The Air Conditioning Test of Energy and Environment Ideas

I have developed a simple test for energy schemes and environmental proposals. It is called the air conditiner test. Europeans don't have air conditioning. During the summer of 2003, 52,000 Europeans died because of the want of air conditioning. In 2003 as Europe experienced its hottest weather in at least 500 years. Indeed, on some summer day, London and Paris were hotter than Dallas! Hotter than Dallas? How is that possible? After all, Dallas in the summer is hotter than hell.

The heat wave in Europe was particularly hard on old people. We know all about that here in Texas. One factor increasing our life expectancy in Texas is the fact that everyone has air conditioning. Heat is just plain deadly. A 1995 heat wave in Chicago killed 700 people. During the 2003 heat wave in France 200o people a day died.

In Texas air conditioners run 24 hours a day all summer. It can be over 100 at 10:00 PM and in the upper 90's on a summer night in Dallas. Keeping the electricity flowing is a 24 hour concern for the old folks of Texas. In fact it is very often a matter of life and death.

Last fall on my other official blog, bartoncii, I debated with a woman who called herself mamajess. (See here, and here.) During my debate with Mama Jess, I pointed out that "I have a serious heart condition. I would not live very long if I were forced to endure the Texas heat [without air conditioning]."

Mama Jess responded: "We are not talking about your particular hardships or situation. We are talking about saving the world."

In another post, I noted: "In the world of Mama Jess and 'Sorties du Nucléaire,' the old and infirmed are to be sacrificed as a necessary expense of eliminating nuclear power as an energy option."

Sorties du Nucléaire is a French ally of Greenpeace that has proposed drastic cuts in French electrical use in order to eliminate the use of nuclear generated power in France. The French Socialist Party endosed the idea during the last French election. If such ideas were implimented in Texas, tens of thousands of older people would die.

The air conditioning test is simple. If an energy scheme forces old people to endure hot (and windless) Texas nights without air condition, thus most likely killing some of them, it is a bad idea.

I am not going to say that mass death is a part of the Greenpeace agenda, but I do think that it is fair to say, that mass death will be a consequence of the realization of Greenpeace's agenda.