[gerdesj]

I'm a Brit. We don't have air con by default. For a few years me and the wife had Floridian relos (Coral Springs). We visited in summer and the house is about 17C (65F). Outside it is at least 35C (95F). The air con unit in the garage is pissing water everywhere and under quite some load.

I did ask why they kept the house so cold and was told "because we can". I got it: they had a really hard start off in life and were now able, through parental sacrifices etc, and their own hard work, be able to basically show off and keep their house cold in summer. I've seen the same in TX - my brother worked for EDS near Fort Worth a while back (20 years back). The attitude is the same there and again, I understand the individual stories of being able to conquer something that they could not growing up. Obviously you also get the "because we can" from multi millionaires too but for what sounds like a different reason but is really the same.

In the UK we constantly get badgered about water use. The fucking stuff falls out of the sky with monotonous regularity. The place is a series of islands. The Atlantic is off to the left and that's a lot of water. What is really wrong is our management of the stuff. There is rather a lot of technical debt in our water management system and it will need real money to fix.

Faffing about a TV isn't going to save the world - that bollocks is for politicians and fossil fuel companies to victim shame consumers instead of giving a shit.

A TV uses eleccy and that can be solar/wind/unicorn farts or good old fashioned gas or liquidised puppies.

My home's underfloor heating is eleccy and hence seriously expensive but I am told that my supplier - Shell Energy - only uses renewables to deliver it (Shell? RLY?). I originally signed up with a "green" supplier but they went bust along with a few other shyster energy suppliers hereabouts when the shit really hit the fan. Ukraine invasion nightmare. OPEC opportunistically taking the piss as usual and massive companies filling their boots post a pandemic.

I can almost feel the pain in Saudi and Shell.

[resolutebat]

Fun fact: average household electricity consumption in Florida is among the lowest in the US. [1] This is because heating generally requires more power than air-con, and indeed, the average British home uses 12,000 kWh on heating, vs. on the order of 8,000 for air-conditioning the the average Florida home. This is despite Florida using 4x more power for air-con than the US average, and that the average Florida home is a lot larger than an average UK home.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/reports/2009/sta...

[mrb]

Actually, your reference [1] states the opposite: Florida's "annual electricity expenditures are 40% more than the U.S. average"... which is caused by air conditioning.

I think you meant to state that Florida's energy (not electricity) expenditures are amongst the lowest in the US.

[resolutebat]

Sorry, you're right: FL has low energy consumption but high electricity consumption. The point still stands though, it's still better for the environment to live in FL and use air-con than to live in the UK and heat your house through the winter.

[jameson71]

This is kind of messed up as it makes global warming cheap to avoid the felt effects

[jquery]

Wow, I had no idea Floridians cared so much about the environment.

[ikt]

Neither did they!