Acclimatising ourselves to less air-conditioning could save the planet
A French politician suggested that, in light of increasingly frequent heatwaves, the government should try to ensure that all citizens had access to air conditioning.
The government rejected this, deeming it inappropriate and bad for the environment. No doubt, the fact that the proposer was from a far-right party did not help.
A writer in The Economist (who must remain anonymous because The Economist does not do bylines) criticised the British government for having a deluded notion of what their nation's climate is now like.
Summers in the UK are now tropical, not the grey and wet affairs that people my age remember. Accordingly, the official lack of encouragement for air conditioning is asking for future trouble.
Many serious environmentalists have doubts about air conditioning. After all the heat extracted from the air-conditioned space has to go somewhere. Also, there is a considerable cost in materials and power. 'Passive' methods using shade and natural ventilation can do the job.
Less often mentioned is the question of addiction. Long ago, I had a colleague at the South China Morning Post called Ian, who had dabbled extensively in the wars of independence that afflicted southern parts of Africa in the 1970s… mostly, I fear, on the wrong side.
Ian was fiercely opposed to using an air conditioner at night. He maintained that if you spent eight hours a day in an air-conditioned office and eight hours a day in an air-conditioned bedroom, your body would never adapt to the local climate.
This is a relevant topic for military purposes because military activities are conducted mostly outdoors. Some disappointing performances in Malaya and Hong Kong during World War II are attributed to the difficulty in adaptation experienced by troops landed in a strange climate only weeks before they were expected to perform.
Anyway, there may be something in this addiction fear. The more air-conditioning you get, the more you want; what starts as an occasional luxury ends as a necessity. At this point, it becomes quite expensive.
I have been conducting an experiment with all this in recent months, since it became necessary in the normal course of events to replace the aircon in my bedroom. While this was in progress, I had to sleep with the window wide open, but no aircon.
This was surprisingly (to me) successful. As the weather got warmer, I added a fan, which sits at the end of the bed and wafts a gentle breeze over my hopefully sleeping form.
It is now July, and I am reasonably hopeful that I shall get through the summer without resorting to overnight aircon use.
As I do not use an aircon routinely during the day, this should mean I am acclimatising in a manner which Ian would approve of. The aircon is still deployed for visitors (downstairs), exercise sessions (in the bedroom), and in the car.
This is not for everyone, I concede. Our bedroom has a balcony, so the windows are big. It also has a bug screen, which you may need if the local mosquitoes can reach your altitude.
On the other hand, if you live on a high floor, you will benefit from peace and quiet denied to residents in houses. In the early days, I was often disturbed in the morning by noisy traffic and even, on occasion, particularly raucous birdcalls. I seem to have got used to this.
Still, I am left feeling a little guilty about my copious use of air-conditioning in the past. It seems I can get by with about 20 or 30 minutes a day, depending on visitors and car use.
If you work in an office, the architect has probably already made cooling a necessity, but it is still perhaps worthwhile for environment-conscious consumers to consider whether they may be using more air conditioning than they really need.
This is unlikely to save the planet, which seems doomed. As the temperature climbs, we will all fry together, but owners of air-conditioners will fry later than most. In the meantime, think of the savings on your electricity bills.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
HKFP
a day ago
- HKFP
Acclimatising ourselves to less air-conditioning could save the planet
Air conditioning has become (excuse me) a hot topic. Is it necessary, is it nice, is it the solution to global warming? A French politician suggested that, in light of increasingly frequent heatwaves, the government should try to ensure that all citizens had access to air conditioning. The government rejected this, deeming it inappropriate and bad for the environment. No doubt, the fact that the proposer was from a far-right party did not help. A writer in The Economist (who must remain anonymous because The Economist does not do bylines) criticised the British government for having a deluded notion of what their nation's climate is now like. Summers in the UK are now tropical, not the grey and wet affairs that people my age remember. Accordingly, the official lack of encouragement for air conditioning is asking for future trouble. Many serious environmentalists have doubts about air conditioning. After all the heat extracted from the air-conditioned space has to go somewhere. Also, there is a considerable cost in materials and power. 'Passive' methods using shade and natural ventilation can do the job. Less often mentioned is the question of addiction. Long ago, I had a colleague at the South China Morning Post called Ian, who had dabbled extensively in the wars of independence that afflicted southern parts of Africa in the 1970s… mostly, I fear, on the wrong side. Ian was fiercely opposed to using an air conditioner at night. He maintained that if you spent eight hours a day in an air-conditioned office and eight hours a day in an air-conditioned bedroom, your body would never adapt to the local climate. This is a relevant topic for military purposes because military activities are conducted mostly outdoors. Some disappointing performances in Malaya and Hong Kong during World War II are attributed to the difficulty in adaptation experienced by troops landed in a strange climate only weeks before they were expected to perform. Anyway, there may be something in this addiction fear. The more air-conditioning you get, the more you want; what starts as an occasional luxury ends as a necessity. At this point, it becomes quite expensive. I have been conducting an experiment with all this in recent months, since it became necessary in the normal course of events to replace the aircon in my bedroom. While this was in progress, I had to sleep with the window wide open, but no aircon. This was surprisingly (to me) successful. As the weather got warmer, I added a fan, which sits at the end of the bed and wafts a gentle breeze over my hopefully sleeping form. It is now July, and I am reasonably hopeful that I shall get through the summer without resorting to overnight aircon use. As I do not use an aircon routinely during the day, this should mean I am acclimatising in a manner which Ian would approve of. The aircon is still deployed for visitors (downstairs), exercise sessions (in the bedroom), and in the car. This is not for everyone, I concede. Our bedroom has a balcony, so the windows are big. It also has a bug screen, which you may need if the local mosquitoes can reach your altitude. On the other hand, if you live on a high floor, you will benefit from peace and quiet denied to residents in houses. In the early days, I was often disturbed in the morning by noisy traffic and even, on occasion, particularly raucous birdcalls. I seem to have got used to this. Still, I am left feeling a little guilty about my copious use of air-conditioning in the past. It seems I can get by with about 20 or 30 minutes a day, depending on visitors and car use. If you work in an office, the architect has probably already made cooling a necessity, but it is still perhaps worthwhile for environment-conscious consumers to consider whether they may be using more air conditioning than they really need. This is unlikely to save the planet, which seems doomed. As the temperature climbs, we will all fry together, but owners of air-conditioners will fry later than most. In the meantime, think of the savings on your electricity bills.
AllAfrica
2 days ago
- AllAfrica
China may not want Russia to lose – or to win
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) cited unnamed sources to report that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his EU counterpart that China doesn't want Russia to lose in Ukraine because the US's whole focus might then shift to China. His alleged remarks were spun by the mainstream media as an admission that China isn't as neutral as it claims, just as they and their alternative media rivals suspected. Both now believe that China will help Russia achieve its maximum goals, but that's likely not the case. Assuming for the sake of argument that Wang did indeed say what was attributed to him, it would align with the assessment around the conflict's one-year anniversary in February 2023 that 'China Doesn't Want Anyone To Win In Ukraine.' The SCMP channeled the gist of the preceding analysis by writing that 'One interpretation of Wang's statement in Brussels is that while China did not ask for the war, its prolongation may suit Beijing's strategic needs, so long as the US remains engaged in Ukraine.' To explain, not only would the US be unable to 'pivot (back) to (East) Asia' for more muscularly containing China at the scale that Trump envisages if the Ukrainian conflict drags on, but the continued pressure placed on the Russian economy by Western sanctions would benefit the Chinese economy. China already imports a staggering amount of discounted Russian oil, which helps maintain its economic growth amid the slowdown that it's experiencing, but this could end if sanctions were curtailed. Additionally, the greater that China's role becomes in serving as a valve for Russia from Western sanctions pressure (both in terms of energy imports for helping to finance the Russian budget but also exports that replace lost Western products), the more dependent Russia will become on China. The increasingly lopsided nature of their economic relations could then be leveraged to secure the most preferential long-term energy deals possible regarding the Power of Siberia II and other pipelines. These outcomes could restore China's superpower trajectory that was derailed during the first six months of the war as explained here at the time, thus strengthening its overall resilience to US pressure and therefore making it less likely that the US can coerce a series of lopsided deals from it. It's for this reason that Trump's Special Envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff is reportedly pushing for the US to lift its energy sanctions on Russia in order to deprive China of these financial and strategic benefits. The nascent Russian–US 'new detente' could restore the Kremlin's energy clientele as a first step via phased sanctions relief, thus expanding its range of partners to preemptively avert the aforementioned Russian dependence on China, especially in the event of joint energy cooperation in the Arctic. The purpose, as explained here in early January, would be to deprive China of decades-long access to ultra-cheap resources for fueling its superpower rise at the US' expense. All in all, a Russian victory (whether in full or in part via compromises) could end the discounted energy bonanza that's helping China maintain its economic growth amid the slowdown, ergo why Beijing won't send military aid or troops to facilitate this (apart from also fearing serious Western sanctions). Likewise, the scenario of the West inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia would be catastrophic for China's security, thereby providing another reason for the aforementioned imports to help Russia maintain its war economy. This article was first published on Andrew Korybko's Substack and is republished with kind permission. Become an Andrew Korybko Newsletter subscriber here.
AllAfrica
2 days ago
- AllAfrica
The corporate takeover of American housing
The 2025 US housing market presents a paradox. Home sales are down, and there are far more sellers than buyers, yet prices continue to hit record highs. Over the past decade, home values have surged nationwide, including in once-affordable Sunbelt cities. Policymakers appear ill-equipped to respond to the situation. In a July 2025 interview with the New York Times, 16 US mayors listed housing as one of their top concerns. During her 2024 presidential campaign, former Vice President Kamala Harris proposed tax credits for first-time buyers to alleviate the crisis, while President Donald Trump has renewed calls for interest rate cuts to help lower mortgage rates. Homeownership remains central to the American dream, and US homeownership rates have typically hovered around 65% 'from 1965 until 2025,' according to Trading Economics. But the high-water mark came in 2004 when it reached 69%, and despite a temporary Covid-19-era spike, the rate has continued to inch downward. Worryingly, even among those who own homes, equity is shrinking. Many homeowners own less than half of their property's value today, with the balance tied up in debt. Many of the pressures are structural. Construction costs have soared, labor is in short supply and tariffs have raised the price of materials. Zoning laws, tax regimes, and anti-density regulations have stifled urban growth, while sprawling development is hitting geographic and environmental limits. Mortgage rates remain high, and the national housing shortfall, now estimated to be more than 4.5 million, continues to worsen. But the crisis has opened the door for new kinds of investors. A growing cast of corporate actors is moving into residential real estate, lured by the prospect of stable returns in a tightening market. Though they still own a minority of US housing, these firms are often concentrated in key regions and markets. Increasingly capable of setting the terms of access to housing, their rising influence threatens to reverse the post-World War II surge in widespread homeownership. Large-scale corporate ownership of homes and influence over rent prices is a relatively recent development. Before 2008, most institutional investors stuck to apartment buildings and urban areas, as single-family homes were seen as too dispersed and costly to manage. That changed after the housing crash, when a wave of foreclosures flooded the market, leading to the availability of deeply discounted homes in the suburbs. 'In the decade since the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, major institutional financial actors have invested heavily in US single-family housing, acquiring anywhere up to three hundred thousand houses, and then letting them out,' stated a 2021 article in Sage Journals. In 2012, government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae began selling thousands of foreclosed homes in bulk to investors, showing single-family housing could be bought, held, and profited from at scale. At the same time, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac expanded support for institutional buyers through favorable financing terms and lower rates. Homebuilding, meanwhile, had collapsed, and a supply shortage began to take hold. 'The crash badly hurt a variety of sectors, but it simply devastated the home construction industry, given that the crisis was directly centered there. … with a glut of foreclosures on the market and prices falling fast, America simply stopped building homes. New private home starts plummeted by almost 80% to the lowest level since 1959,' according to a 2024 article in the American Prospect. Investor interest surged as home prices recovered in the early 2010s. This era brought record-low interest rates and trillions in financial stimulus from the Federal Reserve and government, which helped stabilize the economy and flooded capital markets. With cheap borrowing and rising prices, housing became an attractive asset. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated this trend. Remote work drove people from cities to suburbs, while eviction moratoriums pushed many small landlords to sell, opening the door for larger buyers. Digital platforms made it easier to browse, purchase, and manage properties remotely. Alongside traditional banks, a wide range of financial firms and platforms have been profiting from rising demand and tightening supply. Blackstone, one of the world's largest private equity firms, became a pioneer in large-scale housing acquisitions after 2008. In 2012, it helped launch Invitation Homes, now the largest owner of single-family rentals in the US. Though Blackstone sold its stake in 2019, it reentered the market by acquiring Canadian real estate firm Tricon Residential in 2024, and sold 3,000 homes that year to UK's largest pension fund for approximately US$550 million, showcasing its global influence in housing. Other major firms have followed suit. Progress Residential, backed by Pretium Partners, has come under fire for evictions, maintenance failures, and excessive fees. Amherst Holdings was profiled in Fortune in 2019 for using early predictive algorithms to identify and acquire homes, and advances in AI have only made this process more efficient. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS), originally designed in the 1960s to give everyday investors access to real estate profits, are now largely dominated by major institutional firms like BlackRock, Vanguard and private equity funds. Invitation Homes agreed to pay $48 million to the Federal Trade Commission in 2024 for junk fees, unfairly holding security deposits, failing to inspect homes, and using improper eviction tactics. Professor Desiree Fields, in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in 2021, meanwhile, singled out Invitation Homes and American Homes 4 Rent as 'particularly vocal about the use of extraneous fees to increase total revenue,' stated a 2022 article in the Charlotte Observer. Corporate homebuying continues to climb. Institutional investors bought 15% of US homes for sale in the first quarter of 2021, which climbed to nearly 27% by early 2025. In some markets, the footprint is even larger: during the third quarter of 2024, investors accounted for 44% of all home flips. Some firms, like Rise48 Equity, focus on acquiring and renovating large multifamily buildings to raise rental income and property value. Others, like Amherst Holdings, are beginning to enter the rent-flipping space as part of a larger expansion policy. Unlike smaller flippers who tend to cash out quickly, these companies renovate and hold properties long term. A growing number of companies are focusing on build-to-rent subdivisions, with entire neighborhoods constructed specifically for rentals. No single company dominates nationally, but corporate influence is unmistakable in certain cities. In Atlanta, private equity owns more than 30% of single-family rental properties, with corporate ownership disproportionately affecting Black neighborhoods, intensifying housing insecurity and displacement. Large firms enjoy several structural advantages. They access cheaper institutional financing, often pay in cash, and benefit from early access to listings and local policy influence. Firms can use creative financing tools, like combining many homes into a single investment package and using the expected rent payments as collateral to borrow more money. Bulk purchases allow them to cut costs on repairs, insurance, and maintenance, while builders are more inclined to sell homes in large blocks at a discount rather than wait for individual buyers, helping firms to avoid bidding wars. Unlike individual homeowners who often sell for financial reasons, institutional landlords can hold assets for years and sell only when market conditions are favorable. Tax policies further tilt the scales. While individual sellers pay capital gains taxes on home sales, corporate buyers can use the 1031 exchange to defer taxes by reinvesting profits into like-kind properties, pushing tax burdens into the future. Rental property owners also get tax depreciation benefits, which allow them to deduct part of the building's value each year, reducing their taxes, which compound over time. Big Tech, with similar vast financial resources, has also become essential to the expansion of corporate housing. It enables investors to scale up, manage properties remotely, and influence markets and consumers to their advantage. One of the most influential tools is YieldStar, a rent pricing software developed by RealPage, purchased by private equity firm Thoma Bravo in 2021. RealPage gathers extensive rental data from participating landlords and uses algorithms to recommend optimal prices. Landlords who don't use the technology are often left at a disadvantage. Many property managers adopt these recommendations automatically, often under performance monitoring that discourages underpricing or offering tenant concessions. In cities like Seattle, where a handful of property managers control large shares of the market, RealPage's pricing influence can be especially powerful. A ProPublica investigation found that in one neighborhood, 70% of apartments were handled by 10 firms, all using RealPage software. Recommendations by the software included accepting lower occupancy rates if it leads to higher overall rent revenue. Critics argue that RealPage enables coordinated 'rent-setting,' effectively encouraging landlords to behave like a cartel. The US Justice Department opened a lawsuit against the company in 2024 for causing harm to American renters by using its 'algorithmic pricing software.' The investigation remains ongoing. At the same time, short-term rental platforms like Airbnb have also reshaped housing. With vast reach and deep legal resources, Airbnb has helped normalize rental conversions and contributed to higher rents in many cities. In 2025, the New York Post reported that the company funded $1 million to alleged grassroots groups, such as Communities for Homeowner Choice, to oppose a New York City law requiring hosts to be present during guest stays. It has also backed tax battles and filed lawsuits across the US, challenging occupancy taxes and other local regulations, costing cities millions in legal fees. In both long- and short-term markets, tech platforms have made large-scale rental operations possible. Through pricing tools, political lobbying, and data leverage, housing is emerging as a more managed commodity. As corporate consolidation deepens and larger landlords become more integrated with tech platforms, these companies, and increasingly the property owners themselves, will exert even greater control over rent markets with less transparency or oversight. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, including the US, now have some of the lowest home ownership rates in the world, and the rise of institutional landlords will drive those numbers lower. The core problem remains supply, with Wall Street firms targeting homes precisely because there's a shortage—something they openly acknowledge and tout to investors as a profit opportunity. The city of Austin is a rare success story. After peaking at $550,000 in May 2022, median home prices fell to $409,000 by January 2025, and indicators point to a continual downward trend. The key difference has been that Austin has built more affordable housing, providing incentives to ease zoning laws. Homeownership remains most common in rural areas, while urban centers have been hardest hit by rising investor activity and housing scarcity. Public involvement is critical to reducing the problem. Landlord interests, represented by groups like the National Multifamily Housing Council, carry enormous influence, while tenants rely on thinner support networks like the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Federal agencies like the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Finance Agency play a role, but lag behind corporate influence. In comparison, Blackstone has faced greater resistance in European countries with stronger tenant protections and better-organized renters' movements. Policies like taxing the unimproved value of land could encourage development and discourage speculation on vacant or underused properties. Without effective measures, the concentration of land in private hands will only grow, whether through corporate landlords, billionaires like Bill Gates (who owns 250,000 acres spread out over 17 states), or creeping attempts to privatize public land. At stake is not just affordability but also whether the public retains any real claim to land and housing or surrenders it entirely to private capital. John P Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, DC, and a world affairs correspondent for the Independent Media Institute . He is a contributor to several foreign affairs publications, and his book 'Budget Superpower: How Russia Challenges the West With an Economy Smaller Than Texas'' was published in December 2022. This article was produced by Economy for All , a project of the Independent Media Institute, and is republished with kind permission.
