Scientists don't want you to use air conditioning — here's why
Hotter summers mean greater air conditioner use means more damage to the environment means hotter summers...
Sure, we’re in the middle of a heat wave — but you may want to think twice before cranking up the AC.
As the Earth warms and summers become increasingly hotter, we turn to pollutant air conditioners to cool down, furthering environmental damage.
As many as 1,000 additional people each year along the Eastern U.S. could die from complications due to higher levels of air pollution from increased air conditioning use, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison said in a new study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine.
On top of that, the study found that about 13,000 people along the Eastern U.S. could die per year by 2050 from the hazardous particulate matter released into the air as a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, and there could be another 3,000 deaths from ozone exposure.
"What we found is that air pollution will get worse," the report’s lead author David Abel explained to the UW News. "There are consequences for adapting to future climate change."
This prediction is based on five models that calculate the effect that increased cooling and fossil fuel use during hotter summers will have on air quality in the coming decades. The scientists found that if an alternative source of energy isn’t found to replace fossil fuel, human lives will be lost. A cruel paradox exists, however, because surging temperatures are almost just as threatening to survival.
Air conditioners on house facade in Manhattan on August 26, 2017 in New York City, NY. (flavijus / Getty Images)
"We're trading problems," senior author of the study Jonathan Patz said. "Heat waves are increasing and increasing in intensity. We will have more cooling demand requiring more electricity. But if our nation continues to rely on coal-fired power plants for some of our electricity, each time we turn on the air conditioning we'll be fouling the air, causing more sickness and even deaths."
In the U.S., large buildings are the biggest energy users in the country, responsible for more than 60% of the power demand in the Eastern half alone. And air conditioning makes up a huge portion of that figure — underlining the need to switch to more sustainable sources of energy like wind or solar.
"Climate change is here and we're going to need to adapt," Abel said. "But air conditioning and the way we use energy is going to provide a feedback that will exacerbate air pollution as temperatures continue to get warmer.
"The answer is clean energy," he continued. "That is something we can control that will help both climate change and future air pollution. If we change nothing, both are going to get worse."
end quote from:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/ny-news-climate-change-air-conditioners-20180704-story.html
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