Summer Air Conditioning: Stay Comfortable! (conservation calls enable bad policy)

“What is needed is universally affordable air conditioning, which means inexpensive power to run the units. The Green New Deal’s carbon tax, whether during the summer cooling peak or the winter heating peak, is a death wish for humane, comfortable living.”

Red, white, and blue Americans should stay comfortable this summer and not heed calls for voluntary A/C conservation. Ditching self-interest is a step on the road to energy serfdom where “carbon guilt” is adjunct to mandatory policies. Citizen voters should be clear: affordable, plentiful free-market energy comes before sacrificial political energy.

Media Spin

The mainstream media, pushing climate alarmism doubly as an anti-Trump meme, is focused on heat waves and the irony of increased CO2 emissions from more air conditioning.

“Historic heat wave is double whammy for climate change,” reads The Hill.

Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. is expected to be hit by a massive weekend heat wave, forcing energy companies to brace for maxed out grids and potential blackouts.

It will also create a spike in carbon emissions, as the use of fossil fuels by people seeking to cool down expands.

“The situation highlights a potentially dangerous loop,” states E&E News.

As the planet warms, heat waves like the one gripping much of the United States will become more common. And as the mercury rises, so do people’s reliance on fossil fuels, creating even more pollution.

Joe Romm, still writing at ClimateProgress (despite his new responsibilities), labeled a recent post: “Call It the Trump Heat Wave.” Even if it is not the record (remember the dust-bowl 1930s?), and forgetting the increasing concrete heats the heat (U.S. cement sales rose 3 percent last year), the danger lies ahead (as always). Romm states:

Other studies also show the devastating heat-related impacts the nation and the world face from Trump’s policies of abandoning the Paris climate deal, undoing Obama-era climate rules, and boosting carbon pollution…. Tragically, Trump’s policies will make such heat waves simply the normal climate, bringing with it new monster heat waves and catastrophic impacts.

Same ol’ Joe ….

Real Lessons

Heat-wave season does have lessons. First, wind power is a fickle resource with the ability to cause price spikes and shortages at times of peak demand (stillness is part of heat).

Second, lower-income people with limited access to A/C are the most vulnerable to price spikes and shortages that come with heat waves. Ben Kesslen at NBC News recently documented how the 1995 Chicago heat wave killed 739 people. (“Chicago residents told stories of bodies piling up on the streets as city officials weren’t prepared to handle the large volume of deaths.”)

What is needed is universally affordable air conditioning, which means inexpensive power to run the units. The Green New Deal’s carbon tax, whether during the summer cooling peak or the winter heating peak, is a death wish for humane, comfortable living.