Guest essay by Eric Worrall
US Secretary of State John Kerry has set his sights on the nation’s air conditioners, claiming that the climate impact of air conditioners are as big a threat to life as the Islamic State terrorist group.
Kerry: Air conditioners as big a threat as ISIS
…
“As we were working together on the challenge of [ISIS] and terrorism,” Kerry said. “It’s hard for some people to grasp it, but what we–you–are doing here right now is of equal importance because it has the ability to literally save life on the planet itself.”
Kerry said that most of the substances banned in the Montreal Protocol have increased the use of HFCs and claimed that the coolant was thousands of times more potent than CO2. He added that the increase of HFCs has led to the trend of global climate change.
“The use of hydrofluorocarbons is unfortunately growing,” Kerry said. “Already, the HFCs use in refrigerators, air conditioners, and other items are emitting an entire gigaton of carbon dioxide-equivalent pollution into the atmosphere annually. Now, if that sounds like a lot, my friends, it’s because it is. It’s the equivalent to emissions from nearly 300 coal-fired power plants every single year.” …
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/07/23/kerry-air-conditioners-as-big-threat-as-isis.html
I’m surprised John Kerry has such a negative view of air conditioners. Air conditioners have played a surprisingly important part in the climate debate. If James Hansen and Tim Worth hadn’t sabotaged the Congress building Air Conditioner in 1988, the night before crucial testimony which kicked off the entire political climate movement, there might not have been a climate “crisis”.
Perhaps Kerry thinks if he makes Air Conditioners a thing of the past, the entire nation might experience the sweaty heat which proved so convincing on that fateful day in 1988.
…First they forced energy prices so high that the poor cannot afford to heat their homes in winter and now they want to take away air conditioners so that more people die of heat exhaustion ? I guess they just realized that more people die from cold than heat, so they are trying to balance the numbers to make their “Green Machine” look more viable….!
DoE is pushing heat pumps, which use HFCs for both heating and cooling, First we had to eliminate CFCs, then HCFCs, now HFCs. I guess we could shift to ammonia/water and lithium bromide/water machines, but then they’d probably come for the ammonia and lithium bromide. Sheesh!
Ironically there’s a lot of research into the use of CO2 as a refrigerant.
I was aware of that research. The Germans, I believe, also looked hard at propane.
Carbon Dioxide should be an ideal refrigerant for air conditioners if it can hold half as much heat as the greenies claim. We could sequester lots of it in home AC units and cars across the continent; end of climate problem.
Just wait til they start complaining how bad WATER is.
It is, after all, the predominant “GHG”.
@ur momisugly skorrent1. . . They have – hehe:
the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide
Actually, CO2 and ammonia were the common refrigerants in early systems. CO2 is still used in commercial systems and is referred to as R744 I think. But CO2 requires very high compression (~1800 psi, 13 MPa) and thus very heavy duty and expensive equipment – not to mention high electrical energy use. Propane could work well except for that little issue of its tendency to explode and blow things up when it leaks. CFCs and HCFCs have many characteristics that make them safe and economically viable.
@ur momisugly skorrent1, 9:08 am, what about air?
https://www.quora.com/Can-air-be-a-refrigerant-in-air-conditioning
Please sign the petition to have John Kerry set a good example and practice what he preaches. (It is going to be up around a 100 in Washington DC this week.) Only 2,850 have signed so far, but WUWT might make it go viral.
https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/embarass-the-embarassing/
Turn off the AC at the Democratic Party Convention this coming week. Start walking the talk !
While they’re at it, Kerry should have the AC unit on his house removed if he truly feels it is worse than ISIS. If he doesn’t, he is a worse terrorist threat than ISIS
Remove all AC units for government buildings.
The Inquirer, July 22, 2016
‘DNCs in Phila. Brought Change’
The skyline shorter, hemlines longer when Dems last came to town
Scroll down to 1948:
July that year was brutally hot. To the chagrin of delegates, Philadelphia passed on- air conditioning when it built the hall.”
“Men and women sat in sweat-soaked clothing in 90-degree-plus heat. At one point, organizers hauled large ice blocks onto the roof to send cool droplets down to the floor.”
Article down now so use internet search.
Take away A/C and thousands would die, take away FOOD refrigeration and millions would die.
The preservation of food via refrigeration is one of the reasons cities can be so big….they are so far away from where food is actually produced that the food would be unfit to eat by the time it got there. Food borne illnesses would quickly become the #1 cause death.
………But you already knew that-and so does John Kerry.
And medicines. A developing world problem is lack of 24/7 electricity to store vaccines etc.
People lived and worked in large U.S. urban areas without AC until sometime after WW 2.
Party conventions were also held in places with no AC.
People knew how to survive and maybe they don’t know now.
I hear Merkel is declaring Blitzkrieg on Air Conditioning- as soon as they clean up the blood
from the latest bombing…
If people like Kerry and Merkel think that staying cool is dangerous how a about a German
Bar: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/692793/Ansbach-explosion-Nuremberg-Germany-Blast
Idiots are killing US..
I hear that the US is shifting it’s air bombing campaign from ISIS targets to pinpoint attacks on air conditioning units outside homes in Florida.
I think this guy has gone round the bend, a long time ago.
As a precaution, I have camouflaged my outside equipment. I am using a high resolution digital photo of a bikini clad beauty laying out on a towel. No red blooded American male would even think of bombing that. (I hope there are no ugly women pilots)
However, Hillery might mistake it for one of Bill’s bimbos and nuke the whole area.
I live in the Colorado Rockies and have no air conditioning but am concerned about collateral damage from Denver coconspirators nearby.
+++1
Bill Marsh writes: “I think this guy has gone round the bend, a long time ago.”
I believe we need an empirical test. We should put John in a cage full of armed ISIS insurgents and an air conditioner. It’s the only way to be sure.
I like it!
I’d say pretty much everybody at NASA is bent (on keeping their job and moving up despite the required scientology adherence.
Put succinctly, John Kerry is either stupid, or he thinks we are.
…or both.
I can’t believe this still available! John Kerry explains the atmosphere “This is simple. Kids at the earliest age can understand this.
Try and picture a very thin layer of gases – a quarter-inch, half an inch, somewhere in that vicinity – that’s how thick it is. It’s in our atmosphere. It’s way up there at the edge of the atmosphere. And for millions of years – literally millions of years – we know that layer has acted like a thermal blanket for the planet – trapping the sun’s heat and warming the surface of the Earth to the ideal, life-sustaining temperature.”
On the video its at 8:30.
http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/02/221704.htm
Is John Kerry saying the CO2 causing global warming is only ” a quarter-inch, half an inch” thick?
Put succinctly, John Kerry is either stupid, or he thinks we are.
====
Amazing isn’t it….
The republican party is campaigning for Hillary..
…and the democrats are campaigning for Trump
Latitude observes: “Amazing isn’t it….”
It really ought to tell us all something.
…same dog….different collar
Same WAG, Different DOG
I think he means all other people’s air conditioners. I believe his works fine and is ISIS proof!
Embrace the power of “and,” ScienceABC123.
Maybe we should all go back to ammonia
How about “iceboxes”? We could use sea ice, which would actually help increase sea level rise.
Oops. Forgot the “sarc off”.
Put a wash-tub full of ice in a room. Used back in the days when ice was cut in the winter and stored for later use.
If a good storage room wasn’t available, the harvested ice could also just be buried in the ground.
My mother remembers her dad burying blocks of ice next to the roots of the family orchard trees, to keep them from coming out of winter hibernation too early and falling victim to any late frosts.
Seems to me if CO2 traps half as much heat as the greenies insist it would be the ideal refrigerant for all those air conditioners.
CO2 refrigeration is used in a number of commercial applications, but the system pressures are much higher that you need for xFC’s. The refrigeration cycle usually operates across the CO2 critical point, where the other refrigerants stay below their respective critical points.
Nevertheless, keep your AR-15’s out of a/c reach.
Taking him at his word, the fix is to un-ban the CFCs we used to use for refrigeration before we got stampeded into the Montreal Protocol.
Slilghtly off topic, but Hillary Clinton has hinted she might retain Loretta “we just talked about our grandchildren” Lynch as Attorney General. If she hints that she might also retain Kerry as Secretary of State my joy would know no bounds (/sarc).
Of course Lynch is staying. That was the deal if she left Hillary alone.
Tom in Florida: Bulls Eye.
John Kerry: Refrigerators and terrorists. A Limerick.
My terrorist fridge has been hacked.
No teens had its content ransacked.
But more evil than ISIS
is the climate change crisis.
Says Kerry: It’s HFC’s packed.
Source, Washington Examiner: “Air conditioners and refrigerators pose as big a threat to “life on the planet” as the threat of terrorism,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday.
more… https://lenbilen.com/2016/07/23/john-kerry-refrigerators-and-terrorists-a-limerick/
Oh Kerry! Thou foolish comparer!
Whilst sleeping thou dreampt up an error.
The thing that’s too cool
Is your wife, you old fool,
And she’s also your reason for terror.
There once was a man named Kerry
Whose brain was open and airy
He said with a shout
A/Cs should be out
His thoughts on such things are just scary
You all gave me a good chuckle. Thank you.
One more:
More terror worse than ISIS. First HFC’s, then Methane. Obama, Kerry, Sanders, Clinton full of delusion. A Limerick.
The air in the air Londonderry
is terror, says charlatan Kerry.
HFC’s must depart,
next we go for the fart:
Desist! No more dairy in Derry!
From European Commission Global Methane Reduction Actions
Methane emissions vary considerably by sector with the agriculture sector accounting for 50% of the total emissions. https://lenbilen.com/2016/07/24/more-terror-worse-than-isis-first-hfcs-then-methane-obama-kerry-sanders-clinton-full-of-delusion-a-limerick/
please, leave me out of this !
Could someone from the secret service leave John Kerry in the carpark with the windows up. Maybe the heat would fry his brain, it would have to be an improvement.
You are making a huge and , I think, unfounded assumption. You are assuming he has a brain to fry.
Or assuming his brain hasn’t already been fried.
It would just get him another Purple Heart and for less damage than the splinter that he got over in Vietnam. Yes, I know that the medal is only for serving service members but he is a BIG Time Democrat so they think it is the same or better. [ NO sarc ]
“It’s hard for some people to grasp it, but what we–you–are doing here right now is of equal importance because it has the ability to literally save life on the planet itself.”
No, it literally doesn’t. Only in the delusional minds of Warmunists like Kerry, who is literally, an idiot.
Good to see he changed his (what passes for a mind), and excused himself from getting rid of his air-conditioner.
That’s it then, ISIS will start shipping air conditioners to all the tropical countries in a new terror campaign against the west. Oh the horror!
I’ve heard from several people that the main reason for replacing Freon was because the patent had expired and Dow needed sell a new high priced product. But first it had to kill the market for cheap Freon……low and behold we have an ozone depletion problem.
My bet is someone has a new refrigerant to put on the market and Kerry is the mouthpiece.
Not true, look it up. Kerry if you know how to read, you are without a doubt the biggest moron
Does this mean that we can expect Congress and the rest of the federal government to be giving up their air conditioners soon?
As Glenn (Instapundit) Reynolds says, we need a law banning AC in Federal buildings. That’d show them!
“I date the end of the old republic and the birth of the empire to the invention, in the late thirties, of air conditioning. Before air conditioning, Washington was deserted from mid-June to September…. But after air conditioning and the Second World War arrived, more or less at the same time, Congress sits and sits while the presidents or at least their staffs never stop making mischief.”, Gore Vidal
But if you got rid of DC AC, then Harry Reid would have to put up with smelling those sweaty tourists again (you know, the ones who pay his salary and pension). http://hotair.com/archives/2008/12/02/harry-reid-thank-god-i-wont-have-to-smell-dc-tourists-reeking-pits-anymore/
Not only that but without their AC or DC, their lights would be out and they would finally be proved to be be as dim as their watts
The real tragedy of HFC’s is it shows what incredible idiots the climate bureaucrats are. A few years ago it was revealed that 43% of the revenue from emissions trading schemes went to companies that made and destroyed byproducts of their production. http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18291. $155 million of by-product earned 7.15 billion of carbon offsets, a 90% profit margin.
He’s wrong. It’s pirates.
Aye matey, methinks you’ve found the map.
Pirates came back in the 2000’s which caused the pause, and their numbers are shrinking again that’s why 2015/16 had a spike. I put this in my model and with 97% confidence I can say global temps will skyrocket by 2030 if we do not get more pirates. The tipping point will by 2017, if we do not do something now all hope is lost.
The 15 minor GHGs including HFCs (which are the majority of these minor GHGs) have gotten up to a forcing of …
… 0.118 W/m2 as at 2015. They increased by 0.002 W/m2 in 2015.
Normally one would consider those type of numbers to be completely insignificant with Zero temperature impact and completely ignorable. The Ozone depletion potential of the current HFCs used is very minor as well.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.fig4.png
What happened to H2O?? My God, they’ve eliminated WATER already!! (see above)
Do not forget that the CFC/ozone depletion connection was fraudulent research cobbled up by Dupont Chemical. 20 years later that scientist admitted to the fraud. Unfortunately, many do not know that we now know that it is nitrogen (80% of the atmosphere and not our fault) and solar UV output that destroys ozone in that region.
Now, that solar activity is decreasing, the ozone levels are rising. It is NOT due to the Montreal Protocol. By banning that refrigerant, which was out of patent and being manufactured cheaply around the world, thus saving food and lives at the same time, Dupont got to replace it with their more expensive, patented refrigerant, actively killing people around the world by being too expensive to use.
“Normally one would consider those type of numbers to be completely insignificant …”
Yes, but only a rational person which seems to be scarce in the EPA and in the State Department, especially at the top.
When the worldwide ban on HFC is completed, it is estimated by the proponents of the ban that it COULD reduce warming in the next 85 years by 0.5C. One would think that any kind of armed conflict that is killing people is more dangerous than that particularly since the killing can be stated categorically as fact without the word COULD.
https://chaamjamal.wordpress.com/
Engineers read this… This really happened to me.
I visited a supplier and lightning knocked out the cooling system to a clean room with a lot of heat generating equipment. I had to work in the room all day. The supplier placed an 8000 BTU air conditioner in the clean room with me powered with an extension cord. But be supplied no ducting.
He just set the air conditioner on a table, plugged it in, and told me to go right to work!
By the end of the day it was 110 F in the room.
I tried to explain the Carnot Cycle to the guy but it was pointless. He was an appliance user. No insight at all. I just sweated it out in a Tyvek bunny suit for 8 hours. (yes I got heat stroke)
John Kerry scored lower grades in university than George Bush. Kerry is a moron.
His advise about technology makes you dumber.
Two issues here:
1. A free-standing air conditioner, with who-knows-how-much dust sitting in the grille, running unfiltered in a clean room?
2. If you really understood the physics, as you indicate, why didn’t you just turn it off?
“why didn’t you just turn it off”
I was a young engineer, and my visit was immersed is corporate politics. The supplier was also working in the shared space. Also I only had authorization to “touch” equipment and product that our company owned. I did try to convince him to shut it off but it got to the point where my blank face, head shaking, and eye-blinking non-verbal was beginning to encroach on his self esteem. (He was convinced he was a genious, like Kerry)
It wasn’t as cut and dry as you imagine. Life is full of situations wherein we must cope with morons.
Kerry is a moron that we must cope with. I am sure everyone has had a similar face-in-hand experience.
…”running unfiltered in a clean room”…
OMGosh!! Exactly!… It was supposedly a class 10 ( ergo the bunny suits).
Was that at RPI? Sounds like the stuff that happened at the Clean (SIC) room I used to work in.
I’ve had similar experiences with a researcher who insisted that his hood filters were the source of mold growing on his in vitro bone cell matrix while working in street shoes and no coverall, with the corridor doors open and a negative lab pressure pulling air from his office, full of papers and books.
They only understand their own niche of science sometimes.
Paul, at least it was working as a dehumidifier….
too complicated to explain the Carnot cycle. Just explain that every air conditioner creates more “heat” than “cold”…you just have to duct the heat outside, or it won’t cool you, it will heat you.
Wildly OT, so Mods feel free to delete.
Seem to have just got myself banned from SkS. I asked what an author meant when he wrote in article that we could “fix the climate”, as the climate is always changing and is not “fixable”. The mods crossed out my whole comment and accused me of “sloganeering” (whatever that is).All my other comments on various articled and other people’s replys to me have been deleted.
Mind you, I suppose they might have got rather upset when I posted a link to a picture of Cookie dressed in uniform from the losing side of WW2 😉
They’re such sensetive flowers at Sks!
The real irony is that “fix the climate” is truly “sloganeering”, in the sense that they mean it.
That’s what I thought, but wasn’t allowed to say it, as Cookie shut me off.
“The mods crossed out my whole comment and accused me of “sloganeering” (whatever that is).All my other comments on various articled and other people’s replys to me have been deleted.”
Sounds like they disappeared you. The Old communist Soviet Union comes to mind.
Or the current college campi with their “speech zones” and “safe rooms.”
Start the countdown to January if you have not already done so.
And pray Hillary is not elected.
The good news is that both vice presidential candidates seem to be pretty decent guys. So I don’t care who is elected, just as long as she or he is impeached and convicted before the end of January 2017.
I thought the ozone hole was shrinking to records lows according to the propaganda department.
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/9992/20141031/ozone-hole-still-shrinking-nasa.htm
The key question for Kerry and a lot of the appointees of this Administration is how would you know if they are suffering from early to advanced stages of mental illness.
+1
By their delusions, you shall know them.
I went to the EPA website and tried to find out what acceptable substitutes to HFC’s are. I quickly grew frustrated when I couldn’t find any acceptable substitutes. Mind, I was only doing a casual search. It is very easy, however, to find out what is unacceptable.
Water is the best refrigerant, followed by ammonia. CO2 and propane are also reasonable refrigerants, though propane has some obvious drawbacks.
Ever been at a site cooled by an ammonia system when there was a leak ? I have …..
And it sux…..big time . No thanks , you’re welcome to it .
YMMV ….
Ammonia/water absorption chillers keep the ammonia outside.
firetoice2014 … in “normal” use I agree , but ambient temp for the process was < 28deg F so couldn't use chill water….ammonia + human lungs is not good…
No argument from me on that.
Swamp coolers work pretty good for households. I have one; with good pads it can change the hottest day “evah” to honey were is my furry green bath robe?
michael
They work fine if the humidity is relatively low. At 94F with a 70F dew point, not so much.
There are lots of refrigerants and lots of thermal cycles. Each refrigerant is picked for the specific ranges of delta T and the temperature envelope. Many of the envelopes overlap. Ammonia is frowned upon these days, even in industrial process like refineries, because it is a killer if released. Propane is used a lot in low temperature systems like LNG chilling. The HFCs re excellent for the near room temperature applications we need most. So choice of fluid depends on many process factors…that’s why we need engineers. Not politicians.
Where is wikileaks when you need them, or did they drink the cool aid too.
Alas, with global warming the cool aid is no longer cool. Remember that 60s protest song, “Where has all the cool aid gone”?
And don’t forget that timeless classic; It Sounds Like Science”:
“Hello Koolaid my old friend…”
You’ll know it’s bad when the elite insiders start buying up the ice companies to corner the ice block delivery market to your home ice box.
Ahem. And how, exactly, will all that ice be made?
it would be cut out of the lakes in the winter and stored, like they use to do in the old days, There should be lots of lake ice again as they will have fixed global warming with all these measures.
Sarc/off
Natural freezing on the lakes with saws and picks to get it out and onto the wagons
Aha! Ice – ices – ISIS! Coincidence?
I think not.
hmm . . maybe. Depends what the meaning if ISIS . .
johnKnight, 6:13 pm: “What the meaning of ISIS IS” , classic! Thanks.
I wonder if Kerry has given up air conditioning in his own home?
Let’s fly a drone + camera over his house and find out?
Same with Gore, Mann, et al.
I guess it’s really true then isn’t it? YOU JUST CAN’T FIX STUPID NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY! THE “PETER PRINCIPLE” AT WORK!!