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this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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It's still bad for the environment, even if powered with green electricity.
Care to elaborate how?
Sure!
"Cooling is a big contributor to global warming. Much of the existing cooling equipment uses hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, which are potent greenhouse gases, and use a lot of energy, making them a double burden for climate change. Even with the phasedown of hydrofluorocarbons required by the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, business as usual means emissions from refrigeration and air conditioning are expected to double by 2030 and triple by 2050, rising from 7 per cent of global GHG emissions today. Right now, the more we cool, the more we heat the planet."
Source
This is a bit like complaining that electric heaters are a big problem because they use a lot of energy and may contain greenhouse gas products inside them.
There are entire industries belching thick black smoke into the atmosphere because it’s slightly cheaper than the clean alternative. That’s where climate change efforts should be focused, not on the small creature comforts provided for humans so that they don’t suffer in the heat.
Where do you think the energy for electric heating and cooling comes from? Thin air?
AC still makes up like 7% of global GHG emissions. That's more than aviation and computing... Combined. That's on par with the entire iron and steel industries. In fact, it's almost on par with the GHG emissions of all agriculture output and is expected to exceed the entire agriculture industry's GHG emissions before 2050.
Except when we have 100% renewable low emission electricity and transition away from CFC refrigerants, they’ll essentially drop to zero emissions. There’s nothing particularly bad about air conditioning. It is more and more becoming a necessity for survival due to climate change. If you don’t like that, your target is the fossil fuel industry, not the working class people who use air conditioning to avoid suffering.
Meanwhile, animal agriculture will always be extremely harmful to the environment due to methane, nitrous oxide, and various other issues. I’m happy for you to criticise people for using air conditioning if you’ll commit to going vegan.
You do realize that renewables still have an emissions footprint from manufacturing, transportation, deployment, transmission, and recycling/retirement... Right? That they're limited lifespan disposable goods? So are batteries.
Moreover, each new solar panel has an opportunity cost in that it could be used to supplant fossil fuels in an area of the world that would actually benefit from it, rather than helping a facility THAT ALREADY HAS A TEMPERATURE CONTROL SYSTEM cool things down further because Americans are too spoiled with their extreme electricity consumption patterns to do anything else.
Yeah, are you going vegan, though?
I'm just stating the facts. But as a European I have to say I'm pretty surprised by the attitudes in this thread. Almost no one I know has AC and we do just fine, seems folks are awfully protective of their AC. Obviously there are worse offenders in other industries but the source I gave you shows that by 2050 AC could be over 20% of GHG emissions, from 7% today which is still nothing to sneeze at.
Here are some more facts (though the source kinda sucks, Quora):
Indirect Environmental Impact: Even if the electricity powering your air conditioner comes from renewable sources like solar or wind power, there are still environmental impacts associated with the production and installation of the air conditioning unit itself. Manufacturing the units, transporting them, and disposing of them at the end of their life cycle all have environmental consequences.
Energy Efficiency: The energy efficiency of the air conditioning unit is crucial. Even if the electricity comes from renewable sources, using an inefficient air conditioner will still consume more energy than necessary, putting strain on the grid and potentially increasing demand for non-renewable energy sources during peak times.
Heat Island Effect: Air conditioning can contribute to the urban heat island effect, where cities are significantly warmer than rural areas due to human activities. This can have various environmental impacts, such as increased energy consumption, air pollution, and health risks.
Refrigerants: Air conditioners use refrigerants that can be potent greenhouse gases if leaked into the atmosphere. Some older refrigerants like hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) have a high global warming potential. Using air conditioners with environmentally friendly refrigerants can help mitigate this impact.
And here is some more information on what European countries are doing to reduce the use of them, even to the point of dictating how low you can set the temperature and banning it in shops that leave the door open.
My point is that the anti air conditioner stuff is just greenwashing, that’s all. The facts are that air conditioning isn’t a particularly bad technology in any way.
Sure, of course, air conditioners have environmental impacts, that’s obvious - but so does building solar panels or electric cars.
Inverter heat pumps are one of the obvious solutions to mitigate climate change because they’re much, much more efficient than other forms of heating and cooling, we should be pushing for them to become common in Europe, not jumping on some bandwagon we don’t really understand because traditionally Europe hasn’t been hot enough to need it.
Yeah I don't think we disagree at all! I'm just sharing the facts around the realities of it. Also I don't think most AC is replacing heating systems today, but rather are installed in addition to the existing heating system. When you remove your furnace and have only inverter pump for both heating and cooling indeed I think that's a big improvement, but I'm no expert.
Are you vegan?