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UK global warming 'expert' tries to scare people again

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Tequila
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06 Feb 2013, 12:22 pm

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Climate change means catastrophe in UK, not café culture says professor
  • Global warming in Britain will not mean a nice "café culture, sitting outside sipping lattes" but heatwaves that kill vulnerable elderly people and catastrophic flooding, a climate change expert has warned
Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said Government and local authorities are failing to grasp the risks to Britain of global warming.

He accused people of focusing on the chance of warmer evenings, rather than realising heatwaves will cause deaths.

"We may like to think of it as a nice café culture, sitting outside sipping lattes – but we will be struggling to sleep because our buildings won't cool down at night.

Apart from that last bit - what the hell does he think aircon is for? Idiot.



ruveyn
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06 Feb 2013, 1:34 pm

Tequila wrote:
Apart from that last bit - what the hell does he think aircon is for? Idiot.


Air conditioning requires electrical power. That moves the problem of heating and pollution from the point of consumption to the point of production. It takes lots of heat to make electricity.

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06 Feb 2013, 3:12 pm

Tequila wrote:
Quote:
Climate change means catastrophe in UK, not café culture says professor
  • Global warming in Britain will not mean a nice "café culture, sitting outside sipping lattes" but heatwaves that kill vulnerable elderly people and catastrophic flooding, a climate change expert has warned
Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said Government and local authorities are failing to grasp the risks to Britain of global warming.

He accused people of focusing on the chance of warmer evenings, rather than realising heatwaves will cause deaths.

"We may like to think of it as a nice café culture, sitting outside sipping lattes – but we will be struggling to sleep because our buildings won't cool down at night.

Apart from that last bit - what the hell does he think aircon is for? Idiot.


Air conditioning is for cooling buildings. The catch is that during a heatwave, everybody turns on their air conditioning at full force and simultaneously. The power grid can't handle the heavy use and a blackout happens. At least that's how it has played out several times in the U.S. Where I live, the local government will put out an urgent plea for everybody to use their air conditioning as little as they possibly can to make it bearable. When people follow that advice, sometimes we can get awway with just a brownout. But I have experienced blackout. When that happens, elderly people die.

It is happening in the US with greater and greater frequency because of global warming. The UK hasn't yet had those sorts of heatwaves but if it starts happening, you will have blackouts and lose your air conditioning. And elderly people will die.

Then there is the matter of flooding. During the last hurricane, New York city was badly flooded, far worse than it has ever been before. The East Coast and Gulf Coast often get hurricanes and that was prior to global warming. Since global warming has started, the hurricanes have gotten worse and the flooding has gotten worse. This guy that you are mocking has looked at what is happening in the US and realizing that it could happen in the UK too if present trends continue.



ruveyn
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06 Feb 2013, 4:18 pm

Janissy wrote:

Air conditioning is for cooling buildings. The catch is that during a heatwave, everybody turns on their air conditioning at full force and simultaneously. The power grid can't handle the heavy use and a blackout happens. At least that's how it has played out several times in the U.S. Where I live, the local government will put out an urgent plea for everybody to use their air conditioning as little as they possibly can to make it bearable. When people follow that advice, sometimes we can get awway with just a brownout. But I have experienced blackout. When that happens, elderly people die.

.


Usually there are emergency centers with their own power generating equipment that can be visited by elderly during a heat wave.

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visagrunt
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06 Feb 2013, 4:39 pm

Air conditioning doesn't diminish heat. It takes heat energy from one place and puts it in another.

When you turn on the aircon, not only do you cool down the building, you also heat up the outside. Now, I grant you that cooling a building by 15 degrees has a much smaller impact on the outside environment. But as you spread that load across more and more buildings, suddenly you're looking at a larger impact.

And let's not forget that the generation of the electricity to make aircon work also has impacts (though going nuclear significantly mitigates these).


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Tequila
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06 Feb 2013, 4:40 pm

Janissy wrote:
When that happens, elderly people die.


Which should please the NHS. (See Liverpool Care Pathway.)



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06 Feb 2013, 5:17 pm

Tequila wrote:
Quote:
Climate change means catastrophe in UK, not café culture says professor
  • Global warming in Britain will not mean a nice "café culture, sitting outside sipping lattes" but heatwaves that kill vulnerable elderly people and catastrophic flooding, a climate change expert has warned
Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said Government and local authorities are failing to grasp the risks to Britain of global warming.

He accused people of focusing on the chance of warmer evenings, rather than realising heatwaves will cause deaths.

"We may like to think of it as a nice café culture, sitting outside sipping lattes – but we will be struggling to sleep because our buildings won't cool down at night.

Apart from that last bit - what the hell does he think aircon is for? Idiot.


Lots of people die in heatwaves in areas where air conditioning is prevalant. Mostly just people who go outside in heatwaves that shouldn't because of their age / health, but heavy A/C use also strains power grids and can cause brownouts / rolling blackouts if the electrical infrastructure is not up to snuff.



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06 Feb 2013, 5:26 pm

The elephant in the room is what is wrong with renewable energy resources?


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ripped
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06 Feb 2013, 6:12 pm

Well, yeah but is being killed by a hot day such a bad way to go? :scratch:



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06 Feb 2013, 6:49 pm

ripped wrote:
Well, yeah but is being killed by a hot day such a bad way to go? :scratch:


Heatstroke is not fun.



Tequila
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06 Feb 2013, 6:50 pm

puddingmouse wrote:
Heatstroke is not fun.


Agreed. Thorough sunburn is bad enough.



thomas81
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06 Feb 2013, 7:11 pm

ScrewyWabbit wrote:
Lots of people die in heatwaves in areas where air conditioning is prevalant. Mostly just people who go outside in heatwaves that shouldn't because of their age / health, but heavy A/C use also strains power grids and can cause brownouts / rolling blackouts if the electrical infrastructure is not up to snuff.


theres an argument for household solar panels if i've ever heard one.


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06 Feb 2013, 7:30 pm

There is also the option of using geothermal systems to trap heat underground in a heat sink. Get several houses together on a common heat sink and you save a lot of money and electricity that would have gone to air conditioning.


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06 Feb 2013, 7:32 pm

Most UK homes don't have air conditioning and a lot of people couldn't afford to turn it on even if they did have it. I couldn't afford to have heating in the winter and aircon in the summer. I like to think not needing aircon is the one advantage of living in such a crappy lattitude; I don't want that to change.



Vigilans
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06 Feb 2013, 7:36 pm

puddingmouse wrote:
Most UK homes don't have air conditioning and a lot of people couldn't afford to turn it on even if they did have it. I couldn't afford to have heating in the winter and aircon in the summer. I like to think not needing aircon is the one advantage of living in such a crappy lattitude; I don't want that to change.


I somewhat hate air conditioning. In this climate I find it paradoxical to use, considering we spend so much of the year in frigid, subzero temperatures, only to spend the summer indoors with artificially cooled air. Crazy Canadians eh


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06 Feb 2013, 7:48 pm

Vigilans wrote:
puddingmouse wrote:
Most UK homes don't have air conditioning and a lot of people couldn't afford to turn it on even if they did have it. I couldn't afford to have heating in the winter and aircon in the summer. I like to think not needing aircon is the one advantage of living in such a crappy lattitude; I don't want that to change.


I somewhat hate air conditioning. In this climate I find it paradoxical to use, considering we spend so much of the year in frigid, subzero temperatures, only to spend the summer indoors with artificially cooled air. Crazy Canadians eh


It makes even less sense for Canadians to have aircon. We at least have the gulf stream, so our winters are not that bad.

If I find out aircon is common in Scandanavia, I will cry.