Enjoy cool air without warming the planet
[Music]
[Applause]
when i was young
one of my favorite ways to relax is
under the vents of an air conditioner
it was the remedy to all of life’s
problems
as that cold air sinks into your skin
from all four sides
normally going to a mall during any
other season
it’s just a normal excursion but during
the summer time
with their unlimited cold air and
generally low temperatures
it was the best thing that a 10 year old
me could think of
however my obsession for air
conditioning
has gone under my parents radar and they
decided that enough was enough
therefore they implemented harsh ac
restrictions
of only one hour of usage at the
temperature
26 degrees or higher before bed
if there is a way that a 10 year-old’s
life can fall apart
this can just be the one but they say
necessity is the mother of invention
i must find new ways to bring cold air
into my life
to ensure my comfort and or in the
summer times
my survivability so my brain started
tinkering
one morning i had to get up really early
for a swim training session
and for those of you who have similar
experiences in the outdoor pool
at 5 00 am in the morning you know how
cold it is
on my way back home when my teeth had
stopped chattering
i suddenly realized it’s that all of
that cold
air just waiting to be harvested
a light bulb lit up beside my head
next morning where i would normally
scramble
and go to school i woke up with a sense
of purpose
i opened the windows and welcomed the
cold air into my room
i felt accomplished but as they say
pride does not go well with success
and right there on the afternoon why
once again pushed open the door to my
room i realized that my room was a
pressure cooker once again
i left the curtains open grumbling i
went downstairs
and i just might my mother coming up
she told me that she is going to buy
blinds for our kitchen
and living areas i looked at
the brilliant afternoon sun casting
scorching rays through our large back
porch windows
into the areas that we’ll just use 30
minutes later
and i couldn’t have agreed more after a
hundred dollar investment
these areas become pleasant places to be
once again
as i mature i started to realize why is
it important
to reduce ac usage aside from meeting my
parents
strict ac restrictions our ac
can use up to three kilowatts of power
that’s more than all the other
appliances
that my 10 year old brain could think of
and some ac’s you can even use up to 5
kilowatts
during hot climates where temperature is
generally higher
than around 27 degrees celsius
a ac unit in a typical home could run up
to 9 hours per day
and if you take the annual total of a
home’s electricity usage
and calculate the daily average you only
get 30 kilowatt hours
think about the majority of that
electricity
is actually used by your electricity
condition air conditioning power
and all of that power for thousands of
homes
has to be generated through the likes of
fossil fuel power plants
which as you know release greenhouse
gases into the air
at this very moment although in my
province british columbia
our hydroelectric dams are much more
eco-friendlier
they still segregate or even destroy
habitats
furthermore air conditioning themselves
also pose a threat to the environment as
well
conventional coolants such as
chlorofluorocarbons or
hydrofluorocarbons
you might know them as cfcs and hfcs
they tear up
huge holes in the ozone layer and it’s
that exact ozone layer
that protects us from the harmful
radiation from outer space
such as uv radiation and if we let that
through
these kind of high energy rays can cause
cancer
and ac itself is a self-reinforcing
progress
as you use more ac you warm the planet
even more which induces more ac usage
and the cycle continues
of course i understand that not everyone
lives in a city like vancouver
our my solution might not apply to
everyone
in areas such as south america
southeast asia where the tropical
climate
is present my solutions will hardly work
there
although the temperature typically stays
below 28 degrees celsius
the high amount of humidity level
actually brings up the temperature felt
by the
inhabitants inside living spaces by
several degrees
and that is intolerable for most
people’s standards and ac must be used
but there is a alternative way
that moisture in the air could actually
be harnessed
to cool down your body temperature at
that very moment
individual fans or centralized vacuum
systems can actually take that moisture
that moving air standing across your
body and
it will evaporate the moisture that’s
present on your body reducing your body
heat automatically with simple science
furthermore dehumidifiers can directly
take away that moisture
in the air right there and right then
to reduce the problem caused by moisture
and to reduce that
several degrees of extra temperature
felt by
our inhabitants and that several degrees
of temperature decrease can make a
difference in ac usage
and yet all these solutions they take up
less energy
than what a typical air conditioning
unit would
still i understand there might be other
densely populated areas
with bad air quality where no
ventilation would be practical
for our health but the high
intense sunlight and generally high
summer temperatures
once again may cause these areas to use
their
air conditioning however
if you imagine all of those particles
that’s in the air causing the bad air
quality at the moment
these particles they take the sunlight
and reflect it
and practically the temperature you
receive on the ground level where
everybody lives
is not as high as what we have been
imagined from the level of sunlight and
the subtropical region
that’s most of these areas are included
in
additionally most of these areas only
sometimes experience
extreme type temperatures higher than 27
degrees
where air conditioning starts to become
necessary for comfort
otherwise the only reason that thousands
if not tens of thousands of units of air
conditioning is running
in these regions is our ingrained habit
to do so at the end
air conditioning is one of the biggest
threats
to our environment at this very moment
but
there’s many ways clever ways to manage
your indoor air
quality so air conditioning would not be
necessary
and the same amount of coldness can be
achieved
and you will be ensured the same amount
of comfort the question you might be
asking is why should i care
isn’t it better just with the press of a
button that cold air
can be released right into your living
environment
why should you implement all these
procedures around your living
environment and not just
go with the simple way think about it
this way
if you can reduce or even eliminate the
ac usage in your home
you could be saving up to 30 if not 40
percent
of your cooling cost furthermore the
sterile
environment created by air conditioning
is not healthy for you
with long effects on your health later
down the road
there’s a deeper level of meaning to all
of this
as humans we have roots in nature and it
doesn’t take much materially to
appreciate our world’s hospitality
yet i know there are places in the world
where air conditioning becomes necessary
to ensure the habitants to be able to
live in those regions
but there are also many other of us who
can take even just one day
or two days of a break from our busy
ac routine there’s nature
out there beyond your windows they’re
trying to get in
that are trying to let you enjoy its
greatness
as i learned years ago it means a lot
to just take one step out of your
comfort zone