There is not a magic solution that is perfect in every scenario. Air conditioners decrease humidity as a side effect, though.

Almost no one mentioned roller shutter. They need to be installed outside to actually work, but they are very good at reducing temperature inside (I had them installed on my southwest facing windows). Air conditioning is ok, but it's also such a lazy solution and it seemingly prevents people from even trying to come up with different ideas.

That's what an AC is

There's plenty we can do, but all interventions are somewhat limited in effect. With the trend of increasingly intense heat waves, we're likely going to have to do all of the non-AC interventions and install AC in lots and lots of places.

• Awnings to block sunlight from heating up spaces through windows
• Better ventilation systems which can more effectively pump in colder air from outside during the night
• Heat-reflecting paint to minimize heat gain from solar radiation
• More trees to provide local cooling/shade
• Ceiling fans to provide reduced perceived heat
• District cooling, when appropriate, to provide cooling at a higher energy efficiency

All help, but when the temperatures start hitting 40 C with high humidity, you're basically out of luck without an AC, that can pump out the heat and lower the humidity.

There is no alternative in hot, humid regions (cryopaint is not proven). In dry ones swamp cooling and fans help.

However, I'm not sure many people are saying air conditioning is a solution to climate change.

Many are saying it's an adaptation necessary to survive in warming humid regions. The human body cannot thermoregulate in wet bulb temperatures above 35c. Fans don't help as the body cannot evaporate sweat into saturated air that is as warm or warmer. Air conditioning not only cools, but removes humidity.

If you get a severe case of influenza, it comes with a fever. The fever is a symptom, not the underlying cause of the illness, but it can kill faster. As a result, you need to treat it as well as the flu, often with acetaminophen. Air conditioning does not treat the underlying cause, but it can mitigate the symptom that kills fastest.

I have a pitched roof on a mobile home.

A white tin roof is the plan.

@XeroxCool @nocturne There are special nano-materials they have that blocks all IR heat from entering the building. We shall see how this scales.

You can ventilate periodically, air doesn't hold that much thermal energy. You can also use heat recovery ventilation, should work in reverse to keep the heat out too.

That is kinda like earth tubes isn't it? Which you could retrofit. More powerful cooling can be achieved by using the tubes as part of a geothermal heat pump. Bonus there is that its also even more efficient than a regular heat pump in winter too.

Oh, I just remembered this video I watched. There is this guy on youtube that does a lot of material-sciency kind of stuff using common household ingredients. One of his videos he makes a salt-based phase change material, which basically works as an icepack that freezes at around 18 degrees Celsius.

The idea is that it takes a long time for the material to melt from 18 degrees to 19 degrees so it can keep you comfortably cool if you put it in a plastic bag and wear it in a vest to keep yourself cool. If you have a cool basement, then it can pretty much re-freeze by putting it on the cold floor.

DIY Supermaterial Could Save You From Heatstroke: Salt based PCMs

Its an interesting watch.

Edit: Actually the more I think about it the more Solarpunk it seems. It requires zero electricity, and rather than cooling a whole area you only cool the people in it. Even better, you aren't trapped inside to avoid the heat, as it works outside just fine.

Sounds cool. Did you DIY? Do you have to move often?

I don't think pitch is a problem as those plants cling to trees at 90° and the layers are glued, but I understand it is not a solution that can be installed anywhere :)

Hadn't even considered it. I think most people assume they're just for security. But ya makes sense.

read it as "air condoms" and thought i was about to learn about something highly kinky

A mobile home, or trailer, in the states is a manufactured home that is built in a factory setting and then moved to its location. They are usually cheap because they are built to be lighter than a traditional home.

As far as moving it, I need two semis to move. I have owned it for 11 years and we have not yet moved. But I am hopeful in the coming year I can get it moved to my own property.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_home

https://youtu.be/ZD_3_gsgsnk?is=N1ik1F2FFUZ_8Eat

Heat pumps. Work as heating and cooling, far more energy efficient

Nah you know heat pumps are just air conditioners running in the other direction. Its the exact same technology.

A/C is indeed not a solution for solving climate change. It's merely a solution to survive the transition that we are trying to do. The solution is in how you produce the electricity, among others, to feed the A/C.

Additionally A/C worsense the heat outside of your house

There is some additional heat that an AC system will create, but the heat that goes out of the external block is not heat that was created by the system. It's heat that was displaced and that would otherwise come through other ways in the atmosphere.

A theoretical perfect heat pump would not heat the atmosphere at all, despite having a heating part. The heating would be perfectly balanced by the cooling part.

It is a bit counterintuitive when you think about machines as creating heat or creating cold. A better way to look at it is in terms of energy evacuation.

A house without any AC will radiate heat because humans inside, machines inside, they do produce heat. So that heat goes out in the atmosphere through the walls and through the windows when the inside is warmer than the outside. An AC creates a sort of channel for the heat to go all through the external block and it blasts hot air at a specific place. But what you don't see is that as a result your colder house radiates less heat and actually may to some extent cool the atmosphere around it.

Both effects balance each other out. There is a difference because a heat pump is not a 100% efficient system. So you do have additional heat that gets there as waste. But it's not on the same level as what gets blasted out of the external unit.

An Awning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k

The best you can do quickly and for free is to close blinds to let a small amount of light in when its hot, and when it's below 20°, open windows and have as much ventilation as possible. This is easiest and I find that in some rooms it can cool them significantly.

@turip youtu.be/AAz5D3TnQ_k This video lists basically every option you can have. I posted it already, but building a city to create air corridors and using water-porous asphalt when you have to have it, which allows for evaporative cooling during the summer, as well as using ponds and water to create a cool island effect, can significantly reduce heating.

Except it's not, and, as previously mentioned, they are more efficient.

I hesitate to contradict you but they really are. Many use more efficient parts, but the mechanism is the same.

What people refer to as a "heat pump" is just an air conditioner that can run in reverse to provide heat in the home as well as cool it. The cooling part is the same technology as a non- heat pump air conditioner.

Heating this way is more efficient than resistive electric heat

Cooling is the same mechanism as standard air conditioners

Biggest efficiency difference in A/C (cooling) would be if the compressor is inverter-driven or not

What’s the difference between a heat pump and an air conditioner when cooling?

I've seen some science channels posting these over the last few years, making coatings that emit radiation in the "atmospheric window" I think it's called, but have not yet seen proper products on the market. I could be out of date though. Still, I'd question durability, but I suppose it'd be at least no worse than normal materials, right?

Eeeexcellent, I'm excited for you.

Similar but not the same. They both use refrigerants but the mechanisms do differ. Mostly in that AC uses fans ehich increase power consumption. I'm sure there are differentiations on both sides to prove me wrong, but I'm just speaking in general terms.

If you're an aussie, you know it as a reverse cycle. A shockingly large amount of the rest of the world only know window unit air cons

When cooling they act the same way (and similar to a fridge, it's pretty basic tech, scale is what makes them more efficient) but if your climate makes a heatpump viable you're trading out a heavily polluting heat source instead. Swings and roundabouts

Almost all heat pumps also use fans. It's simply more efficient.

The difference in your diagrams is not related to heat pump/AC, but forced air v. water.

Drinking iced beverages in extreme heat is a good way to get heatstroke.

Your thermoregulation sense will think you're cooler than you are, and you'll stop sweating.

Seems counterintuitive, but hot drinks in hot weather is wiser

Fascinating idea. I bet that'd be a hit with the weighted blanket crowd

And hot in the winter.

Heat exchangers are a good step forward IMO. They just need a small fan to function if there is like no wind.

Urban planning wise: I think ivy walls, or other greenery covering residential buildings.

For reference, you might want to look up Bosco Verticale in Italy, or lush green roofs in Norway.

I know this isn't a catch-all solution, but it could help mitigate climate crisis impact in addition to other options people offered here.

Building anything underground is extremely expensive and energy intensive, as you have to constantly pump ground water and pour concrete to keep walls from breaking under pressure of tons of soil.

So yeah, underground could work, but better used sparingly when benefit outweighs the costs, like maybe in areas that could go literally uninhabitable on the surface. Otherwise not worth it.

@HerbGrower pcI have used a cold water bottle in bed a couple of times lately. Fairly successful.

There is only so much you can do to achieve that. If temperatures are in the upper 30s for an entire week. You can't keep the heat out forever

Wouldn't cold water get warm very quickly? I have thought of ice though. If you wrapped it up enough so that it takes up heat fairly slowly.

@HerbGrower Yes, that is the problem. It only lasts an hour or two at most. I used a two litre plastic milk container rather than a normal hot water bottle.

Dig and dont stop digging. Make a burrow

Absolutely no difference. An AC is a heat pump.

IIRC the latent heat of fusion of water is about 333kJ/kg. So 666kJ for 2L. With ice that averages out to about 23w over a nights sleep. Heat capacity of water is 4.2kJ/kg/k, so even if its 0c as a liquid, to warm up to body temperature is under 300kJ.

TLDR: Water going from a ~0c solid to ~0c liquid takes more than twice as much energy as ~0c liquid water warning up to body temperature.

The ice also only melts to 0c, so you get that benefit as well.

Most of North America built bungalows after WW2. All your dramatic concerns were addressed 50 years ago, and no, they were not extremely expensive and 8" concrete walls with French drains and sump pumps work well.

Not true.

Those roofs are for architectural projects or custom homes for Hollywood celebrities. Nightmare in costs and they don't last.

Insulated attics make roof material irrelevant. Heat comes in from walls.

No, and there are cooling systems that are advanced.

Swamp coolers do nothing in humid summers.

That's a buried coil closed heat pump system. Very expensive.