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Two wrongs don't make a right. And if your neighbour is dosing the neighbourhood with gasoline while wildfires are on the horizon, you smack him, you don't go and get your own can.
Agreed, but this is like comparing your neighbor burning 1 million acres to you having a bonfire. The scale is the problem. We should absolutely take individual responsibility; however, our small impact is only felt when we band together.
our small impact is only felt when we band together
It is also offset immediately when unregulated corporations use the saved energy to sell us the next dumb thing.
It is not offset. If you bend together you don't buy the next dumb thing.
Bending together is the only thing that can create change, billionaires won't.
Bending together
Switch all traditional AC to being powered by Heat Pumps, destroy all private jets, ban recreational flights and power AI responsibly or not at all.
Switch all traditional AC to being powered by Heat Pumps
Aren't traditional AC's (assuming you are somewhere where AC is a thing used to cool the air) already heat pumps?
In my attempt at brevity, I articulated myself wrong, totally my bad. I would like the old school systems replaced with either air source heat pumps or ground source heat pumps, backed up with on-site solar and batteries. Modern heat pump systems can heat and cool and are much more efficient than AC as generally installed.
The efficiency gains from an air source heat pumps are on the heating cycle, not the cooling cycle, since you are moving heat around instead of having to generate heat via combustion or big heating elements. When acting as an air conditioner, the efficiency is the same.
Ground source heat pumps (GSHPs) are generally the most efficient, achieving 350-500% efficiency by leveraging stable underground temperatures, though they have higher installation costs. Air source heat pumps (ASHPs) are also highly efficient at 250-400%, extracting heat from the air, but their performance can be affected by extreme outdoor temperatures. In contrast, a traditional gas boiler for heating is around 90-95% efficient, while separate air conditioning units cool, but neither offers the combined, high-efficiency performance of a heat pump. Therefore, for overall energy savings and reduced environmental impact, heat pumps are the superior choice for both heating and cooling.
An AC is an “air heat pump”. The only difference between an AC and what we call a “heat pump” is a reversing valve, which can send refrigerant the other way to heat the interior instead of cooling it.
They’re literally the same thing.
That’s the only definitional difference. In practice there are other differences. My modern cold climate heat pump has a variable speed compressor whereas my previous traditional AC did not. The variable speed allows the system to ramp up and down on both heating and cooling, letting the system run all the time even at a very low level when the demand is low.
The traditional AC’s single speed compressor ended up doing a lot of short cycling when cooling demand was low and shutting down completely when cooling demand was too high (to prevent overheating and compressor damage). The variable speed compressor of the modern heat pump is designed for continuous operation over many hours, even when the temperature outside is extremely high, without overheating. I believe it’s able to back off the compressor speed when the cooling demand exceeds capacity though I have yet to see the system be unable to keep up, despite the unit itself being a lot smaller than the old AC.
I genuinely think the oversimplification of what a heat pump is and how it compares to AC is malignant. It's like comparing a rickshaw to a bullet train.
They’re literally the same thing.
A traditional air conditioner provides only cooling by moving heat out of your home, primarily contributing to summer electricity peaks. In contrast, a heat pump offers both heating and cooling by simply reversing the refrigerant flow, making it a more versatile and energy-efficient solution for year-round comfort. While heat pumps increase overall electricity demand by electrifying heating, they also shift energy consumption patterns, creating a new winter peak for the grid to manage. However, this increased electrical load presents an opportunity for demand response, allowing smart heat pumps to adjust usage during peak times to balance the grid. Ultimately, widespread heat pump adoption, powered by a decarbonising electricity supply, is crucial for reducing fossil fuel reliance and achieving a greener energy system, albeit requiring significant grid infrastructure upgrades.
Is this an AI-generated response? On a post demonizing AI? Lol bold
Most domestic flights should be replaced by highspeed rail anyways.
Agreed
ban recreational flights
No. Either ban all flights (excluding medical) or none. Otherwise, it will be something only available to those gambling the system.
People have family they should be allowed to see and work they need to travel for.
Yup like my meeting in the Bahamas
If your meeting requires you to go to the Bahamas, so be it. But there are doctors and nurses that have been travelling around the world, educators that travel, carers, archeologists. Yes, some will attempt to game the system, but there's a lot of good people doing vital work that need to travel.
Man, this is one I've tried to wrestle with multiple times. I feel like there are monumental benefits to trans-Atlantic/trans-Pacific recreational flights (really just most long international flights). Banning those would almost certainly increase feelings of isolation, and probably make the already-rampant xenophobia plaguing the world even worse. There really aren't viable alternatives to flying for getting across a multi-thousand-mile-wide ocean - boats are too slow for the average person, and building trains over the ocean is impractical. Maybe the focus should be on making planes more environmentally friendly, instead of outright banning them?
The thing is tourism does more damage than good, hence saying frig recreational flights. If people are determined to travel, make them sign up to educational holidays.
Do you think "having tourism" would do more damage than "not having tourism"? Because that's what we're really comparing here. Tourism may be a net negative, but if the absence of tourism is a bigger net negative, well, I'd argue that "having tourism" is the better option.
Obviously making tourism into a net positive should be the goal, but that's a whole different discussion (which your idea of "educational holidays" probably fits into). But I don't think we get there with a blanket ban on most forms of air travel. Not to mention, making air travel more efficient/greener would have huge ripple effects across multiple industries. That seems like a no-brainer approach to me, at least in the long term.
First off let me say, thanks for having this conversation, I'm enjoying it.
Educational holidays are a concession and would have to be tested. So holiday goers would have to show they're attending lectures and visiting sites for the bulk of their visit. I honestly haven't fleshed out the idea as I just came up with it.
But to talk about tourism, I think it was Prague that was able to showcase just how damaging tourism truly is. The city centre has miniscule local residency due to properties being brought up to lease as Airbnbs. With businesses attempting to target tourists, prices of food and travel increased and you know what didn't go up wages. So people were forced to move out of the city and commute in just to serve tourists things they can't afford. During tourist season, it's vibrant and busy, off-season it's a ghost town. The citizens aren't benefiting, it's exactly the opposite. Tourism is just imperialism flexing its muscles.
Absolutely! Like I said, this is a topic I've always struggled with, and I've leaned both ways. I just so happen to be leaning on the side of recreational air travel this week lol.
The example with Prague strikes me as rooted in capitalism, not so much tourism. Like, ideally governments (local or otherwise) in tourist-heavy areas step in and implement things that address those capitalistic problems you describe - penalize rental property conglomerates, enforce a liveable minimum wage, build affordable permanent housing and mixed-use spaces, etc. I hear your comparison between tourism and imperialism, and I get that some tourist areas are pretty awful where the local residents are treated as subhuman and that definitely sucks, but idk, it feels more like a capitalist/classist issue to me.
AC systems are heat pumps so I'm not sure what you mean there.
Great, now this might work with my neighbor, but how exactly do I smack mega corps and the state? Are we talking eco terrorism here or do you have some other idea that hasn't been tried in the last decades?
I mean, climate change isn't new but humanity still fucks up the planet and that does not seem to change. Why should we have to sweat at home while professionalized greed burns down everything around us? I will gladly take individual responsibility, but not alone.
Actually, a failing power grid here and there might act as a wake-up call and then we can start talking about solutions, not just symptomatic treatment.
Talking about direct action or even a mildly disruptive protest will probably get you moderated here, and in trouble in real life. It feels like the only options "allowed" are stern words. At least a progressive like Zohran won the primary in NYC, but we'll need a lot more of that to make a difference.
On the other hand, Luigi is considered by many a hero.