Tag: Air Conditioning

The Capitalism Strain

 


Researchers with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile have developed an insulating material which allows a device to achieve a cooling differential of up to 23 degrees Fahrenheit using no electricity and no moving parts. 23 degrees cooling may not be sufficient on its own in all applications, but it will certainly increase the efficiency of existing devices by assisting them in not working as hard and thereby using less electricity. The useful attributes of the new insulator will help mitigate the climate warming effects of increased use of air conditioning and refrigeration, which in turn can lead to increased climate warming, and on and on.

 


Heating and cooling of indoor spaces accounts for between 40 and 60 percent of energy use worldwide, depending on location and also on who is doing the studies and how. It’s enough to know that indoor climate control is the single biggest factor in energy use around the world. Heating is the larger portion of the 40 to 60 percent of energy use, but that could flip by mid-century as the warming climate increases demand for cooling and lessens demand for heating. Be that as it may, it helps to understand that overall energy use will continue climbing, as it has throughout human history, though perhaps at a lesser rate due to improvements in the efficiency of devices and systems.


'Today capitalism has outlived its usefulness' MLK
A banner outside the August 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, displays an image of Martin Luther King, Jr., along with a quote from him. Though the Reverend Dr. King’s remarks and activism on behalf of civil rights earned the most attention, his beliefs about the evils of unbridled capitalism and militarism were also worrisome to leaders of the nation’s power structure. Photo by Flickr user Liz Mc.


The achievements of researchers and engineers who develop improvements in using energy more efficiently are necessary and helpful in the fight against global warming, and they are to be lauded. It is government and business leaders and ourselves, the users of energy, who deserve condemnation as improvements in energy efficiency come without changes in the overall demand for energy and reduction of its deleterious effects on the climate. Embracing improvements in efficiency without simultaneously reducing our demand for more of a currently harmful thing is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Eliminating the burning of fossil fuels for energy will make the single greatest reduction in the pollutants causing global warming. That seems obvious, and it’s a simple statement to make, but it conflicts with powerful corporate, capitalist interests. Switching energy production entirely to renewable sources like wind, solar, and hydroelectric will greatly reduce pollutants, though not eliminate them. That also seems obvious. Ignoring for the moment the fraction of the population who blindly refuse to acknowledge responsibility for what is happening all around them, there is a greater obstructive force standing in the way of reducing carbon emissions enough in the next 10 years to slow – or even halt – climate change, and it is called capitalism.

The Trio of Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt sing “After the Gold Rush” on Late Show with David Letterman on March 24, 1999. Neil Young wrote the song for his 1970 solo album, and the lyrics of the final verse dreaming about escape from this planet to a new home are bound to remain a dream for the foreseeable future, despite the efforts of technology capitalist Elon Musk.

At the climax of Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain, the team of scientists studying an alien microbe they have dubbed “Andromeda” discover in the nick of time that the destructive microbe would grow out of control if given a nearly limitless source of energy, in this case the detonation of a nuclear device meant to contain it by destroying it. They discover the opposite would happen, that the Andromeda strain would feed greedily on the energy supplied by nuclear fission and would quickly overtake the planet, and in a tense scene during the countdown to detonation, they manage to disarm the research facility’s nuclear device. Capitalism is similarly greedy and destructive. It is a system that needs close watching and regulation, not the rampant deregulation of the past 40 years. Like the unregulated sex urge which has led to global overpopulation and the consequent strain on the earth’s resources, greed is also an innate urge in humans, an urge that has found its closest reflection in capitalism, and unregulated it plunders and eventually destroys the earth’s resources, including its many peoples, rich and poor alike.
— Techly

 

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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

 

People living in the eastern half of the United States are used to hazy conditions in the summer, which are typically caused by high humidity. Large amounts of water vapor in the air diffracts sunlight, creating haze. “Hazy, hot, and humid” is a typical summertime forecast for the eastern half of the country. This summer, however, and particularly in August, conditions are even hazier than usual, bringing on for some people respiratory distress symptoms such as watery eyes, runny nose, and congested lungs, and even aggravating heart problems. For the answer, look to a record summer wildfire season all the way on the other end of the country, in California, Oregon, Washington, and some other western states, as well as western Canada.

 

The prevailing winds at northern hemisphere mid-latitudes move west to east, of course, and there is so much smoke being produced by fires in the west this summer that not even the Rocky Mountains present enough of an obstacle to block the progression of all that smoke across the country to the midwest and then to the east coast. Most of the smoke has stayed to the north, with some drifting into the mid Atlantic states and very little making its way into the south. Besides promoting unusually hazy skies for all and respiratory distress for some, the smoke has created intensely red sunsets and high rainfall events, all because of the extra particulates floating in the atmosphere.

Holy Fire August 10, 2018
Smoke plume from the Holy fire in Orange County, California, on the morning of August 10, 2018. Photo by Shannon1.

The situation for people living in the west is dire not only on account of the great amount of smoke but because of the threat to life and property posed by the fires. Naturally the effects of the wildfires are at their worst closest to the flames. For people in the eastern half of the country, who may not give the fires even a second thought after hearing about them on the news, there are nonetheless effects that they may not attribute to the western wildfires simply because they are very far away. The situation in the east is analogous to the effects of a far off volcanic eruption such as from Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, or possibly the continental effects of the Dust Bowl in 1930s America. In those cases, dust and very fine particles drifted over the eastern United States as well as other places around the world and affected air quality and with it, the weather.

It’s easy to shut the windows, turn up the air conditioning, and pretend what’s happening in the greater world has no effect locally. That denial doesn’t alter the fact that the greater world does affect people, plants, and animals in their local environment. The butterfly effect is indeed a real thing, as anyone can observe simply by opening their eyes. In the eastern United States, where wildfires have not caused major inconveniences for most people this summer, it may be easy to shut the windows and thereby shut out the smoky haze drifting in from the west, but that doesn’t mean it’s not out there hanging around, changing the weather day to day on account of the changes in the climate year to year.
— Ed.

 

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Too Hot for School

 

There never was any truth to the notion that schools closed in the summer so that farm children could help out with chores at home, and the real reason had to do with urban schools having low attendance in the summer and teachers and administrators wanting a summer break to escape city heat in the days before air conditioning, as well as using the extended break to pursue avocations or take temporary jobs. Farm children were needed at home in the spring for planting, and then again in the fall for the harvest. While it’s true farm work never slacks off entirely, particularly when animal husbandry is involved, there still were lulls in the summer and in the winter when children could attend school. Through most of the nineteenth century, a short school year was sufficient for farm children who had no ambitions in learning beyond the sixth or eighth grade. Farm children who had greater ambitions resorted to supplementing their learning on their own when they could, much like what we know about how Abraham Lincoln learned to become a lawyer.

 

The modern summer break came about instead from the needs of urban school administrators and the upper and middle economic class students and their families who supported many of the schools. The needs of poor students and their families, as always, hardly entered into the concerns of the rest of society. Before school attendance became compulsory in the late nineteenth century, urban schools were open year round, but often were only half full, and even less than that in the summer. School administrators eventually came around to following the model of colleges by closing for the summer so that students and teachers could pursue other interests outside the baking cities, leaving behind only enough staff to help students who needed to take extra courses of learning during the break. Public health officials added their approval to emptying out the schools in summer because they deemed the hothouse conditions unhealthful in general, and not conducive to learning in particular. By the early twentieth century school administrators had generally adopted the summer break, which started in late May or early June, and ended in late August or early September.

September - back to work - back to school - back to BOOKS LCCN98509757
A 1940 Works Progress Administration (WPA) poster promoting reading and library use upon returning to school in September after the summer break.

The system appeared to work well for most of the twentieth century. Rural schools synchronized their schedules with those of their urban counterparts so as not be left behind as it became increasingly clear a high school diploma was the minimum academic achievement necessary in modern society. The tourism industry could count on a steady source of both customers and labor during the two to three month summer break. The American public school system ranked highly among the school systems of other industrialized nations, even with its extended summer break. Then in the late twentieth century alarm bells started sounding about the supposed failings of that highly successful public school systems, the details of which are beyond the scope of this article, and so in effort to increase academic rigor, or at least appear to do so, school boards have been eroding the summer break, largely on the back end.

Satterfield cartoon - Back to School (1913)
A 1913 “Back to School” cartoon by Bob Satterfield (1875-1958) that captures how most children have always viewed the occasion.

 

In many school districts, fall semester classes now start in the first weeks of August. School may have ended in mid-June, leaving less than two months for the summer break. And yet still academic achievement appears to be falling, at least among the middle and lower economic classes. That also is another article for another day. For today it is sufficient to point out that the public school system does not exist in isolation from the greater society, and lackluster academic achievement by the students cannot be remedied merely by making them sit at their desks for more days every year.

The problem is in quality, not quantity. The society as a whole is fracturing, and the problems with poor learning begin and end in the home. The long summer break enacted by the twentieth century public school system was an excellent compromise that worked well for nearly everyone except families that had both spouses working outside the home. That presents a difficulty today, too, but the answer is not in charging the public schools with child daycare duties and calling that increased academic rigor. It’s not. August is too hot for school, in air conditioned facilities or not. August is for causing students anxiety about the imminence of schools reopening when they start seeing “Back to School” sale advertisements, which now also draw the attention of their teachers, who too often feel pressed to use their own money to buy supplies for their students. July is too early for a return of that unique schooldays anxiety, especially when schools closed only a few weeks before, in June.
— Vita

 

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The Neighborly Thing to Do

 

With gentrification occurring in many old city neighborhoods across the country, there has been a rise in calls of complaint to city officials from the new, mostly white, residents about the established, mostly black and brown, residents. New residents usually make those calls to a city’s 311 line, which doesn’t automatically entail a police response, and that’s just as well because out of control police employees are just as likely to escalate a conflict between neighbors as they are to defuse it, particularly since the complainants are pointing their fingers at black and brown people.

John William Waterhouse - Gossip
Good Neighbours, an 1885 painting by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). While not a depiction of an ethnically diverse gathering, still this painting conveys the notion of neighborliness.

Some white folks, but not all, understand the possibly dangerous consequences for black and brown folks of having the police intercede in even the mildest disputes. Those who do understand how it works use the police as their personal enforcers, as a blunt instrument to get their way without having to simply talk with their neighbors. Involving city officials, especially the police, ought to be the last resort, but when you are rarely the target of a blunt instrument it is easy to take the view that it is a first resort.

The new residents in gentrifying neighborhoods have little in common with the established residents, and that has much to do with their reluctance to deal with them one on one as equals. Some are intimidated by people whom they have long been instructed by the greater white society to view as likely criminals, or at least as not worthy of the benefit of a doubt. A black or brown person conducting themselves in a manner not dissimilar to a white person, for instance conducting a house inspection as part of his or her official duties or job, is far more likely to be viewed with suspicion by a white person in the vicinity, with the white person eventually calling the authorities to report those supposedly suspicious activities. The glass half full for white people in this society is almost always half empty for others.


Sesame Street has always been at the forefront in portraying amicable relations among people of different ethnicities. This clip from a 1990s episode features a version of “The People in Your Neighborhood”, a song written by Jeffrey Moss and, since the show’s inception in 1969, usually performed by Bob McGrath and a selection of Anything Muppets representing various occupations.

 

It seems like this society is sliding backwards, and the rhetoric and actions originating with the current presidential administration are leading the way backward. No doubt that is the meaning behind the slogan “Make America Great Again”. For a few in this society, about one third of the population, going backward appears to mean returning to the days when black and brown people were rarely seen and never heard, and then only in a subservient capacity. One thing they overlook is that in the days before home air conditioning and home theaters, people got out and about amongst their neighbors in the evenings, getting to know each other.

Turn on the captions for the printed lyrics.

Granted, ethnically mixed neighborhoods were never part of life for the upper classes, but the upper classes have always been able to afford their own way of life and rarely cared much at all how the rest of society viewed them for it. Poor and working class people have always had more day to day experience with other ethnicities, though that hasn’t implied an always peaceful coexistence. It seems now that in gentrifying neighborhoods the new residents, wealthier and usually whiter than their neighbors, don’t bother getting to know the poorer and darker people around them, and consequently they are easily disturbed by unfamiliar behavior, calling 311 out of fear or annoyance. The pattern continues until all the established residents are priced out of the neighborhood. What a shame then that the new residents come from all political stripes, some with the best intentions, and yet the ultimate effect they have on their new neighbors reflects the same backward thinking as that of those cynical, small-minded leaders now making policy in Washington, D.C., and that of their frightened, small-minded followers, calling the cops out to hassle their neighbors over every little thing.
— Vita

 

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All the Time in the World

 

It was a little over 100 years ago when the Germans enacted the first daylight saving time as a measure to conserve energy, and the practice has been part of most of the western world in one form or another ever since. Besides the dubious argument that extending daylight at the end of the day through spring, summer, and early autumn saves energy, it’s hard to rationalize continuing the practice. Continue it will, however, for the time being, as daylight saving time ends on November 5th with the return to standard time over the winter in the United States and much of Europe.

George Pal’s The Time Machine, from 1960, explored questions of altering time and circumstance within a gripping adventure yarn.

Contrary to myth, daylight saving time was never instituted on behalf of farmers. Farmers are generally opposed to the practice. They would rather take back that hour of daylight from the end of the day in summer, when the heat of the day has built up, and return it to the beginning of the day, when the cool of the night lingers. It was office workers and the mercantile concerns that catered to them who had an interest in extending daylight past office hours, thereby opening up more time for shopping and other money-spending activities.


The energy conservation argument for daylight saving time was more valid a century ago, when inefficient electric lighting was a big consumer of power. Air conditioning did not become a factor until the 1930s, and then only for public buildings like theaters, department stores, and office buildings. Home air conditioning did not come into widespread use until the 1960s or 1970s. The situation then by the 1980s was that in the summer people were returning home from work at five, six, or seven o’clock in the late afternoon and early evening, when evening cooling had not begun to overtake the built-up heat of the day. If standard time had been in effect in the summer, those hours would have been closer to sunset by one hour, and therefore cooler.

Big ben closeup
Big Ben in London, England, the most famous public clock in the western world, displays the time on a sunny day in September 2005. Photo by Robin Heymans.

By the late twentieth century, people no longer had to resort to public buildings to enjoy air conditioning. The argument then that people would take advantage of some extra daylight after working hours to circulate among shops and spend money was not as valid as it had been a half century earlier. The energy conservation argument similarly went out the window. People could and did go directly to their own air conditioned homes, where they cranked up the air conditioning to compensate for the day still being hot at five, six, or seven o’clock.

The original three singers of the vocal group Bananarama reunited recently, and in this performance of their 1980s hit “Cruel Summer”, they show great timing 30 years later.

What’s the rationale then for daylight saving time in the new climate, when an hour of summer sunlight at the end of the day is hotter than it used to be? Because we’ve gotten used to extended twilight in the mid-latitudes in summer? Using the extra daylight time at the end of the day can be nice for cutting grass after work, or coaching a children’s soccer game, or socializing with neighbors. People did all those things and more (substitute baseball for soccer) in the past, and life went on. Like farmers, office workers may find it more pleasant to arise a bit earlier to do some chores in the morning. Leaving daylight saving time behind will cost only a little in convenience and schedule readjustment, but the saving in energy will put dollars back in the pockets of everyone but the fossil fuel companies, and may help bring back the cool of the evening.
― Techly

 

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Cooling the Customers

 

Air conditioning and movies – or movie theaters – go together so well that it’s hard to imagine a time without the benefits of both together. In 1902, just as movies were getting started, Willis Carrier (whose company made the political news in 2016), a mechanical engineer, invented the first modern air conditioning plant to help a Brooklyn, New York, printing company solve a paper wrinkling problem at its facility. It wasn’t until 1925 that Carrier got together with a movie theater owner to install air conditioning at the Rivoli Theater on New York City’s Times Square. It was a match meant to be, and from then on the summer, which had been the poorest season for movie theaters, became the richest as people attended movies as much for the air conditioning as for the entertainment.

When The Seven Year Itch, starring Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell, appeared in theaters in 1955, most houses and apartments did not have air conditioning. In the scene before this one, they leave an air conditioned movie theater after viewing Creature from the Black Lagoon, a 3D monster movie the appeal of which, for them, was probably not as great as the cool comfort of the theater itself.

Home air conditioners were still unusual in the 1950s and 1960s, but by the 1970s most homes had some form of air conditioning, whether central or window units. Movie fans no longer flocked to theaters in summer only for the sweet relief of a few hours respite from summer’s heat and humidity. People continued going to see movies in theaters in summer on account of children being out of school, and how air conditioning in theaters since the 1920s had established summer as movie season. Watching movies at home was still unsatisfactory because of small television screen sizes, low picture resolution and poor sound, and a lag of one or more years before Hollywood would release movies to television.


Meredith Willson 1967
Meredith Willson, when he appeared on the Texaco Star Theater television program in 1967. Willson, who was born in 1902, coincidentally the same year that Willis Carrier invented modern air conditioning, had a long career spanning Broadway theater, Hollywood movies, radio, and television.

All that has changed in the past forty years, of course, starting with home video technology and the ability to either buy or rent movies for home viewing. Theaters felt the pinch, and old style movie palaces shut down, relegating the movie theater experience for the most part to shoe box multiplexes at suburban malls. Drive-in theaters, another summertime movie going experience from a bygone era, shut down along with the air conditioned movie palaces. Now in the last ten years the home theater experience, for people who can afford it (and it becomes more affordable all the time), has progressed to the point that a fair portion of movie fans feel little pulling them toward returning to theaters. Their homes are air conditioned, their televisions and sound systems have gotten bigger and better, and Hollywood releases movies for home viewing so quickly that only the most impatient fans aren’t happy to wait a little while.
The old movie palace experience was something special that can’t be matched by watching a movie at home, no matter how comfortable and technologically sophisticated circumstances at home have become. Comedies and big, crowd pleasing musicals in particular seemed to take on a frisson of excitement when viewed in a well appointed theater among other patrons who were similarly enthralled. Now that theater owners around the country have finally gotten the message and are starting to move away from the nothing special, cookie cutter mall multiplex and toward building theaters that reestablish the grandeur that is only possible outside the home theater, it is questionable whether movie fans will return.

Meredith Willson’s most famous entertainment, The Music Man. Robert Preston, shown in this scene with Buddy Hackett, starred in the long running Broadway show before doing the movie version in 1962.

Some people have had time to drop the movie going habit, for one thing, and for another there is a relatively recent technology that has come into the equation which affects their enjoyment of movies – cell phones. In the theater, cell phone users interfere with the other patrons’ enjoyment of the movie, but at home, for those people who simply can’t do without their phone for even two or three hours, then at least they’re not annoying other paying customers, and for their own enjoyment of non-stop cellular connectivity there is always the pause button on their home theater remote control. Might as well stay home then to enjoy summertime movies, and keep your cool.
― Techly

 

 

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