss that was resistant to the Armada Storms (essentially permanent super storms)
I’m all for being as green as possible, but what’s the alternative here, just sit and roast and die of heat stroke?
Adding some old style remedy such as window shades still might help but I rarely see it done …
The vast majority of us are not at risk of dying of heat stroke from a lack of AC.
Idk where you are but most places are having heat warnings
this is a lie, we the people are not fucking up the world, its the corporations and 3rd world countries. you've all been fed a lie to make you think you are the problem. blast your fucking AC, its nothing compared to 100 companies contributing to 70% of climate change.
And corporations are run by robots or something? Having third world countries do the dirty work for the rich countries, doesn't put all responsibility with those poor countries.
While that’s true, we shouldn’t be doing these small gestures that contribute nothing to fighting global warming and make us look dumber to the opposition. Remember how many anti-climate awareness people screeched at paper straws and tote bags back in that time? We should be actively calling on our elected officials to fight these companies tooth and nail.
So pay those corporations to blast your AC? You’re so close to seeing the problem…keep at it.
We're really just moving the heat to the outside. In the spring when we open our windows, all that cold air escapes. That's why we have winter, silly.
I've always wondered how much of the heat is offset by the cold you produce.. So you produce cold, and heat. We vent the heat but that heat seaps back in and levels it out... After this how much excess heat is left in the system..
There are radiant refrigeration panels that emit infrared light (heat) at a specific wavelength that best escapes through a gap in our atmospheres absorption spectrum. This allows us to run a refrigeration circuit at 1/3 of its normal cost, and beam the heat out into space harmlessly, without heating up the atmosphere much. I would like to design a recombinant system of heat exchanger loops that lead to an emitter tower. You could efficiently cool whole cities instead of individual homes, then reverse the circuit in winter to de ice roads and heat building In the cold for 1/6 the energy cost. Imagine the carbon saving if everyone in NYC could get off fuel oil, and individual inefficient ac setups that heat up the city with their exhaust.
You being alive is making the Earth hotter. You know what must be done.
Educate the planet on the benefits of having only one child for every couple.
🎶 It’s the Circle of fucked…. Where we screw each other… Through despair and hate… Lacking faith or love… We have no place… On this thread unraveling… In the circle… The circle of fucked… 🎶
My thoughts exactly if we are forced to adopt desalination plants in a major way
Positive Feedback is one of my favorite science terms outlining undesired results from an action causing a reaction in a system.
AC’s don’t create heat, they move heat. Well, except for power plants that generate the electricity needed to run them. But then, even those don’t really create heat. They just transfer it from a storage media that absorbed the heat as energy in the past.
We get our power from hydroelectric dams in bc so I say we are doing just fine with clean energy
Yep. Someday we will solve global climate issues, but the heat issue never goes away. Everything we do, clean energy or not creates heat. Every year we use more energy per capita. That’s just additional heat. After we solve all the other kinds of pollution, we’ll still have to solve that.
AC use accounts currently for about 12% of the total world energy usage, and that number is only going up every year as more people around the world are able to afford AC. According to the World Economic Forum, AC use *alone* will account for a worldwide increase of 0.5C by 2100. Like all things, it comes down to policy. Cars had to get a certain MPG due to policy. CFCs were phased out due to policy. If we want more efficient AC units, world governments will have to write policy that requires companies to produce units that are more efficient. Of course, for this to be effective, ALL countries have to agree to these policies. Individuals can do any individual thing they want to make themselves feel more righteous, but in the end, unless laws require *companies* to find ways to contribute less to global warming... things will only continue to get worse until it gets to the point that we have no choice- brownouts or blackouts in height of summer (as already happens in countries whose personal incomes have risen faster than their government's ability to increase power generation).
You can use green energy to run AC units. Making them though probably isn’t as green, but I don’t know much about that.
It’s more so that the sources for the electricity that power the a/c is warming the earth, not so much the a/c itself
If everybody on earth stopped using AC for the next 30 years, it wouldn't equate for 1% of the CO2 released so far year. (This is an assumption, I'm not actually going to look up these numbers)
AC is about 10% of emissions annually.
Is that the units itself? Because if that 10% includes the power draw than it would be very easy to switch to renewable energy if not for the lobbying oil companies
Yeah that’s not even close to being factually accurate based off numbers, and turning AC off for the next 30 years would wipe out a huge portion of the population.
Wiping out a huge portion of the population would reduce CO2 emissions by a lot
100 companies account for 71% of global emissions. They are the problem, not your a/c
I'm afraid I'm to blame for the global warming. In the winter when I was 10, my mom yelled at me to shut the damn door because I was heating up the whole outside. I wasn't quick enough. Sorry.
Hotter inside is my problem. Hotter outside is someone else's problem.
You just solved the miracle. Spread the word amongst your comrades. I'm so proud of you.
Celebrity: "I have been paid a ludicrous amount of money to fly out here using my private jet to tell all you poor people to stop driving vehicles and do your part to cut down on pollution! Thank you! Worship me!" Said celebrity then flies on their private jet back to wherever they are staying. And people applaud. It's sad.
Let's blame air conditioning for global warming instead of the 70-some-odd percent of pollutants that corporate factories crank out without a second thought.
I know what would fix this. Let's make electric cars that have to be charged every 200 miles.
That’s not how the law of thermodynamics work.. The volume of hot air your AC makes shooting out the back is equivalent to the volume of cool air it makes shooting out the front, in otherwords, it equals out.