[ChrisMarshallNY]

I'm a big fan of mass transit. I live in the US, but traveled regularly to Tokyo for over 20 years. Their mass transit system is awesome.

The social interaction thing is a big deal, but I don't think remote work will be the coffin nail, there. In fact, it could improve social interactions between neighbors.

There's a school of thought, that the air conditioner has been the true bane of social interaction, as everyone used to hang outside, and now, they don't.

That said, a whole lot of places are gonna have to get used to using air conditioners, and that won't be good for the environment.

I remember being in a town in Northern Germany, when a summer heat wave hit. It was awful. No one had air conditioning, and there were no fans to be found, in any stores.

[wongarsu]

In Germany we used to have unbearably hot weather for maybe a week a year. You just suffered through it, coping with going to the swimming pool or going to the ice cream parlour. All very social activities.

Now we are slowly getting used to the new reality of hot weather for weeks or months each year, and getting air conditioning is something many people think about (but most still put off because electricity is expensive).

I think in general warm weather is conductive to social activities (just look at Southern Italy vs Norway, or basically any place in Northern Europe vs any place in Southern Europe), but air conditioning drives people to just stay at home. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[Robotbeat]

IMHO it’s a policy failure (for climate, economics, and equality) to make electricity so expensive people are less likely to electrify things like their car and heating.

The ratio of gasoline to electricity price in Germany is slightly smaller than that in the US, so the incentive to electrify is proportionally smaller. This is bad. We shouldn’t be paying for renewable energy subsidies via consumer electricity prices; the US does this right by funding it from the general budget instead, which encourages electrification.

[radicalbyte]

It was the same here in NL. I'm thinking of doubling the solar panels and getting airco - at least then the environmental cost is relatively low.

[lwn]

Interesting hypothesis about airconditioning being the reason for staying indoors. I always assumed TV was the main cause.