tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post7977940996242615027..comments2024-02-25T05:24:24.948-05:00Comments on Beyond Easy: AC/DC (air conditioning / digging complex)Patrick Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-49530281052623733772019-11-17T12:50:34.406-05:002019-11-17T12:50:34.406-05:00Thanks for your answer! I hope engineers will come...Thanks for your answer! I hope engineers will come up with some energy-efficient, eco-friendly way to keep cities in southern latitudes functional: A large part of this planets population lives in hot climates.<br /><br />The analogy (or is it a simile?) you draw between drug addiction and our addiction to polluting the enviroment is excellent. The better part of any addiction is denial. Which reminds me of Asimov's novel: The Gods Themselves. Alper K. Bilirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14942153886206232315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-6591045883520236742019-11-12T02:13:35.718-05:002019-11-12T02:13:35.718-05:00Greetings from across the world!
Now people find ...Greetings from across the world!<br /><br /><i>Now people find it difficult to be roused into action after the 30th or 50th doomsday alert they heard also turned out to be bogus.</i><br /><br />Sure, but to be fair: the warnings about global warming, rising oceans, desertification, etc., are bearing out. That's one problem with how information must pass from researchers to the public through for-profit media organizations that have a financial incentive to sensationalize their reporting. What's happening is more like an inexorable death by a thousand pinpricks than a bullet or a bomb—but since what gets the most attention are distorted and amplified "by 2020 there will be no oxygen left" stories, the people led expect a sudden, violent shock may begin to disbelieve the seriousness (or the existence) of the problem. I suppose the individual can't be blamed for that, but I do reserve the prerogative to grind my teeth at struggling farmers in the United States who look at historic flooding and consistently deviating weather patterns and refuse to admit the <i>possibility</i> that anthropogenic climate change might be a factor.<br /><br /><i>Newly industrialized nations (like China) also hear a self-serving and self-righteous tone whenever their carbon footprint is criticized by the Western media.</i><br /><br />This is somewhere within the upper decile of my list of reasons why Trump's plan to pull the USA out of the Paris Agreement makes me want to tear my goddamn hair out. It really is proper that the West take the initiative in making deep cuts to emissions, seeing as how Europe and North America were the first to usher in and reap the benefits of the hydrocarbon revolution. But you'd have as much luck expecting an addict to voluntarily give up skinpopping without an intervention or a health crisis. (I'm hoping for the intervention.)<br /><br /><i>People in Eastern Iran did do so in the 9th century: They built dome-shaped houses with cold-water pools in the atrium and earthenware water canisters near windows. Desert winds would blow over the dome and suck the warm air inside it through Bernoulli Effect, forcing outside air to flow in over the pool and canisters, causing evaporative cooling.</i><br /><br />Yeah! I was thinking about that earlier. We don't give antiquity nearly enough credit. But unless I'm mistaken, that technique isn't applicable to the skyscrapers that constitute the modern cosmopolis. Of course, I don't claim to be an engineer. Maybe it would be feasible to do something like, I don't know, place an open-air pool on every second or third floor of a tower and let the evaporation cool the stories above it?<br /><br />(Hmm. My cousin IS an engineer, and he's moving to the area this month. I'll ask him if he has any ideas.)Patrick Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-9647484684732687022019-11-11T09:06:12.824-05:002019-11-11T09:06:12.824-05:00I think well meaning enviromentalists became part ...I think well meaning enviromentalists became part of the problem by endorsing one exaggerated prediction after another: The world was supposed to run out of oil and copper by 1990. Their cries were not ignored, either: One of the reasons the British allowed Baathists to assume control in Iraq was the perception that there wasn't much oil left in the region anyway. Birth control pills were released into the market prematurely (the first pills contained a heftier hormone dose than was necessary) partly because policy-makers were influenced by pessimistic population projections.<br /><br />Now people find it difficult to be roused into action after the 30th or 50th doomsday alert they heard also turned out to be bogus. Ten years ago, I actually heard a self-described specialist say: "Cell-phone emissions are going to kill everyone in ten years"<br /><br />Newly industrialized nations (like China) also hear a self-serving and self-righteous tone whenever their carbon footprint is criticized by the Western media. (You used to ride huge Cadillacs and now tell me I cannot own a car!) <br /><br />There is hope, yet. London used to be a pile of brick, garbage and horse feces hidden under perpetual smog in the 19th century. Now she is one of the cleanest, greenest cities on earth. It IS possible to keep cities cool without causing global warming. People in Eastern Iran did do so in the 9th century: They built dome-shaped houses with cold-water pools in the atrium and earthenware water canisters near windows. Desert winds would blow over the dome and suck the warm air inside it through Bernoulli Effect, forcing outside air to flow in over the pool and canisters, causing evaporative cooling.<br /><br />Sorry for my long comment, by the way. And don't forget that you have readers even in the Turkish Republic!Alper K. Bilirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14942153886206232315noreply@blogger.com