Is this another possible application of "the right thing to do," Obama's justification for his recent order that ceases the deportation of certain illegal immigrants?From this page in the New York Times, dated June 21, 2012:
Should Air-Conditioning Go Global, or Be Rationed Away?More HERE, including the following:
Temperatures in New York City have pushed toward 100 degrees this week, and air-conditioners strained the power grid (thanks in part to stores with their doors open). Meanwhile the demand for coolant gases, especially in rapidly developing countries like India, threatens to accelerate global warming.
Is it a good goal for everyone in the world to have access to air-conditioning — like clean water or the Internet? Or is it an unsustainable luxury, which air-conditioned societies should be giving up or rationing?
...[T]here's little we can say until we end our own society's dependence on lavish cooling. Doing that would be a good start, but addressing energy-hungry technologies one at a time won't achieve the greenhouse-gas cuts of as much as 80 percent that science says are necessary to prevent catastrophic warming. Only a per-person ceiling on overall emissions can accomplish that.
The dingbat who wrote that probably did so in an air conditioned apartment or office. Also the malthusian progressives who dream this crap up always exempt themselves from the rules they foist upon the hoi polloi...
ReplyDeleteDOn't tell me they're going to go after our air conditioning now, too?
ReplyDeleteLiving in Paris was miserable when it got very hot and humid, nobody had AC and we'd take walks at night by a Bridge Club with cool air blowing out its OPEN WINDOWS on the street level. I'd say to Mr. Z "they almost never have AC and, when they do, they don't know what to DO with it!" gad.
I'm thinking that, if they can, the environmentalists will ration our use of power so as to "make the world even."
ReplyDeleteMaybe they'll come up with a mandatory thermostat that regulates the AC units. In fact, I have an AC window unit that I bought some years ago. I call it "The Al Gore Model." Once the temperature near that unit reaches a certain temperature, the compressor goes off. Now, the unit is supposed to cool a room much larger than the one that this unit is in. Still, the sensor for that internal thermostat is in the unit itself. A few feet away, the temperature is well over 80 degrees.
It won't be a matter of "Can I pay for it?" Although, of course, the oligarchs in political power will have all the AC their hearts desire.
From Orwell's Animal Farm: "Some animals are more equal than others."
I still remember the debate that TV was a "right" and that everyone had the right to have one even art government expense...
ReplyDeleteAmazing that people confuse rights with wants...
I all by myself live in a 4,500 square-foot house beautifully furnished with antiques and family heirlooms on a wooded half-acre lot. Its comfortably heated in the winter and kept pleasantly cooled in the summer.
ReplyDeleteLet's play Q and A:
Do I strictly need all that space and ten rooms full of beautiful, high-style furniture and all the china, silver, glass, oriental rugs and Chinese porcelain?
NO! OF COURSE NOT.
Do I enjoy having it?
YOU BET YOUR SWEET BIPPY, I DO.
Is it "fair," that I live in splendor, and 99% of the world lives in squalor?
NOPE, IT AIN'T FAIR. LIFE, ITSELF, AIN'T FAIR.
Should I feel guilty at my good fortune?
ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FRIGGIN' MIND?
Would it help the wretched of the earth if I auctioned everything off, gave it all to "the poor," and took to the streets as a homeless beggar?
NOPE! It would only make matters worse for "the poor" because "the pie" would have to be divided into even smaller slices and everyone would have that much less than before.
___________________________
TO DO LIST:
1. Get THE BLACK KNIGHT out of the WHITE HOUSE.
2. Kick his thug-ridden administration into the gutter where they belong.
3. GET RID of the FED
4. ROUND UP the INTERNATIONALISTS, put 'em on a RAFT, and send 'em out into the ATLANTIC without so much as punting pole, then pray for a HURRICANE to take 'em all to DAVEY JONES.
5. ROUND UP all the LAWYERS, make 'em dig a six-foot deep trench, then MACHINE GUN 'em INTO IT.
6. Get the UN out of the US and Vice versa. Do it PRONTO!
_____________________
That would be a good start.
Sign me,
FED-UP, DISGUSTED and ENRAGED, formerly known as FreeThinke.
Every day I think I've heard it all, then stupidity like this comes along. NUTS!
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com
I don't have AC but I admit to using it in the car occasionally.
ReplyDeleteCouple 100 degree days, no big deal.
Easy enough. You don't want to turn into a blue blood wimp like Freethinker. Man, if the AC went out he'd throw his damn single malt scotch at the wall.
Listen, you Bostonian Bufflehead, if I lived in Assachusetts, I wouldn't need air-conditioning.
ReplyDeleteI was born before it was even invented, and we got along very well in our stately, high-ceilinged ante-bellum mansions where every room had cross ventilation, and the little darkies stood every night in livery at the foot of our beds waving palm fans to ensure our comfort.
Listening through the wide-open floor-to-ceiling windows to the katydids and crickets' accompaniment to the scent of prize-winning tea roses from our well-tended garden surrounding the sundial made the sweltering, moonlit nights divinely romantic.
Single malt Scotch! Only a peasant with pretensions to culture could imagine any well-bred individual sipping Laphroaig in hot weather. Phew!
You also betray your remarkable ignorance and lack of perception, Merganser, in not having realized that I do not "drink." Iced tea -- with an "ed" on the end of it -- is my summer beverage of choice.
I'll bet your parents were neighbors and devoted admirers of Louise Day Hicks, hence your urgent need to overcompensate.
Tut tut! It's time you got over it. No one cares anymore. Besides, your tawdry little secret is safe with me. };-)>
~ FT
I admit to using AC more than I used to. Something happened to my internal thermostat around age 55; commenters can figure out for themselves why THAT happened.
ReplyDeleteI grew up without AC here in humid Northern Virginia. Yeah, I got by -- until major allergies to mold set in, that is.
Still, I don't like the house ice cold, and I have the same view about AC in a vehicle. As long as the temperature doesn't climb too far a bout 80 degrees here in my house, I don't both with the AC -- except for allergy seasons. My allergies are respiratory, of course. However, in an extreme allergic reaction, I sometimes develop uveitis, which can permanently damage one's vision.
I work in a place that is like a freezer -- something about all the AV and computer equipment. I have to bundle up in that place!
FT,
ReplyDeleteHahaha. That's some response to the mallard.
FT,
ReplyDeleteWould it help the wretched of the earth if I auctioned everything off, gave it all to "the poor," and took to the streets as a homeless beggar?
NOPE! It would only make matters worse for "the poor" because "the pie" would have to be divided into even smaller slices and everyone would have that much less than before.
Well, that is the reality, isn't it?
You'll never get the Left to grasp that BASIC CONCEPT, of course.
Myself, I'm not into big houses because I like to do most of my own housecleaning. Of course, getting that housecleaning done to my own satisfaction even when I'm doing the cleaning is task that I'm no longer up to at the same level that I enjoyed before the car accident I had in May 2005. Fortunately, a friend of mine recommended her friend to do deep cleaning for me. And can S ever clean! Her husband comes, too, and vacuums like a pro! To top it all off, they are conservative folks, so we enjoy each other's company too.
Yes, I do pay them and quite well -- but they don't ask for the money. And they always do more than I had in mind, too.
I'm hoping to get two of their sons over here this week to spiff up my yard. It is a large lot for this area, and weeds and vines are problematic.
These folks are efficient and trustworthy -- so much so that I feel quite comfortable having them spend the night. I don't have to "hide" anything as I used to do when commercial maid services came in.
They also will help out in a pinch if I need to be away from the house for 12 hours of more. S does EVERYTHING with regard to caregiving -- even wiping butts!
She is an artist as well: all kinds of painting, stained glass work, etc. What an eye she has for "staging" the house!
And they are "cat people" too.
Life is really good sometimes, FT!
I need to get S over here in cool weather (not much AC here on the second story) and turn her loose in my office. It really needs straightening up!
Never mind me and my "Big House," AOW, I must have been born with an Edifice Complex. That's all. If I didn't thoroughly enjoy it –– or worse couldn't afford it –– I'd be happy to move to a small condo –– as long as it was in a "good" building –– and you know how hard those must be to find today, I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteThe day after I close my eyes for the last time the auctioneers should have a Field Day. I say "Let 'em!" it won't bother me a bit.
And yes life is OFTEN good. We probably should dwell more on that than all the deficits.
See you anon,
~ FT
Air conditioning is one of the great scientific developments of the 20th Century that enabled the economic advancement that has done so much to raise much of the world from poverty, prevent disease and create a better standard of living.
ReplyDeleteSo of course some left wing nuts want to put an end to it.
I live in South Carolina and the economic development seen in this state in the last 50 years would have been impossible without air conditioning. Do some enviro nuts really think that the poor of this state who have found good paying jobs because of this technology should give up those jobs and go back to living in shacks with disease carrying mosquitoes coming through the open windows?
Mike has made this very valid observation:
ReplyDeletethe economic development seen in this state in the last 50 years would have been impossible without air conditioning
This is certainly true in many parts of the United States, particularly in The South.
FT,
ReplyDeleteTo be clear....It doesn't bother me at all that many people have big houses.
However, what does worry me is that so many young people seem to think is their RIGHT to own a big home -- whether they can afford one or not.
This past school term, I had my Econ students design a household budget. They all started out trying to buy a big house. They found out quickly enough just how unaffordable that step was when one was on a salary of the entry level (requirement of the project I assigned).
Before I assigned this project -- and my homeschoolers are not particularly wealthy folks by standards here in the D.C. suburbs -- my students had zero idea about "paying one's dues" economically, particularly when first starting out life as an independent adult. Many of the students had the insane notion that, the minute they graduated from college, they would step into a job paying 100's of 1000's of dollars.
In any case, the project was a reality check for these students, mostly juniors and seniors. I'm glad that I opted for such a project instead of a research paper! One parent said, "This has been the most valuable school experience EVER!" And another benefit of the project: these young people developed more respect for what their parents had accomplished and had provided for their offspring.
I find it interesting that the left which is advertised as the party of openness tloerance and letting people live free should also be the party that is most concerned with how ones lives.
ReplyDeleteThey want to control what kind of car you drive, how big your house is, what foods you eat, and the support SIN taxes on alcohol and tobacco. Who you should hire, what kind of business you have, the technology in your business, etc etc etc
Yet Republicans are the intolerant ones because we dont care little about any of these things. We dare to say that Marriage should be defined as between 1 man and 1 woman and we are labeled trying to control the bedroom. We need a better PR firm because the Democrats are kicking our collectives butts...