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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 28, 2021 13:03:29 GMT
Pope Francis, Laudato Si' ---
55. Some countries are gradually making significant progress, developing more effective controls and working to combat corruption. People may well have a growing ecological sensitivity but it has not succeeded in changing their harmful habits of consumption which, rather than decreasing, appear to be growing all the more. A simple example is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning. The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand. An outsider looking at our world would be amazed at such behaviour, which at times appears self-destructive.
So have any of us curtailed or given up using air conditioning? If so, why? If not, why not?
Laudato Si' or no Laudato Si', I dislike the idea of having to use air conditioning, but where I live, about ten months out of the year, it's a necessity, or perhaps I should say, a perceived necessity --- prior to the 1960s, millions of people lived here just fine without it. From what I've heard, you just sweated a lot, kept yourself hydrated, and possibly slept fitfully on the hottest nights of the summer, you just "toughed it out", and wealthier folks who could, found cooler areas up-country to stay at during the summer. In Europe, though this is changing (and really hot weather tends to come there sporadically, rather than throughout whole seasons, at least north of the Alps), the idea has generally been "when it's hot, it's hot, and it just can't be helped". In the Global South, many parts of which get extremely hot, I'm assuming it's something that people just don't use, they couldn't afford to run it, even if they had it. Am I understanding correctly?
Just out of curiosity, do they use air conditioning in the Vatican, and is anyone there responding to the Pope's plea?
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Post by katy777 on Sept 28, 2021 13:19:39 GMT
We are one of our rare neighbors who open back windows. We only use the air when it's very humid and hot
People here go from a/c to heat. Windows always shut.
Most buy air purifiers. I like fresh air especially fall air.
And the "Green" Pope is Benedict. Surprise ! 😃
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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 28, 2021 14:26:05 GMT
We are one of our rare neighbors who open back windows. We only use the air when it's very humid and hot People here go from a/c to heat. Windows always shut. Most buy air purifiers. I like fresh air especially fall air. And the "Green" Pope is Benedict. Surprise ! 😃 Not really. He's German. German culture embraces nature, and it's the traditional German view (again, this may be changing) that warm weather is just something to be lived with. Even May and October in Aachen can be kind of steamy, and my hotel didn't have AC. Their idea is that you just open the windows --- no screens, Europeans don't do screens, I've killed my share of mosquitoes over there. Just a more organic way of living. |
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Post by katy777 on Sept 28, 2021 16:18:00 GMT
No really, homeschooldad Pope Benedict was the green pope. Google it, I can't put link here because my phone is wacky. Green pope. Benedict. |
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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 28, 2021 17:54:34 GMT
No really, homeschooldad Pope Benedict was the green pope. Google it, I can't put link here because my phone is wacky. Green pope. Benedict. No, I'm saying I don't doubt it, Benedict is German, and Germans are very fond of the natural environment, Die Gruenen are an established political party, and they love to get out in the open air, do Volksmarching, and the like. I am more familiar with Aachen, than I am with any other German city, and I know they love to go to the mineral springs there, the Carolus Thermen which I have visited, and the part of Aachen near the Aachener Dom, where Charlemagne is laid to rest, smells like honeysuckle. Very pleasant city.
You're making me want to go back. If my son goes to Poland next year with his mother, I'm going to spend that time somewhere in western Europe, so as not to be so far from him. Might be Paris, probably wouldn't be Aachen the whole time --- you could get kind of bored there after a few days --- might be somewhere else.
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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 28, 2021 17:59:54 GMT
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Post by katy777 on Sept 28, 2021 18:04:15 GMT
I'm part Saxon. Anglo Saxon German. Part from Netherlands and rest Scandinavian, per 23 and me.
I throw cans sometimes in the garbage. Eek. Lol.
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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 28, 2021 18:32:45 GMT
I'm part Saxon. Anglo Saxon German. Part from Netherlands and rest Scandinavian, per 23 and me. I throw cans sometimes in the garbage. Eek. Lol. 99 percent British Isles here, per AncestryDNA, and I am a fascist about recycling. I keep two separate garbage bags, and keep bins both in my car, and beside my easy chair.
Much of that British is actually Scots-Irish. The only ethnicity (or, rather, artificially prorupted socio-economic ethnic group, given land in Ulster and elsewhere in Ireland, then the leases ran out and they moved over here) that was ever established in resistance to Catholicism. Imagine that.
Bad history. I had no idea until I had our DNA tested. I have a fourth cousin in Belfast. Never knew until I joined AncestryDNA. A Scots-Irish traditionalist Catholic, yet one other way that I remain... an odd duck... to say the least.
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Post by StellaMaris on Sept 28, 2021 22:54:10 GMT
In the Global South, many parts of which get extremely hot, I'm assuming it's something that people just don't use, they couldn't afford to run it, even if they had it. Am I understanding correctly?
Australia relies on Aircon but the government is actively phasing out technologies that negatively impact the environment. That's been an ongoing project. HVAC. Also solar energy has grown substantially in the last 10 or 15 years. Most new houses are fitted with solar panels that are connected to the electricity grid reducing the need for coal powered electricity. Then work has started on a huge solar farm in the Northern Territory that will service PNG and islands to our north as well as possibly Singapore. www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/northern-territory-to-become-home-to-the-worlds-largest-solar-farm/These sorts of things have been going on for years in response to the climate crisis. Pope Francis didn't initiate that but I see the Church as addressing false attitudes in some prominent Catholic spheres who seem to believe that there is no moral responsibility for people to work for environmental health or that they condemn measures to that end as if they are only politically motivated. Vatican to go green by 2050 |
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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 28, 2021 23:55:43 GMT
In the Global South, many parts of which get extremely hot, I'm assuming it's something that people just don't use, they couldn't afford to run it, even if they had it. Am I understanding correctly?
Australia relies on Aircon but the government is actively phasing out technologies that negatively impact the environment. That's been an ongoing project. HVAC. Also solar energy has grown substantially in the last 10 or 15 years. Most new houses are fitted with solar panels that are connected to the electricity grid reducing the need for coal powered electricity. Then work has started on a huge solar farm in the Northern Territory that will service PNG and islands to our north as well as possibly Singapore. www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/northern-territory-to-become-home-to-the-worlds-largest-solar-farm/These sorts of things have been going on for years in response to the climate crisis. Pope Francis didn't initiate that but I see the Church as addressing false attitudes in some prominent Catholic spheres who seem to believe that there is no moral responsibility for people to work for environmental health or that they condemn measures to that end as if they are only politically motivated. Vatican to go green by 2050
I did not have Australia or New Zealand in mind when I said "Global South". Likewise, I would even hesitate to include Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and probably not the more prosperous parts of Brazil either. To my mind, these are prorupted parts of European-derived culture, not the "Global South". I had in mind the poorer (or "developing", if you prefer) countries of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. South Africa would be a mixed bag, a European-derived, "Western" culture existing side by side with people of color, and having significant economic disparities within it. Israel would be sui generis.
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Post by StellaMaris on Sept 29, 2021 0:55:26 GMT
Australia relies on Aircon but the government is actively phasing out technologies that negatively impact the environment. That's been an ongoing project. HVAC. Also solar energy has grown substantially in the last 10 or 15 years. Most new houses are fitted with solar panels that are connected to the electricity grid reducing the need for coal powered electricity. Then work has started on a huge solar farm in the Northern Territory that will service PNG and islands to our north as well as possibly Singapore. www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/northern-territory-to-become-home-to-the-worlds-largest-solar-farm/These sorts of things have been going on for years in response to the climate crisis. Pope Francis didn't initiate that but I see the Church as addressing false attitudes in some prominent Catholic spheres who seem to believe that there is no moral responsibility for people to work for environmental health or that they condemn measures to that end as if they are only politically motivated. Vatican to go green by 2050
I did not have Australia or New Zealand in mind when I said "Global South". Likewise, I would even hesitate to include Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and probably not the more prosperous parts of Brazil either. To my mind, these are prorupted parts of European-derived culture, not the "Global South".
When you make up definitions in a purely self referential way and act like responders are deficient in understanding, tells me quite a lot. |
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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 29, 2021 1:48:09 GMT
I did not have Australia or New Zealand in mind when I said "Global South". Likewise, I would even hesitate to include Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and probably not the more prosperous parts of Brazil either. To my mind, these are prorupted parts of European-derived culture, not the "Global South".
When you make up definitions in a purely self referential way and act like responders are deficient in understanding, tells me quite a lot. I made up nothing. It has been my understanding that "Global South" refers to a coupling of geographic location and relative poverty, not simply all countries that fall below a certain latitude. If Australians think of themselves as "Global Southerners", that would come as news to me. Unless I'm missing something, they also think of themselves as "Westerners", yet geographically, they are anything but that.
This map from Wikipedia at least partially goes along with my assumption. I do have to wonder how a self-consciously European-cultured person in Buenos Aires would respond, if they were told that they are part of the "Global South". It might depend upon the individual Argentinian.
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Post by RN69 on Sept 29, 2021 7:06:36 GMT
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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 29, 2021 12:59:02 GMT
It doesn't bother me in the least (and, incidentally, I am more in agreement than disagreement with the Pope about this particular comment on a matter of secular prudence), but some Catholics might be scandalized at the suggestion that any sitting Pontiff could have a "myopic viewpoint" on anything. Just a word to the wise. |
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Post by tisbearself on Sept 30, 2021 3:44:08 GMT
I prefer not to live in a dwelling where AC is a necessity to keep from getting heatstroke. I limit myself to purchasing and living in pre-WWII houses. They are less energy-efficient but have better ventilation and they handle extreme temperatures better. I try to go without AC whenever possible, not because of Laudato Si but because it costs money, but I find it is better for me to turn it on when the weather gets above a certain temperature.
I believe the powers that be should look into cooling methods other than just AC, for example, building dwellings in a manner that allows temp regulation based on windows and building structure, and developing neighborhoods in a manner that preserves green space and shade that also helps dwellings in the area to stay cool.
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