OK, the Corona Virus Isn't Going Away. Now What?

[Song80s]

I hear you loud and clear, Craig. I have not met anyone who can predict the future.

 

And I have not met anyone who can forecast the stock market with a fair degree of knowledge.

 

Its the land of 10 million opinions.

 

To reiterate, the stock market is domnated by publicly held corporations, many substantial.

 

Small business are not in the public domain, for trading.

{ FYI, I ran my own business for 8 years. I know the pain]

 

I thoroughly agree with consumer demand being a primary force

and being 65% of GDP. And how that is incredibly challenged

 

It is perplexing how the stock market shrugs off the many and obvious obstacles.

 

I think corporate America has adjusted and there earnings are a primary driver of stock market growth.

[Jazzmammal]

You and I are on the same page Craig and I've written about the market before. It's all about the Fed injecting trillions into the economy to prop things up and because of that many companies are hitting their numbers but the Fed can't do that forever. It's the Fed Greg who's responsible for consumer spending right now and once that stops, it's game over if the majority are not back to work when that happens. I'm doing some limited trading myself so I'm personally involved. I'm up but I'm also conservative about it. If I wasn't so cautious I could have doubled my account rather than being up about 35%. I'm not naive or bragging about this, it's called even a blind squirrel will find a nut once in a while or a rising tide lifts all boats or whatever other cliche you want to use. Anyone with one eye open can see which segments of the market are doing well and pick some likely suspects from that group because they're pretty much all up big.

 

Here's the thing a casual observer doesn't see. The FAANG stocks, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google plus Microsoft and a few others have a total market cap higher than all the other 450+ stocks combined in the entire S & P. Think about that for a second, it's really ridiculous. This rally is extremely narrow, focused mainly on tech and precious metals. Everything else, energy, transportation, leisure including casinos and of course restaurants, autos, retail and many industrial household names are in the tank. Those sectors are a HUGE part of the economy and they are dying on the vine right now. As an American it pains me to see legendary companies like Boeing and Disney so far down. If somebody wants to buy some stock and not think about it for 2 or 3 years buy those two. But, I'm not predicting anything and YMMV, the warranty on my crystal ball expired a looong time ago.

 

Don't be fooled by headlines about the market, they never tell the whole story just like articles and news shows about the virus and masks rarely tell the whole story.

 

Bob

[Song80s]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-august-5-2020-221436218.html

 

Stock market news live updates: Dow adds 200+ points as investors eye vaccine updates, strong earnings

 

Stocks rose Wednesday morning as investors considered a spate of updates around companies" coronavirus vaccine

development and distribution plans,

alongside a batch of stronger than expected corporate earnings results.

[Doerfler]

Don't be fooled by headlines about the market, they never tell the whole story just like articles and news shows about the virus and masks rarely tell the whole story.

 

correct, and don't confuse the stock market with the economy

[Anderton]

Also note that the stock market can shift in minutes due to automated transactions and overeager day traders. The economy as a whole usually has significant latency between cause and effect, unless there's some kind of dramatic event that shakes the system's foundations Even then, that's overlaid on a general trend. (FWIW, it's my experience that presidents get blamed or praised for what happens to the economy during their term, but the forces to create that economy were set in motion by the previous administration - that's how long the latency is.)

[Song80s]

I am not an individual stock speculator .

 

There will always be fluctuations , mood swings, automated traders, over regulations, lack of regulation,

negative news, global trade difficulties, the Fed, money supply, interest rates, economic circumstances, politics,

etc etc etc.

 

These all add an element of risk and uncertainty to investors.

 

I think long term and invested in Vanguard index funds +10 years ago.

I review charts and make comparisons to confirm all is well.

This simple fund approach is working out, and I am enjoying my retirement.

 

It is a mind set and its not for everyone.

[Anderton]

What really surprises me is that people who think the world is coming to an end invest in gold. If everything really does turn to crap, then I think the best investments would be Jack Daniels and pot

[Song80s]

Rationale ?

 

For gold bugs, this apparent decline in fiscal health increases the risk that the government will respond to the rising debt burden by effectively devaluing the USD.

 

For example, if the government were to default on the national debtâwhether deliberately or indirectly, such as by failing to raise the so-called 'debt ceiling'âthis could cause the value of the USD to decline precipitously on international currency exchange markets, which in turn would cause the price of imported goods to rise for US consumers.

 

For gold bugs, therefore, investing in gold can be a way to both hedge against these risks and profit from any potential USD devaluation.

[Jazzmammal]

Don't be fooled by headlines about the market, they never tell the whole story just like articles and news shows about the virus and masks rarely tell the whole story.

 

correct, and don't confuse the stock market with the economy

 

That's what I explained. The market and the economy are at a major divergence right now which is very unusual to say the least. It's looking like we'll have a new stimulus bill by Friday and if we do I'll analyze it and post what I think in the tax thread. What that means for the market is that divergence will continue. The small slice of the market doing great will keep doing great while the rest of the market and economy tries to catch up which it will eventually. When you ask? Like I tell people, do you think it will happen next week? No? How about in two years? Yes? Ok, so my prediction is between next week and two years we'll be skipping along singing happy tunes.

 

Greg, you understand the USD/gold connection. Having some gold exposure doesn't mean the sky is falling and it's time to hide in the bunker with some Jack, it's just another position to snipe some gains from and then gracefully exit. And, unless you're a financial geek with some market experience, I tell my clients to stay away from individual stock investing and stick with funds like Vanguard.

 

Bob

[Doerfler]

That's what I explained.

thanks for explaining to me what you explained

[Anderton]

Rationale .

 

I'm funnin' with ya. Think about it: zombie post-apocalypse survivors show up at your doorstep. I bet they'd take the Jack Daniels or pot over gold

[Notes_Norton]

Rationale .

 

I'm funnin' with ya. Think about it: zombie post-apocalypse survivors show up at your doorstep. I bet they'd take the Jack Daniels or pot over gold

I saw it in a movie, they want your brain. So if you drink a lot of J.D. they get it pickled.

 

There was a man from Spokane

The J.D. had pickled his brain

A zombie attacked, it had a quick snack

And said "I'd like more of the same."

[Notes_Norton]

OK I had to follow the last limerick with another:

 

There was a young man from Pamona

Who laughed in the face of corona

Did not wear a mask, refused to when asked

Now he's hospitalized in Daytona

 

It's all meant in fun.

[Song80s]

Rationale .

 

I'm funnin' with ya. Think about it: zombie post-apocalypse survivors show up at your doorstep. I bet they'd take the Jack Daniels or pot over gold

 

I feel sorry for the zombies if they feast on JD/pot brains

[Notes_Norton]

Rationale .

 

I'm funnin' with ya. Think about it: zombie post-apocalypse survivors show up at your doorstep. I bet they'd take the Jack Daniels or pot over gold

 

I feel sorry for the zombies if they feast on JD/pot brains

They say pickled foods are good for you

[Song80s]

This is my 10,000 Churches

 

 

To honor the tragic deaths of 10,000 Californians to Covid-19

[Notes_Norton]

OK, COVID is spread via aerosol, so wear your mask.

 

From The Smithsonian Magazine:

 

By Jim Daley

smithsonianmag.com

August 12, 2020

 

Over the past few months, an increasing number of scientists, clinicians, and engineers have called for greater recognition that aerosols, in addition to larger droplets can transmit the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. While the difference is literally miniscule, acknowledging this route of transmission would result in significant changes in how the public can bring an end to the global pandemic. In the near term, it would inform social distancing and mask wearing recommendations from local governments, and in the long term, engineers and architects will need to rethink ventilation and air filtration in the design of everything from schools to cruise ships.

 

Aerosols are microscopic particles that can remain airborne for hours, and carry pathogens up to dozens of meters, under the right conditions. Scientists who study airborne infection generally consider aerosols to be particles smaller in diameter than five micrometers, or 0.005 millimeters, less than one-tenth the width of a human hair. Larger droplets, commonly referred to as 'droplets,' expelled by sneezing or coughing tend to fall to the ground or other surfaces rather quickly, while aerosols hang around for minutes to hours. How long a virus can remain airborne depends on the size of the droplet containing it. 'That determines everything about how far it can travel, how long it can stay airborne before it falls to the ground,' says Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech.

 

How long aerosolized viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus, can remain infectious is still unclear, but some experiments have shown it is possible 'for many hours,' says Marr. In one such experiment, published in April in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that aerosols of SARS-CoV-2 sprayed from a nebulizer had a half-lifeâthe time it takes for 50 percent of virus to stop being infectiousâof more than an hour. In another, published in June by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, aerosols containing SARS-CoV-2 stayed infectious for up to 16 hours after being similarly aerosolized.

 

All of the experts who spoke to Smithsonian for this article agreed that the likelihood of the virus being transmittable through aerosols only underscores the need for the public to continue their hand-washing and mask-wearingâwhich blocks aerosol sprays to varying degrees depending on the type of mask worn. The concentration of aerosols is heaviest near an infected person, so social distancing also remains very important for limiting the virus" spread.

 

Jones adds that the possibility of airborne transmission raises the issue of how to protect workers in healthcare and other settings alike. A shortage of respirators means that the devices should go to healthcare workers first, but if they become more widely available, service industry and transportation workers might benefit substantially from access to them. Surgical masks offer some protection, but it may not be enough for workers who routinely interact with the public.

 

For months after the pandemic began, the World Health Organization (WHO) had been hesitant to accept aerosols were a likely transmission route for the coronavirus. The agency suggested that airborne transmission was likely only during certain medical procedures such as intubation, and focused its warnings on infection risks associated with larger droplets expelled by coughing or sneezing. But evidence that the coronavirus could travel via aerosols began piling up. In a study that was published online in May before being peer reviewed, researchers found SARS-CoV-2 could be carried on a person"s breath, and in June, Marr co-authored a study in Indoor Air that added to the evidence the novel coronavirus could be airborne. A commentary published on July 6 in Clinical Infectious Diseases and co-signed by 239 scientists, clinicians, and engineers called on health officials to recognize the possibility of airborne transmission. A day later, the WHO officially announced that the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 can spread via aerosols. Benedetta Allegranzi, technical leader of the WHO task force on infection control denied that the publication of the commentary had any relation with WHO softening its position.

 

'Outside of health care settings, some outbreak reports suggest the possibility of airborne transmission in indoor crowded spaces with poor ventilation,' says Allegranzi in an email to Smithsonian. 'More (and high quality) research is needed to elucidate these kind of settings [and] outbreaks and the relative importance of different transmission routes.'

 

Marr, who co-signed the commentary in Clinical Infectious Diseases, penned an op-ed in the New York Times that called the agency"s updated position 'grudging partial acceptance.' She described the difficulties in determining whether a virus can be airborne to Smithsonian. First, a researcher has to sample the air in a potential area of infection with a device like vacuum cleaner, and then they have to show that any viruses collected with it are still alive and infectious, Marr explains. Finally, they have to determine whether people can get sick if they breathe in the airborne virus. 'All those steps are actually very hard to demonstrate for any particular route of transmission,' she says. Researchers have been able to confirm the first two stepsâthat the novel coronavirus can be carried on aerosols and that it can remain infectiousâand so far demonstrated the third step with ferrets, but not humans.

 

When suggesting infection control measures, epidemiologists typically don"t consider aerosols unless they are seeing transmission travel longer distances, such as between rooms. But that could be looking at airborne transmission backwards, according to Marr. 'I guarantee it"s more important when people are close together,' because the plume of aerosols and respiratory droplets an infected person exhales gets diluted farther away.

 

Rachael Jones, a professor of family and preventative medicine at the University of Utah, published a framework for determining the likelihood of a virus going airborne in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in 2015. Jones says prevailing ideas about infection control that emphasize large-droplet respiratory sprays generated by sneezing or talking don"t reflect the current understanding of aerosols. 'When we measure the viruses in respiratory aerosols, we find a lot of [them] in the smallest particles which can be inhaled,' she says. Infection control procedures oriented around large-droplet transmission focus on controlling droplets that splash onto the face, she added, but if the coronavirus can initiate infection deep in the respiratory tract, tiny aerosols that can carry virus down into it would require procedures be implemented that prevent people from breathing them in.

 

Lidia Morawska, who co-authored the commentary in Clinical Infectious Diseases, was one of the first researchers to argue that the novel coronavirus could travel on aerosols. Morawska, a professor of atmospheric sciences and environmental engineering at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, published a study online in April in Environment International that argued SARS-CoV-2 was likely airborne based on previous studies of other coronaviruses. She says a small community of scientists has been advocating for health experts to acknowledge the likelihood of aerosols as an avenue of respiratory infection for decades. Most buildings are completely unprepared for an airborne respiratory disease because they lack the kind of ventilation and air filtration systems that could minimize spread, she says. 'For years, we"ve been trying to bring this to their attention to prepare the right approaches for building interiors to be prepared against respiratory infection transmission.'

 

Reluctance to accept the likelihood of airborne infection is not new, says Donald Milton, the other co-author of the commentary. Milton is a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Maryland, though he calls himself an 'aerobiologist.' He has been studying aerosols as infection routes for four decades. He says a book published more than a century ago by the noted public health administrator Charles Chapin, titled The Sources and Modes of Infection, still influences infection control beliefs today. At the time of its publication, the medical community was working hard to dispel the ancient fallacy that so-called miasmas, or 'bad airs,' were the source of all disease. 'Transmission via aerosols sounded too much like miasmas and pestilential vapors,' Milton says.

 

Tuberculosis was widespread in Chapin"s day: in 1900, it was the leading single cause of death in the United States, killing 194 of every 100,000 Americans. Microbiologist Robert Koch discovered it was caused by bacteria in 1882, but many still blamed it on 'bad airs,' and the New York City Department of Health officially acknowledged it was infectious only in 1894. While Chapin briefly acknowledged the possibility tuberculosis could be transmitted by 'dust-borne bacteria,' he wrote that it was better to concentrate on contact and spray-borne (or droplet-borne) transmission. 'He said we shouldn"t talk about [aerosols] because it might dissuade people from washing their hands and being hygienic,' Milton says.

 

That dogma was adhered to for decades, and Milton says it is pretty much what you hear today from a lot of infectious disease people.

 

Until 2004, no one had definitively established whether tuberculosis could be airborne. Kevin Fennelly, a pulmonologist at the National Institutes of Health, published the first study to quantify tuberculosis-causing pathogen amounts in aerosol droplets, but even then he wasn"t sure it could be carried on a patient"s breath. Fennelly says it wasn"t until an 'unexpected and kind of revolutionary' study published in 2014 in PLOS One changed the thinking around pathogens and exhaled breath. 'Over time, I"ve become a convert to the data,' he says. Last month, he published a viewpoint in The Lancet arguing that in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, infection-control measures need to include guidelines around masks and respirators to protect healthcare workers from aerosols.

 

Jones adds that installing effective ventilation systems in public buildings and businesses is critical, but acknowledges that doing so will be a complex endeavor. 'We don"t have a lot of off-the-shelf designs for those systems, so I think it"s an area to look in terms of research development and major changes in how we think about the configuration of public spaces.'

 

Morawska says old dogma around routes of transmission that ignore aerosols as a possible avenue must be updated to include them, and added that she hopes the pandemic will inspire everyone from public health officials to architects to rethink how they approach infection control. Humanity is 'better prepared to deal with an incoming asteroid' than with a novel virus, she says. 'We need to completely rethink the issue of design of buildings, provision of ventilation and how we operate buildings.'

[Anderton]

Wow. Just goes to show how much of this is a learning process.

 

Talked to my CDC connection tonight. She says they're expecting 18 months to two years before this all plays out, due to the small number of people (relatively speaking) who have been infected. So, the virus has plenty more people to infect, and plenty of populations that aren't doing what they need to do to stop the spread of infection.

 

She was also taking into account the 30% of Americans who think that vaccines are a problem, e.g., they're a plot to implant microchips in us for total government control. Now, let me make it very clear that I know vaccines can are problematic. My daughter was, unfortunately, the 1 in 20,000 kids who contracts ITP from the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine (not a conspiracy theory, mainstream medicine).

 

However, she's also smart and knows that the odds of getting IPT are actually greater if you haven't been vaccinated. So as far as she was concerned, she was unlucky, but she was part of something that ultimately, helped many, many more people than it hindered. She was okay with that tradeoff.

[Jazzmammal]

The two year thing I've come to grips with already. As for the aerosol part, it may be true or at least partially true but it doesn't matter because that's a step too far for us to accept. It's impossible to implement what needs to be done in that case. Just look at the pushback governments are getting all over the world. People did it for a few months but not any more so nobody is going to accept what would need to be done to prevent aerosols from infecting people.

 

First, all the masks we wear are basically useless because the aerosol's are too small for most masks to stop. An N95 medical mask is considered a type of respirator and nobody can get one other than medical staff. This article says aerosols are .0005 millimeters which is 5 nanometers. A medical grade N95 isn't rated for that small but it's still effective because the virus itself isn't floating around by itself, they're always linked to larger droplets so an N95 can block it. But if this aerosol theory is correct even an N95 is not effective at 5 nanos. You have a strong sneeze of cough and those aerosols will pass right through and that's an N95, the gold standard of masks that require training to use properly. The name N95 means it can stop particles of it's rated size 95% of the time. This is why I've been saying without a good vaccine and enough time has passed for the population to at least get to the level of protection we have for the flu, we're all going to get it eventually no matter what we do. Even with an N95 under perfect conditions five times out of a hundred near contacts with an infected person will get through and infect you meaning it's only a matter of time. And few of us will ever have access to an N95 anyway. What are the odds with the crappy cute little masks we see everybody wearing now if COVID is airborne?

 

 

If aerosols are really out there then all of the cloth masks everybody wears really are useless because they can't stop something that small. Look at the video done some time ago about a person wearing a mask in an airplane seat and coughing. Large droplets were not too bad but those aerosols went right through. And, just observe people around you, none of the common masks fit correctly in the best case and few are super careful about fitting them regardless. Then there are the tons of people who wear bandanas and those neck things that you pull up as a mask when needed. I just read an article that those are truly useless as in completely and totally useless, may as well have no mask at all. All they do is prevent you from getting busted.

 

I'm not a mask denier, I agree they're decent with the bigger droplets and I wear one every time I'm out but lets be realistic here. If there are aerosols then we're all screwed which is why I don't think it is true despite articles like this. If it is true then we would have way more cases then we've seen. CNN just had a big story about the schools that opened in some states two weeks ago. It's not a happy article. One school had 25 kids and 3 staff get infected in those two weeks and they talked about a bunch of other schools that were more or less similar. If it was airborne the whole school would have been infected. Same for every time we go out for groceries or anything else. If it's hanging in the air for an hour over 10, 15 or 20 feet most of us would have caught it by now.

 

No, I can't believe aerosols are that common. Under certain conditions in certain specific areas ok but it can't be all that often. The building my office is in is 15 stories. I'm semi retired now and work from home but everybody else is there. They send a memo to all tenants when they find out someone in the building tested positive. I've only heard of two memos in six months. If it was in the air flowing through the ventilation everybody or at least a significant percentage of us would have gotten it.

 

Bob

[Joe Muscara]

What's totally messed up is New Zealand had no new cases for over 100 days, they had started opening up and living life as normal again. There were even articles, as if to make the rest of us envious. Then, they had an outbreak. They still don't know where it came from. It's not like someone snuck onto the island from the U.S. [Ha ha] Though a cluster of the cases are employees of a U.S. based company there. It could have a simple explanation, or it could be a weird previously unknown vector. Like maybe surface transmission is an issue after all. Which would be terrible news.

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/08/14/902675290/new-zealand-investigates-a-mystery-where-did-its-new-cases-come-from

[Notes_Norton]

And no, the masks aren't the end all, but they are much better than nothing. Switching to unleaded gasoline didn't stop air pollution but it made the air less toxic and saved countless lives. Numerous little things can add up to something bigger than the sum of those little actions.

 

Another thing we could do is turn off our air conditioners and circulate fresh air. AC units take the aerosols and recycle them again and again. Most AC units can't handle HEPA filters.

 

Perhaps they should be having school classes outdoors?

 

The vast majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs indoors, most of it from the inhalation of airborne particles that contain the coronavirus.

Link

 

Opening windows in businesses and ventilate the areas?

 

If and when a vaccine comes, I won't be first in line. Either the super-rich or the extremely poor will get it first, depending on how risky it seems. But if it seems to not hurt, I'll be in line.

 

Notes

[Doerfler]

Opening windows in businesses and ventilate the areas?

 

ther hasn't been an office building built in many, many years that has windows that can be opened from what I have seen

[Jazzmammal]

Very true and the reason is HVAC systems. Buildings are pressurized specifically to prevent outside air getting in and ruining the HVAC efficiency. One window opens and the HVAC shuts down. I was talking to our building engineer about that many years ago because I was curious why it was that every time I approached the building the front doors would be slightly open because of the air pressure pushing on them. Convert buildings to working windows and you can chuck the HVAC systems intro the trash and that's just one thing, safety would probably be an even bigger issue. All modern buildings exterior walls are built flush. Somehow retrofit them so windows open and you're on the 2nd floor and above? You could lean back in your chair if you're back was to the window like I used to be and you could fall right out. So then you're putting up inside barriers to prevent that from happening. Another thing I just thought of, how many jerks would decide to throw stuff out a 40th floor window just for fun? Who knows but overall it would be a disaster to have high rise buildings retrofitted with windows that open. No AC, no heat is just the first thing to consider.

 

Notes, you're point about taking the vaccine is right on imho. After this much time I won't be right in line either but I doubt we would have a choice anyway. Critical workers such as medical personnel would be first in any case plus people at high risk. They would be the test dummies for the rest of us. The good news is everything I've read about the different vaccine trials has been very positive and a lot of the stories have been about med students who've volunteered for one of the trials and they've all said, no problems at all, it went well and they now have good antibodies. But then, those are strong, healthy young people, we need to hear the same things from much older participants with underlying conditions.

 

Bob

[Notes_Norton]

I think society has become too dependent of air conditioners. Perhaps some of those office buildings need to be re-engineered to not use air conditioners.

 

When I was a child growing up in Florida, nobody had AC. Virtually all the stores, bars, restaurants didn't either. I never went to an air conditioned school, they had windows on both sides of the class and one side faced a breezeway.

 

By the 1960s a place of business that was Air Conditioned put a big sign out front as a calling card and they were few and far between.

 

People dressed for the heat. Office workers dressed in seersucker suits with short pants, women exposed a lot of flesh, people painted their roofs reflective white, people planted trees everywhere, and buildings were designed for cross ventilation.

 

What have we done? We've become energy dependent to cool our environment and at the same time making our environment more disease friendly. The energy consumption plus the hot air exhaust is contributing to the warming of the planet, which increases our need for air conditioning which warms the planet even more which increases our need for air conditioning - and so on - sounds like a feedback loop.

 

BTW, I live in a house built in 1950, way before AC. It was added later, but we don't use it. The house was built for cross ventilation, it has a white roof, and we have plenty of shade trees in the yard. When it's 95 degrees or more outside, it's never more than 85 inside (typically around 80), and a fan keeps us comfortable. In addition I have the satisfaction of not contributing to the destruction of the planet just to keep cool.

 

I think the expected summer lull of COVID was cancelled by the fact that we don't live in the hot humid summer anymore. Most of us live in a cool, dry, refrigerator.

 

Perhaps it's time to re-think air conditioning for the sake of our health and the health of the planet,

 

Notes

[Anderton]

Just to follow-up about AC...we were interested in your "no AC" lifestyle and tried it out. We had the AC off for most of the summer, but, past a certain point (like when the heat index was over 100!) I was concerned about my gear overheating and frankly, I was "beat by the heat" and my productivity dropped. However...I turned on the AC and set it to 81 degrees, and that let me do what I needed. At night, when things cool down, I open up the windows and let the cool night air in. It stays that way until late morning, when the AC kicks in. But, the AC spends very little time on...maybe 10 minutes, it gets down to 81 degrees, and then it shuts off.

 

There are ceiling fans that keep things cool, and although I can't have them on while doing vocals or narration, as soon as it's time to edit instead of record, they go back on again.

 

Of course there's no "Craig control group" to compare with what would have happened if the AC had been set to 72 degrees or whatever, and the windows closed up. But, I have to say, I feel a lot better than when I lived with someone who insisted on keeping the temperature in the low 70s. So bottom line for me is it's difficult to get rid of AC altogether, but it can have a much lighter touch. That, and turning it off at night, opening windows, and using fans does everything that's needed. There's also a certain sensuality to those warm summer nights

[Doerfler]

When I was a child growing up in Florida, nobody had AC.

 

when you were a child, there were air raid drills once a week

 

the world is a different place now. We need to deal with what is now, not what was then

[Notes_Norton]

When I was a child growing up in Florida, nobody had AC.

 

when you were a child, there were air raid drills once a week

 

the world is a different place now. We need to deal with what is now, not what was then

 

What you pointed out is very true and since the world is getting hotter and hotter and scientists predict it is going to adversely affect our food supply and there will be places on the planet where it will be too hot for people to survive, perhaps we had better do something about all the things we are doing that heat up the planet.

 

It makes perfect sense for everyone to reduce their carbon footprint as much as they can. The energy consumption of AC units in the USA exceeds the total energy consumption of Industry in the USA.It seems to me this is one of the things we should be looking at eliminating. After all over 99% of all the humans that have ever lived on Earth have done so without AC. It's not a necessity, it's a convenience.

 

We should be driving the most fuel efficient vehicle that works for what we have to transport, and we should drive it with gradual acceleration and coasting as much as possible before applying the brakes.

 

We should be painting our roofs white and planting plenty of trees.

 

We should be hanging our laundry outdoors.

 

We should get rid of our lawns and plant natural, local vegetation that doesn't need mowers, leaf blowers, water, herbicides and fertilizer.

 

And so on.

 

Yes we have to deal with what is now, not what was then. And now we have a climate crisis that can cause a far greater hardship than COVID. When the crops fail and there isn't enough food to eat there is no escaping it. This will make COVID seem almost benign.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[dboomer]

How about we just develop non polluting sources of electricity and keep our AC?

 

I resisted chiming in here as I thought your initial post was mostly rhetorical. But it smacks somewhat of confirmation bias. You listed all the negative things but failed to list the positives including increased human output and improved health for those that live in polluted areas (me) or that suffer from respiratory issues. Painting all our roof white and remodeling buildings isn"t without an environmental cost either.

 

It"s 109 here today. I ain"t giving up my AC but I do try to use it (and all other resources) responsibly.

[PrairieGuy]

Throughout all of history, whenever it got warmer live thrived. All life. Every time. Sadly, climate has been politicized and as a result some people think a little bit of warming will kill the planet. The fact is that we're still coming out of an ice age and there is plenty of suspect data and data affected by the urban heat island effect that muddies the water. Actual satellite data that's not "adjusted" shows negligible warming.

 

AC lets people live in hot places and fossil fuels let people live in bitter cold places. Unless you want the population to all congregate in only moderate areas AC and furnaces will always be around. And based on the almost 100% inaccuracy of climate models I'm pretty sure that the planet will be fine too.

[Doerfler]

back on topic to "now what", this is a very good read, IMO

 

Music industry expert says drive-in concerts, live streams are 'Band-Aids on a gaping wound"

 

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/music-industry-expert-says-drivein-concerts-live-streams-are-band-aids-on-a-gaping-wound-233355888.html