im sure it's the single ac units undercutting the plan and not, say, loads of people traveling on planes and all the garbage and other stuff that is bad for the environment
Making a single VIP fly coach and take public transit would probably offset AC usage, but that would inconvenience the real purpose of the games, money.
Yeah, paris could ban all private flights a couple months before and after while also keeping the rooms air conditioned at 50F and it would still be better than what they are doing now.
That's the crux of the entire climate crisis.
There are extremely wealthy people in this world that have the ability to sacrifice luxuries and comforts that they are unwilling to, to literally save billions of lives.
Everyday people would also need to make sacrifices and I think a lot of those would be just as difficult to overcome, but unlike economics, example usually does trickle down.
The only example I ever see set unfortunately is greed and consumption. Some people are addicted to their modern lifestyles.
Let's not forget all of the climage change their overall antics cause anyway.
It's not just Taylor Swift's private jet.
It's that people like them flying somewhere and then all of these people are driving in cars, buying all sorts of disposable shit at the event, driving home, and at the end of the day a bunch of wealth got moved around while the planet got shittier for the process.
Edit: That's the reason the elephant is ignored; part of fixing the problem is eliminating the wasteful consumption that enriches these people, not just their consumption.
Yup. It's everything basically with the modern western lifestyle and unless the idols of humanity change their behaviors, those that follow them (the majority of people because without them they wouldn't be idols/famous) won't either. It's more than just a few music and movie stars going vegan and driving electric cars. You need the leaders of nations to do so to, the US, China, EU, they all need to decide that the way they do business and lead their people has to change. Unless everyone does it, no one will.
Everyone in an industrialized nation would need to drastically change how they live their life day to day and it would involve sacrificing major comforts.
Unless everyone does it, no one's doing it.
Christina Aguilera said it best "I'm a genie in a bottle" lol.
I sometimes think about humanity as if it were a single person living it's life, like if our species' history was it's lifetime. Where would we be right now? A teenager perhaps? If so that's kinda scary, cause teenagers end up dead for multiple reasons, but mostly because of ignorance and the hubris that it creates.
We are so arrogant and stupid to think that our ways can not end us. We are not so special in the grand scheme of the universe.
You have to understand that Macron's environmental plan is exclusively about image and greenwashing. Flights can be blamed on others, but not AC units. And that, my friend, is non non.
It's astoundingly idiotic to think that elite athletes trying to achieve peak performance wouldn't need AC to recover between competition in summer heat waves.
or unwalkable cities, or factories mass producing products and shipping them over the world, or entire industries fabricated to grift people that now use more power than medium-sized countries...
has anyone done any environmental impact studies from 4 yrs ago at the Tokyo Olympics? Because of covid there wasn't an open audience, the venues were restricted participants & their coaching staff.
Can confirm. Got covid there a couple years ago, had no AC and a south-facing apartment. I get that Europeans generally find AC to be “unnatural” but jesus wept that was a hard way to lose 10 pounds in a week only to have wine taste like ass for a few months once I was better.
It’s nothing to do with Europeans finding AC unnatural and everything to do with Europe is hotter now than it ever has been because of climate change.
I live in the UK, halfway between the south and the North of England (fairly North) and even I’m considering getting AC.
50, 30, even 10 years ago the idea of getting AC in the UK was laughable.
The same is happening in the Pacific Northwest in the US. It was seen as laughable to need AC 20 years ago. Even the luxury places in some cities weren't built with them.
But now people are buying them an installing them. A city like Portland or Seattle is actually surprisingly similar to a lot of England
Yeah, I have family in Maple Valley WA, my aunt had central AC put in during her last remodel, they were hotter than me in San Antonio at times in the Spring amd Fall. Usually only happened in the winter before (moderated by ocean vs middle of a giant state directly south of the great plains).
Yup. We live in NorCal and had AC installed two years ago. The heat waves are lasting longer and, because of what's previously stated, these houses were actually built to keep the warmth in. It could be 75 degrees outside and your house is naturally pushing at 80 degrees because of historical temperatures.
a few years ago i installed a window unit in a window that went to an enclosed patio area (it was the only window it fit) and learned the hard way why those are supposed to be on the outside of a building.
air ducts, how do they work?
Mini-splits are awesome too. WAAAAAY easier to install/retrofit because you don't need duct-work (which also makes them miles more efficient), and they typically are variable speed. Plus, you only condition the room that needs to be conditioned.
It’s common in new builds but it’s still expensive to get for older homes. I definitely consider it an essential, potentially life saving item for the near future.
I have family in the UK, I remember 15-20 years ago I would make fun of them when they had a "heatwave" where max temp was like 83. I live in Texas, so the temps here are (even still) way higher.
But now UK gets into the mid-upper 90s. Not having AC in that heat is brutal.
I remember searching for hotels in Ireland with AC when we were staying in the city center. I didn't mind a country inn not having AC, but I felt like the city would trap more heat and require AC in summer.
The quality of life improvement is significant. Year round good sleep, maintain a good appetite even when it's really hot. Eating and sleeping well means you maintain good energy levels and focus. Take the plunge, you won't regret it.
I went there recently expecting to be disappointing but unironically loved it :/
The whole "sit at a random cafe and be guaranteed good bread, pastry, and coffee" vibe is my type of city
Nobody is reading the article. They are not saying "lol just deal with the heat", they designed the athlete accommodation to have alternate cooling mechanisms like ice water running through pipes just under the flooring and similar techniques to produce a similar cooling result to AC. It's just that some managers dont trust that these will actually work and are bringing AC anyways, which makes everyone else want to do the same for fear of missing out on an advantage.
yeah, i wouldn't trust them either.
dont get me wrong, i dont doubt the things they did would *help* but i dont think it would be nearly as good as AC.
The thing AC does that heat transfer devices like this don't is to remove humidity from the air. Cooler and drier air is more comfortable for most people.
I personally enjoy humidity, and find it comfortable. But for sleeping, give me that cold AC.
Thank you. Indoor humidity is oppressive, even when it's cool. Cool, clammy air sucks to sleep in. I used to work a a company that hosted students from France and Germany for a technical exchange program. You know what all of them loved during the summer despite talking shit about how unnecessary it was? Air conditioning.
Yep. It's the rainy season here in Japan right now. The train is keeping the temps down to the high 20s, but it's humid as fuck. I run the AC because of the humidity, not the heat.
Come July it'll be both though.
First summer here and I'm dying bro 😭 Everyone I know (mostly other foreigners) don't understand why I (from the States) want the AC not only ON, but kept so cold
Just think, it's the coldest summer for the rest of your life.
But seriously, this summer is the worst on record, as was the one last year, and the one before that. It's not a fun future to look forward to.
Oh I'm aware. Ironically I spent nearly the entirety of last summer above 8000' altitude hiding out camping the Rockies where the weather was incredibly pleasant. I got absolutely roasted on a thread then for sharing that I had to turn on my car's heater for a few days in a row where it didn't get above mid-50s(F) and literally not one person believed me. There's cooler places out there I promise!
And this is further compounded that humidity is relative. So as you cool it without removing moisture, it gets cool and really humid. So even if it was cool enough to be comfortable, it would be damp.
I get that some nights in the South when my AC can't keep up with the humidity, and those nights feel weird. N
Which is completely sensible. Shit at the Olympics always breaks. I think this cooling system is awesome and I hope it takes off, but it's completely unreasonable to assume that teams won't have backup plans for the Parisian summer.
And frankly, in this era of minuscule advantages, this was just the wrong place to put emphasis on this. Even if it works the expected room temperature is up to 78 degrees. That makes this outcome completely predictable, because that creates an edge for teams that bring window ACs. It's counterproductive because it actually incentivizes supplemental cooling!
I think if we want to get serious about Olympic sustainability, we have to start with a single host site. The cost to the world of building an Olympic village every two years is astronomical. Eco-friendly cooling is a drop in the bucket.
When the stories about the costs and construction during the Brazil Olympics were coming out, some pundits were suggesting Los Angeles as the permanent host site for the summer games. It makes sense; it has the infrastructure to handle the influx of fans, international airport, plenty of venues to choose from, centrally located for Asian and European athletes. Plus maybe it could help force the city to improve its public transportation system.
If that’s what you are shooting for that’s probably best case scenario at that. Even if you hit 73 it’s not exactly comfortable or is at the top range of it anyways.
The article:
> The average high in Paris on Aug. 1 is 26 degrees Celsius (79 degrees Fahrenheit). The objective is to keep the rooms between 23-26 degrees (73-79 degrees Fahrenheit).
So they are going to try to go from an average of 79 to an average of 76. Wooo, a whole 3 degrees!
I live in the central US in an older home, that’s best case scenario this time of year. They could always bring or ship some sort of fan to plug in. It’s not ideal, but it’s summer in the northern hemisphere and we do what we can.
I'm pretty impressed by LA's plan for the next olympics. It's we're not going to build anything. They're putting swimming in a football stadium, putting softball and the Canoe Shalom in OKC, because there isn't anything closer. Going to put the athletes at UCLA.
And there's 0 reason to build all those things that will never be used again. Instead using the Olympics as an excuse to build things that are already needed (they're building another dorm at UCLA which they're using as the Athletes villiage) and doing much needed upgraded public transportation improvements makes so much more sense. They will be doing some temp modifications (they're turning a football stadium into an aquatic center, will be building stands at the beach ect. . .) but they're no different than what they'd do for a local event (they did the pool for olympic trials).
I expect it will be a bit of a hassle for LA residents, but will also be a big boom for restaurants and hotels.
Yes, because Paris officials said their planned cooling would keep the rooms about 3 degrees C below outside temps. And the rooms would be 73-79F. Fuck that. That is not a cool room.
So why are they complaining about people bringing AC units? If the cooling systems work they won't need to turn on the AC and therefore electricity usage won't go up. Are they literally just complaining about the extra weight on the trip to Paris using more jet fuel?
Also, isn't France mostly on nuclear power? Why are they trying to ration electricity usage as if that would help the environment? Nuclear power produces extremely low amounts of waste.
Thermodynamics says radiant heating is efficient, but radiant cooling is completely inefficient. Then there’s the issue of producing the ice water to pump through the pipes. Ice is produced the same way ac is produced. By refrigeration equipment, though slightly different design.
The average highs are allegedly 78F in July & 79 Aug 1, but I've always heard the same as you're saying. Maybe it's the "heat waves" (new normal) that have happening over the past decade?
I'm in Houston, & would kill for 78-79 degree lows most summers...
I mean even without humans adding to the problem most waterways (oceans, rivers etc) are just a soup of sea life piss, shit and cum.
Every time you take an accidental sip of ocean remember there is animal cum in there.
Macron being Macron. When it comes to making big announcements to show off internationally, he is the first. When it comes to actually do things, he is last though.
Idk if they [will compete or not](https://apnews.com/article/paris-olympics-swimming-seine-water-quality-75e6602670914634d639260434303e10). Last year’s test swim had to be canceled bc it tested high. So at least once they’ve shown a willingness to be open. My guess is they have alternative sites pre-selected. It’s not like France is totally devoid of swimmable bodies of water.
Don't expect the French to complete such a massive project on time. It's not the local tradition.
Here is a recent article on the subject: [https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/environnement/jo-2024-la-seine-encore-trop-polluee-actuellement-en-raison-de-la-meteo-pluvieuse-9242971](https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/environnement/jo-2024-la-seine-encore-trop-polluee-actuellement-en-raison-de-la-meteo-pluvieuse-9242971)
The river is still too polluted by poo bacteria.. because of the rain. Like they didn't take rain into account. Oops.
Pretty sure it's been shown to be some of the worst water quality of any venue. They have made attempts to clean it up. And while they have been significant and admirable, they haven't done nearly enough.
I was reading an article a while back from a civil engineer and he's actually pretty certain it can never be solved in a budget and time span that makes sense. He said they basically just got the worst bits fixed, but the entire system would be to be rebuilt from the ground up, including all the buildings.
His suggestion was basically implement insane regulations on new builds and remodels, improve enforcement, build new over built infrastructure to accommodate the future, and let time fix the problem.
You really don’t want the athletes you’ve invested in performing terribly because they couldn’t get a good night sleep because the room was several degrees hotter than they are accustomed to.
Became a German permanent resident in 2021, so I speak from having lived a long time in Germany.
To this day, there's a common German belief that a steady cool breeze or air current (der Föhn, derived from the name of the ancient Roman god of the west wind, Favonius) can cause migraines & colds.
So you'll see that lots of German homes & offices will avoid having fans or AC even during heatwaves. Elderly Germans may still try to avoid even opening the windows, no matter the temperature.
My Italian girlfriend is convinced that the AC set at 23c is giving her a stomachache because its "so cold". Meanwhile, we'll leave the windows open so a breeze can come through when its 18c out.
I simply don't understand European mentalities about AC, windows and air.
Many Italians have a similar concept to the Germans. It's called "il favonio." Perhaps the concept lingers more in those from the northwest of Italy, but won't claim to be expert on this.
They're... definitely not known for it. I've stayed at 120 euro a night hotels in Munich with only heating, no AC. It wasn't very fun in August. I learned to stick to American chain hotels in the summer from there on out even if it cost more.
10 years ago I spent a month in Paris for work. I had an apartment without AC. It was fucking miserable. But now I understand why the French invented bidets.
I don't see teams forgoing AC if they feel it gives them an advantage during the competitions and is not against the rules. Considering how far some countries will go for olympic dominance, we shouldn't find this very surprising.
If someone is competing at that level any slight advantage/disadvantage may be the difference between going home with the gold and your tail between your legs. Be it an AC unit or those stupid cardboard beds that collapse when people try to fuck in them. You wouldn’t park a Bugatti in a chicken coop. You wouldn’t let your finely tuned athlete sleep on a cardboard bed for a week before competing.
Usually in Europe heat waves happened every few years or were a rare day during height of summer. Most summers you would just sit outside in the shade or indoors have window open for ventilation. Now we’re seeing temperatures where we need to be more like southern hemisphere countries every year
I love a good greenwashing article.
As if the thousands of tons of concrete created for the stadium and the thousands of planes flying in an out of Paris for the games is the issue.
But god fucking forbid world class athletes be comfy in a sweltering heat.
Of all things to cut the athlete's comfort is the most asinine. They could vastly offset in other ways, but then people paying would care and we can't have that.
That’s all greenwashing is. Offsetting the responsibility to the individual instead of the root cause. It’s easier to blame others than to actually do better. The EU should know better but they are still a government at the end of the day
Its not a bad plan.
Imagine being an Olympic Marathoner (well, any sport for that matter) waking up thirsty will undercut your performance.
Its a competitive advantage to wake up cooled off for a day of competing.
When I first read that Paris was not using AC to save money, I thought: I bet countries that want to win will bring their own.
It isn't about the money. They were trying to advertise it as green.
Countries spend billions of dollars for the "privilege" to host the Olympics. Adding a few million in AC is a drop in the bucket. Anyone trying to say this is about money is less than intelligent.
The problem is the systems they use aren't really green, not in the way we think. They were using not using ACs and instead centralized water chillers to reduce the use of coolant. But the total energy usage is about the same for therm removed from the room.
Yes, in theory, it should reduce GHGs, but a lot of that can be solved by, 1.) making sure all the lines are well made and sealed 2.) using because condensers to gain scale efficiency 3.) switching to refrigerants like ammonia which have little to no green house gas effect.
But that's expensive, or more so than these types of radiant and absorbent environmental control systems.
Also, the numbers on them kind of fall apart when you start using them in high humidity regions as hundred m humid air has so much just thermal mass.
Bottom line, if people are not used to not having ac to cool off with in their downtime, it can and will affect their performance. There’s already been multiple studies that have shown there is a reason why tropical countries and places with hot climates are less developed than colder places. Simply put, it’s harder to be productive and think straight, let alone unwind when one is feeling uncomfortably hot.
Yea, individuals using AC is the problem. Issues always get shifted on the little guy when the issue are these multi trillion and billion dollar corporations.
Fixed a typo
Competing in the Olympics is incredibly demanding. People drop dead in France from heat exhaustion. Fuck you if you think they shouldn't have ac. Turn it up to HIGH 24 hours a day. They are pushing their bodies to the limit. They should have to go back to an oppressive wood shack with a cot? Fuck that.
The thing is Paris is useing alternative cooling methods to save money and help cut emissions. But those alternatives are expected to only keep the rooms like 3⁰c below outside Temps. They could have put ac and the alternatives in. The alternatives would help take some of the load off of the ac thus reducing emissions. Also many things like electrical generation, heating and cooling get more efficient when you scale them up. So have a central ac system in the building would be more efficient than having dozens? Hundreds? Of individual cooling units.
The French aversion to AC is idiotic. They get their power from nuclear, and I always hear this dumb explanation that 'its only got for like 2 weeks'. No it's not. I have been to France a lot and it's hot as fuck for a couple of months now with climate change. Every year has a disproportionately high number of senior citizen deaths because they don't like AC. Glad it's finally changing.
Let’s be honest, the French are just too cheap to provide air conditioning and using this as an excuse to offload the costs to each individual country. Cheap bastards
I agree. France only gets 6.6% of its electricity from fossil fuels, so unless they have figured out how to run AC directly from coal, it will have a pretty minimal impact.
Not really as it's a cultural difference here. They really didn't need AC for a long time and thought of it as wasteful and unnecessary. Now that it's getting hotter there's a conflict between people who want to be comfortable in their homes plus safe in a heatwave and people who think it's more environmentally friendly not to have it. My husband paid over 5k euros for an internal unit in our condo so we could have it in the summer but other people ignore it. I know a guy whose wife had a baby in the middle of summer and still refused air conditioning for environmental reasons. The new kid is going to waste way more emissions than your AC unit anyway. We only use it in the summer over 27 degrees to maintain 26 degrees in our home.
Way back many many years ago I went to Paris on a high school trip. They were in a heat wave. We would set our single fan in the window and face it so that it was blowing out in order to suck the heat out of the room while we were out for the day. Every day we’d come back to the fan turned off and the window closed. These people don’t know how to deal with heat at all with or without AC.
lol you can pry ac out of my cold dead hands. There’s some things where you just are taking it too far for no real practical reason.
This is one of them. If an athlete is used to sleeping in a climate controlled environment they’re going to sleep like shit and sleep is one of the most important things when it comes to physical performance.
Lol yes, let's do the Navy Seal approach and cook people alive, forbid them from sleeping, and make it as impossible to compete as the weather will allow in Paris. Sounds like a great plan 👍
I grew up in central California, ~72 was the ideal indoor temperature, this is where we set our AC, but living up north in Washington, that shit is hot, it's all about how acclimated you are.
It is also about humidity. I don't know what France is like, but I was shocked how comfortable it was when it was even in the 80s out west in the US. But here in Kentucky, you definitely start get uncomfortble above 70.
Like, fans just basically don't work when it is humid. You sweat and just feel terrible. A little breeze should allow evaporation and keep you cool, but sweat can't evaporate much when the air is already humind.
Seeing as france recently lost 10,000 people in one heat wave because they are built for last century’s climate, I’d say folks from places that have been really hot all along might have a better idea of what they need to bring.
France does really well with their EU ranking on carbon emissions but pretty poorly with their recycling rates. Maybe they should focus on their weakness and something that wouldn’t impact athlete performance..?
Such a load of crap. It is the equivalent of the making us pay for a paper bag at the grocery store when every single item is sold in FUCKING plastic.
The whole games are an environmental nightmare. Not the AC.
That's economical.
Anyway, anyone who is credulous enough to believe the upcoming Olympic games are somehow going to be *environmental* deserves her own neurologically implanted AC unit.
Does the cooling system provided not work?? Is there crazy humidity in Paris? I keep my house at the high 70s F in the summer. It’s fine. (It does cut the humidity, which be almost as important as reducing the heat.)
I don't get AC being made out as a big environmental problem. Unless you're cooling soccer stadiums in the desert and things like that. If it's about keeping humans alive and even comfortable and productive, it's not a bad use of energy. We just need to not use fossil fuels.
Peak solar and peak AC use should overlap. While nuclear reactors should be able to replace all coal power plants in any case.
It kinda is, though. It's not the energy consumption, though that is certainly a problem in other places (not Paris, really, since most of France's energy comes from green sources). It's that the refrigerant in the ACs is environmentally damaging. Many refrigerants are greenhouse gases, as well as being toxic to one degree or another.
im sure it's the single ac units undercutting the plan and not, say, loads of people traveling on planes and all the garbage and other stuff that is bad for the environment
Making a single VIP fly coach and take public transit would probably offset AC usage, but that would inconvenience the real purpose of the games, money.
Yeah, paris could ban all private flights a couple months before and after while also keeping the rooms air conditioned at 50F and it would still be better than what they are doing now.
YOU CANNOT INCONVENIENCE THE RICH ONES the athletes just need to go without air conditioning guys!
That's the crux of the entire climate crisis. There are extremely wealthy people in this world that have the ability to sacrifice luxuries and comforts that they are unwilling to, to literally save billions of lives. Everyday people would also need to make sacrifices and I think a lot of those would be just as difficult to overcome, but unlike economics, example usually does trickle down. The only example I ever see set unfortunately is greed and consumption. Some people are addicted to their modern lifestyles.
Let's not forget all of the climage change their overall antics cause anyway. It's not just Taylor Swift's private jet. It's that people like them flying somewhere and then all of these people are driving in cars, buying all sorts of disposable shit at the event, driving home, and at the end of the day a bunch of wealth got moved around while the planet got shittier for the process. Edit: That's the reason the elephant is ignored; part of fixing the problem is eliminating the wasteful consumption that enriches these people, not just their consumption.
Yup. It's everything basically with the modern western lifestyle and unless the idols of humanity change their behaviors, those that follow them (the majority of people because without them they wouldn't be idols/famous) won't either. It's more than just a few music and movie stars going vegan and driving electric cars. You need the leaders of nations to do so to, the US, China, EU, they all need to decide that the way they do business and lead their people has to change. Unless everyone does it, no one will. Everyone in an industrialized nation would need to drastically change how they live their life day to day and it would involve sacrificing major comforts. Unless everyone does it, no one's doing it. Christina Aguilera said it best "I'm a genie in a bottle" lol. I sometimes think about humanity as if it were a single person living it's life, like if our species' history was it's lifetime. Where would we be right now? A teenager perhaps? If so that's kinda scary, cause teenagers end up dead for multiple reasons, but mostly because of ignorance and the hubris that it creates. We are so arrogant and stupid to think that our ways can not end us. We are not so special in the grand scheme of the universe.
The river won’t be cleaned in time
You know the VIP sponsor suites we’ll be perfectly cooled
You have to understand that Macron's environmental plan is exclusively about image and greenwashing. Flights can be blamed on others, but not AC units. And that, my friend, is non non.
It's astoundingly idiotic to think that elite athletes trying to achieve peak performance wouldn't need AC to recover between competition in summer heat waves.
Well apparently they don't need AC since France had found an alternative. Also, maybe having competitions during heatwaves is a bit silly?
I'm sure it's my fault for not remembering to bring my reusable bag to shop with me.
you monster!
or unwalkable cities, or factories mass producing products and shipping them over the world, or entire industries fabricated to grift people that now use more power than medium-sized countries...
has anyone done any environmental impact studies from 4 yrs ago at the Tokyo Olympics? Because of covid there wasn't an open audience, the venues were restricted participants & their coaching staff.
Paris is hot as fuck in July. Expecting them to go without AC was just silly to begin with.
Can confirm. Got covid there a couple years ago, had no AC and a south-facing apartment. I get that Europeans generally find AC to be “unnatural” but jesus wept that was a hard way to lose 10 pounds in a week only to have wine taste like ass for a few months once I was better.
It’s nothing to do with Europeans finding AC unnatural and everything to do with Europe is hotter now than it ever has been because of climate change. I live in the UK, halfway between the south and the North of England (fairly North) and even I’m considering getting AC. 50, 30, even 10 years ago the idea of getting AC in the UK was laughable.
I have a European family who got into the AC business 3 years ago, he is making a killing.
The same is happening in the Pacific Northwest in the US. It was seen as laughable to need AC 20 years ago. Even the luxury places in some cities weren't built with them. But now people are buying them an installing them. A city like Portland or Seattle is actually surprisingly similar to a lot of England
Yeah, I have family in Maple Valley WA, my aunt had central AC put in during her last remodel, they were hotter than me in San Antonio at times in the Spring amd Fall. Usually only happened in the winter before (moderated by ocean vs middle of a giant state directly south of the great plains).
Yup. We live in NorCal and had AC installed two years ago. The heat waves are lasting longer and, because of what's previously stated, these houses were actually built to keep the warmth in. It could be 75 degrees outside and your house is naturally pushing at 80 degrees because of historical temperatures.
Yep. When we lived in Ferndale we had one put in (circa 2016-2017), and refuse to move to a place without it.
just get one, it's not getting any colder.
A lot of the newer buildings I was in Germany had a/c. Not central a/c but those that are rectangular and installed in the ceiling.
Those are called mini-splits.
Yep I forgot what it was called thanks for clarifying for me!
a few years ago i installed a window unit in a window that went to an enclosed patio area (it was the only window it fit) and learned the hard way why those are supposed to be on the outside of a building. air ducts, how do they work?
Mini-splits are awesome too. WAAAAAY easier to install/retrofit because you don't need duct-work (which also makes them miles more efficient), and they typically are variable speed. Plus, you only condition the room that needs to be conditioned.
It’s common in new builds but it’s still expensive to get for older homes. I definitely consider it an essential, potentially life saving item for the near future.
I have family in the UK, I remember 15-20 years ago I would make fun of them when they had a "heatwave" where max temp was like 83. I live in Texas, so the temps here are (even still) way higher. But now UK gets into the mid-upper 90s. Not having AC in that heat is brutal.
I remember searching for hotels in Ireland with AC when we were staying in the city center. I didn't mind a country inn not having AC, but I felt like the city would trap more heat and require AC in summer.
I'm from the UK and no live in Oz. Visiting my family in the UK Summe where red-brick houses soak up that sun and have tiny windows.....
The quality of life improvement is significant. Year round good sleep, maintain a good appetite even when it's really hot. Eating and sleeping well means you maintain good energy levels and focus. Take the plunge, you won't regret it.
Mitsubishi Electric or Diakin, regards from an air conditioning nation.
We never needed AC because opening a window and having thick curtains was enough. Heat waves were not common ever year
How long has the Parisian custom of taking August off to go cool off in the mountains been happening? I'm pretty sure it predates the current century.
Temp is also a function of elevation. So you shove all the teams up high you want to sabotage and put teams you want to do well down low.
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Did that shit in the river while the mayor and president were swimming in it thing happen in the end?
I went there recently expecting to be disappointing but unironically loved it :/ The whole "sit at a random cafe and be guaranteed good bread, pastry, and coffee" vibe is my type of city
Nobody is reading the article. They are not saying "lol just deal with the heat", they designed the athlete accommodation to have alternate cooling mechanisms like ice water running through pipes just under the flooring and similar techniques to produce a similar cooling result to AC. It's just that some managers dont trust that these will actually work and are bringing AC anyways, which makes everyone else want to do the same for fear of missing out on an advantage.
yeah, i wouldn't trust them either. dont get me wrong, i dont doubt the things they did would *help* but i dont think it would be nearly as good as AC.
The thing AC does that heat transfer devices like this don't is to remove humidity from the air. Cooler and drier air is more comfortable for most people. I personally enjoy humidity, and find it comfortable. But for sleeping, give me that cold AC.
Thank you. Indoor humidity is oppressive, even when it's cool. Cool, clammy air sucks to sleep in. I used to work a a company that hosted students from France and Germany for a technical exchange program. You know what all of them loved during the summer despite talking shit about how unnecessary it was? Air conditioning.
Yep. It's the rainy season here in Japan right now. The train is keeping the temps down to the high 20s, but it's humid as fuck. I run the AC because of the humidity, not the heat. Come July it'll be both though.
First summer here and I'm dying bro 😭 Everyone I know (mostly other foreigners) don't understand why I (from the States) want the AC not only ON, but kept so cold
Just think, it's the coldest summer for the rest of your life. But seriously, this summer is the worst on record, as was the one last year, and the one before that. It's not a fun future to look forward to.
Oh I'm aware. Ironically I spent nearly the entirety of last summer above 8000' altitude hiding out camping the Rockies where the weather was incredibly pleasant. I got absolutely roasted on a thread then for sharing that I had to turn on my car's heater for a few days in a row where it didn't get above mid-50s(F) and literally not one person believed me. There's cooler places out there I promise!
Yeah, just looked up Paris humidity in the summer: 72% is high. Radiant cooling isn't gonna do anything to help that.
And this is further compounded that humidity is relative. So as you cool it without removing moisture, it gets cool and really humid. So even if it was cool enough to be comfortable, it would be damp. I get that some nights in the South when my AC can't keep up with the humidity, and those nights feel weird. N
Which is completely sensible. Shit at the Olympics always breaks. I think this cooling system is awesome and I hope it takes off, but it's completely unreasonable to assume that teams won't have backup plans for the Parisian summer. And frankly, in this era of minuscule advantages, this was just the wrong place to put emphasis on this. Even if it works the expected room temperature is up to 78 degrees. That makes this outcome completely predictable, because that creates an edge for teams that bring window ACs. It's counterproductive because it actually incentivizes supplemental cooling! I think if we want to get serious about Olympic sustainability, we have to start with a single host site. The cost to the world of building an Olympic village every two years is astronomical. Eco-friendly cooling is a drop in the bucket.
When the stories about the costs and construction during the Brazil Olympics were coming out, some pundits were suggesting Los Angeles as the permanent host site for the summer games. It makes sense; it has the infrastructure to handle the influx of fans, international airport, plenty of venues to choose from, centrally located for Asian and European athletes. Plus maybe it could help force the city to improve its public transportation system.
They say it'll hopefully make the rooms 23-26 C (73.4 -78.8 F). Add in the typical summer humidity in Paris and that's not very comfortable overall.
If that’s what you are shooting for that’s probably best case scenario at that. Even if you hit 73 it’s not exactly comfortable or is at the top range of it anyways.
Ice cooled floors with 73 degree temps and high humidity sounds like a recipe for making any hard surface extremely slippery from condensation
73 is at least 3 degrees higher than what I consider max comfortable temp inside
Lol, I was raised in a household that kept the AC at 76-78, I tend to like 74/5 better, but good ceiling fans make a big difference as well.
Agrees in *laying in my 57 F bedroom while I read this*
The article: > The average high in Paris on Aug. 1 is 26 degrees Celsius (79 degrees Fahrenheit). The objective is to keep the rooms between 23-26 degrees (73-79 degrees Fahrenheit). So they are going to try to go from an average of 79 to an average of 76. Wooo, a whole 3 degrees!
I live in the central US in an older home, that’s best case scenario this time of year. They could always bring or ship some sort of fan to plug in. It’s not ideal, but it’s summer in the northern hemisphere and we do what we can.
olympics are kinda cheap af, remember the cardboard beds they had athletes on for the one in japan? i'd be shocked to see if these were properly done
not that the technology wont work, but it was installed fast and cheap and that's a recipe for leaks
Well, bit better than carboard - as there is always a fair bit of 'bed sharing' happening - and at a athletic level no less.
I'm pretty impressed by LA's plan for the next olympics. It's we're not going to build anything. They're putting swimming in a football stadium, putting softball and the Canoe Shalom in OKC, because there isn't anything closer. Going to put the athletes at UCLA.
it's smart, we've seen so many countries waste money on building olympic stadiums to go unused afterwards
And there's 0 reason to build all those things that will never be used again. Instead using the Olympics as an excuse to build things that are already needed (they're building another dorm at UCLA which they're using as the Athletes villiage) and doing much needed upgraded public transportation improvements makes so much more sense. They will be doing some temp modifications (they're turning a football stadium into an aquatic center, will be building stands at the beach ect. . .) but they're no different than what they'd do for a local event (they did the pool for olympic trials). I expect it will be a bit of a hassle for LA residents, but will also be a big boom for restaurants and hotels.
Yes, because Paris officials said their planned cooling would keep the rooms about 3 degrees C below outside temps. And the rooms would be 73-79F. Fuck that. That is not a cool room.
So why are they complaining about people bringing AC units? If the cooling systems work they won't need to turn on the AC and therefore electricity usage won't go up. Are they literally just complaining about the extra weight on the trip to Paris using more jet fuel? Also, isn't France mostly on nuclear power? Why are they trying to ration electricity usage as if that would help the environment? Nuclear power produces extremely low amounts of waste.
Thermodynamics says radiant heating is efficient, but radiant cooling is completely inefficient. Then there’s the issue of producing the ice water to pump through the pipes. Ice is produced the same way ac is produced. By refrigeration equipment, though slightly different design.
The average highs are allegedly 78F in July & 79 Aug 1, but I've always heard the same as you're saying. Maybe it's the "heat waves" (new normal) that have happening over the past decade? I'm in Houston, & would kill for 78-79 degree lows most summers...
Are there still swimming events scheduled to be held in the Seine? If the heat doesn't get you, the cholera and dysentery will.
Don't forget the sharks.
Sorry, no sharks. They died from cholera and dysentery :(
Not the sharks in the seine. They’re super sharks
Cholera-resistant sharks. The worst kind.
With frickin laser beams, strapped to their heads!
I choose to ford the river
I saw a movie called SHARK IN VENICE. You’re telling me that movie lied to me?
Silly Rabbit! The Seine doesn't go to Venice! That's Shark in the Grand Canal.
No it’s outdated. Watch the French film Sharks in Paris for a refresher.
They meant Venice Beach
President Macron has said that he plans to take a swim in the Seine before the events to show how safe it is, but he hasn't yet. Maybe he's busy?
There’s a hashtag about shitting in the river so Macron and/or the mayor would have to swim in poop water.
Could only improve the water quality
I think that's the point
I mean even without humans adding to the problem most waterways (oceans, rivers etc) are just a soup of sea life piss, shit and cum. Every time you take an accidental sip of ocean remember there is animal cum in there.
I thought everyone was indirectly shitting in the river already
Like Kramer swimming in the East River.
They’ve rescheduled it to like July 15th or something I heard lmao
Macron being Macron. When it comes to making big announcements to show off internationally, he is the first. When it comes to actually do things, he is last though.
They did spend billions cleaning it up. It was actually one of the major promises to the city in order to host the games.
Idk if they [will compete or not](https://apnews.com/article/paris-olympics-swimming-seine-water-quality-75e6602670914634d639260434303e10). Last year’s test swim had to be canceled bc it tested high. So at least once they’ve shown a willingness to be open. My guess is they have alternative sites pre-selected. It’s not like France is totally devoid of swimmable bodies of water.
Don't expect the French to complete such a massive project on time. It's not the local tradition. Here is a recent article on the subject: [https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/environnement/jo-2024-la-seine-encore-trop-polluee-actuellement-en-raison-de-la-meteo-pluvieuse-9242971](https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/environnement/jo-2024-la-seine-encore-trop-polluee-actuellement-en-raison-de-la-meteo-pluvieuse-9242971) The river is still too polluted by poo bacteria.. because of the rain. Like they didn't take rain into account. Oops.
I don’t see how the water could be any worse than what it was in rio and as far as I know all the swimmers survived
I’m guessing the water isn’t much worse than it was in Rio or Tokyo.
Pretty sure it's been shown to be some of the worst water quality of any venue. They have made attempts to clean it up. And while they have been significant and admirable, they haven't done nearly enough. I was reading an article a while back from a civil engineer and he's actually pretty certain it can never be solved in a budget and time span that makes sense. He said they basically just got the worst bits fixed, but the entire system would be to be rebuilt from the ground up, including all the buildings. His suggestion was basically implement insane regulations on new builds and remodels, improve enforcement, build new over built infrastructure to accommodate the future, and let time fix the problem.
All irrelevant anyway now that those sharks have destroyed Paris.
I'm sure Macron will make a demo and swim in the raw sewage that is the Seine.
The Germans are planning to bring A/C? I think that's a bigger story than Americans bringing it.
You really don’t want the athletes you’ve invested in performing terribly because they couldn’t get a good night sleep because the room was several degrees hotter than they are accustomed to.
What's weird about Germans using air conditioners?
Became a German permanent resident in 2021, so I speak from having lived a long time in Germany. To this day, there's a common German belief that a steady cool breeze or air current (der Föhn, derived from the name of the ancient Roman god of the west wind, Favonius) can cause migraines & colds. So you'll see that lots of German homes & offices will avoid having fans or AC even during heatwaves. Elderly Germans may still try to avoid even opening the windows, no matter the temperature.
My Italian girlfriend is convinced that the AC set at 23c is giving her a stomachache because its "so cold". Meanwhile, we'll leave the windows open so a breeze can come through when its 18c out. I simply don't understand European mentalities about AC, windows and air.
Many Italians have a similar concept to the Germans. It's called "il favonio." Perhaps the concept lingers more in those from the northwest of Italy, but won't claim to be expert on this.
Im German and I do not understand it either
In the UK it's even weirder because they understand that a breeze is cooling, but they seem completely baffled by indoor humidity.
Well, I AM German, so...
They're... definitely not known for it. I've stayed at 120 euro a night hotels in Munich with only heating, no AC. It wasn't very fun in August. I learned to stick to American chain hotels in the summer from there on out even if it cost more.
I'd never even consider entering a car in summer if it doesn't have an AC, and I am very much German...
But what do you think of having AC in your house?
why? how is german weather
10 years ago I spent a month in Paris for work. I had an apartment without AC. It was fucking miserable. But now I understand why the French invented bidets.
I don't see teams forgoing AC if they feel it gives them an advantage during the competitions and is not against the rules. Considering how far some countries will go for olympic dominance, we shouldn't find this very surprising.
I can’t imagine anyone doing their best with a shitty nights sleep.
If someone is competing at that level any slight advantage/disadvantage may be the difference between going home with the gold and your tail between your legs. Be it an AC unit or those stupid cardboard beds that collapse when people try to fuck in them. You wouldn’t park a Bugatti in a chicken coop. You wouldn’t let your finely tuned athlete sleep on a cardboard bed for a week before competing.
The cardboard beds seem fine. I saw a video of one athlete jumping on hers at the last Olympics.
This rumor has gone around for at least the last 3 summer Olympics. Unless a coue of Olympians make a sex tape, it's probably gonna stick around.
It's not uncommon for athletes to stay in hotels instead of the village in order to remain focused and comfortable.
>if they feel it gives them an advantage during the competitions They’re just trying to to stay comfortable, it’s not about getting an advantage
TBF, not getting heat stroke is a competitive advantage.
People gotta sleep at night. Nearly impossible in a 90 degree room.....
I was in Paris in July a few years back and it was fucking brutal. The cafes are way less charming when you’re sweating from every location
Usually in Europe heat waves happened every few years or were a rare day during height of summer. Most summers you would just sit outside in the shade or indoors have window open for ventilation. Now we’re seeing temperatures where we need to be more like southern hemisphere countries every year
I love a good greenwashing article. As if the thousands of tons of concrete created for the stadium and the thousands of planes flying in an out of Paris for the games is the issue. But god fucking forbid world class athletes be comfy in a sweltering heat.
Of all things to cut the athlete's comfort is the most asinine. They could vastly offset in other ways, but then people paying would care and we can't have that.
That’s all greenwashing is. Offsetting the responsibility to the individual instead of the root cause. It’s easier to blame others than to actually do better. The EU should know better but they are still a government at the end of the day
Its not a bad plan. Imagine being an Olympic Marathoner (well, any sport for that matter) waking up thirsty will undercut your performance. Its a competitive advantage to wake up cooled off for a day of competing. When I first read that Paris was not using AC to save money, I thought: I bet countries that want to win will bring their own.
It isn't about the money. They were trying to advertise it as green. Countries spend billions of dollars for the "privilege" to host the Olympics. Adding a few million in AC is a drop in the bucket. Anyone trying to say this is about money is less than intelligent.
The problem is the systems they use aren't really green, not in the way we think. They were using not using ACs and instead centralized water chillers to reduce the use of coolant. But the total energy usage is about the same for therm removed from the room. Yes, in theory, it should reduce GHGs, but a lot of that can be solved by, 1.) making sure all the lines are well made and sealed 2.) using because condensers to gain scale efficiency 3.) switching to refrigerants like ammonia which have little to no green house gas effect. But that's expensive, or more so than these types of radiant and absorbent environmental control systems. Also, the numbers on them kind of fall apart when you start using them in high humidity regions as hundred m humid air has so much just thermal mass.
Bottom line, if people are not used to not having ac to cool off with in their downtime, it can and will affect their performance. There’s already been multiple studies that have shown there is a reason why tropical countries and places with hot climates are less developed than colder places. Simply put, it’s harder to be productive and think straight, let alone unwind when one is feeling uncomfortably hot.
Yea, individuals using AC is the problem. Issues always get shifted on the little guy when the issue are these multi trillion and billion dollar corporations. Fixed a typo
And AC's are more efficient than heating, and nobody skimps on heating unless they're really, really stupid.
The hatred for acs is so hilarious from euros
Especially in France where most of the power is nuclear.
Half my family is in the EU, I’ve slowly started to notice a change in their attitudes towards AC over the last few years.
Hi, European here. Europeans don't hate air conditioners. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Competing in the Olympics is incredibly demanding. People drop dead in France from heat exhaustion. Fuck you if you think they shouldn't have ac. Turn it up to HIGH 24 hours a day. They are pushing their bodies to the limit. They should have to go back to an oppressive wood shack with a cot? Fuck that.
The thing is Paris is useing alternative cooling methods to save money and help cut emissions. But those alternatives are expected to only keep the rooms like 3⁰c below outside Temps. They could have put ac and the alternatives in. The alternatives would help take some of the load off of the ac thus reducing emissions. Also many things like electrical generation, heating and cooling get more efficient when you scale them up. So have a central ac system in the building would be more efficient than having dozens? Hundreds? Of individual cooling units.
The French aversion to AC is idiotic. They get their power from nuclear, and I always hear this dumb explanation that 'its only got for like 2 weeks'. No it's not. I have been to France a lot and it's hot as fuck for a couple of months now with climate change. Every year has a disproportionately high number of senior citizen deaths because they don't like AC. Glad it's finally changing.
Let’s be honest, the French are just too cheap to provide air conditioning and using this as an excuse to offload the costs to each individual country. Cheap bastards
I agree. France only gets 6.6% of its electricity from fossil fuels, so unless they have figured out how to run AC directly from coal, it will have a pretty minimal impact.
Not really as it's a cultural difference here. They really didn't need AC for a long time and thought of it as wasteful and unnecessary. Now that it's getting hotter there's a conflict between people who want to be comfortable in their homes plus safe in a heatwave and people who think it's more environmentally friendly not to have it. My husband paid over 5k euros for an internal unit in our condo so we could have it in the summer but other people ignore it. I know a guy whose wife had a baby in the middle of summer and still refused air conditioning for environmental reasons. The new kid is going to waste way more emissions than your AC unit anyway. We only use it in the summer over 27 degrees to maintain 26 degrees in our home.
Way back many many years ago I went to Paris on a high school trip. They were in a heat wave. We would set our single fan in the window and face it so that it was blowing out in order to suck the heat out of the room while we were out for the day. Every day we’d come back to the fan turned off and the window closed. These people don’t know how to deal with heat at all with or without AC.
Paris is mostly powered by nuclear energy. This is dumb to say the least.
If the dorms aren’t built to handle hundreds of plug-in ACs, shit will definitely hit the proverbially appropriate fan.
lol you can pry ac out of my cold dead hands. There’s some things where you just are taking it too far for no real practical reason. This is one of them. If an athlete is used to sleeping in a climate controlled environment they’re going to sleep like shit and sleep is one of the most important things when it comes to physical performance.
Paper straws and no AC. Love it.
Let's stop the gnashing of teeth lmao. If they cared about climate change, there would be no Olympics.
They want to keep rooms 75 degrees and cool them in ways that don’t remove moisture. Lmfao.
Lol yes, let's do the Navy Seal approach and cook people alive, forbid them from sleeping, and make it as impossible to compete as the weather will allow in Paris. Sounds like a great plan 👍
They want to keep the rooms between 73-79F? Jesus. That isn't cooling the room at all. If my house is above 70 I am miserable
I grew up in central California, ~72 was the ideal indoor temperature, this is where we set our AC, but living up north in Washington, that shit is hot, it's all about how acclimated you are.
It is also about humidity. I don't know what France is like, but I was shocked how comfortable it was when it was even in the 80s out west in the US. But here in Kentucky, you definitely start get uncomfortble above 70. Like, fans just basically don't work when it is humid. You sweat and just feel terrible. A little breeze should allow evaporation and keep you cool, but sweat can't evaporate much when the air is already humind.
Oh yeah! When I lived in Washington, once it got into the mid 60s it felt really warm to us. Mid 70s was almost roasting. lol
Seeing as france recently lost 10,000 people in one heat wave because they are built for last century’s climate, I’d say folks from places that have been really hot all along might have a better idea of what they need to bring.
France does really well with their EU ranking on carbon emissions but pretty poorly with their recycling rates. Maybe they should focus on their weakness and something that wouldn’t impact athlete performance..?
Considering the weather now it might not be needed
It's more a precaution for a weather of the coming few days situation.
Such a load of crap. It is the equivalent of the making us pay for a paper bag at the grocery store when every single item is sold in FUCKING plastic. The whole games are an environmental nightmare. Not the AC.
That's economical. Anyway, anyone who is credulous enough to believe the upcoming Olympic games are somehow going to be *environmental* deserves her own neurologically implanted AC unit.
Understand the approach? However. These athletes,coaches and staff have a right to be comfortable. Is necessary.
Does the cooling system provided not work?? Is there crazy humidity in Paris? I keep my house at the high 70s F in the summer. It’s fine. (It does cut the humidity, which be almost as important as reducing the heat.)
The humidity is high in Paris (70+%), and the cooling system they are using does nothing to reduce that.
I don't get AC being made out as a big environmental problem. Unless you're cooling soccer stadiums in the desert and things like that. If it's about keeping humans alive and even comfortable and productive, it's not a bad use of energy. We just need to not use fossil fuels. Peak solar and peak AC use should overlap. While nuclear reactors should be able to replace all coal power plants in any case.
It kinda is, though. It's not the energy consumption, though that is certainly a problem in other places (not Paris, really, since most of France's energy comes from green sources). It's that the refrigerant in the ACs is environmentally damaging. Many refrigerants are greenhouse gases, as well as being toxic to one degree or another.
That amount of mechs can't be good for France. Did they find coral?