[photonthug]

If we fill those abandoned buildings with people, air-conditioning the inside of the building for them will obviously add even more heat to the outside? Parking lots that are full of cars aren't going to be that much cooler than empty ones?

Basically the real story is just that trees make shade (yes, we know already) and "vacant or abandoned" isn't much involved (yes, but we want to discuss zoning/taxes/urbanism things)

[acdha]

There are complex trade offs there: housing uses more power than a parking lot but it also provides far more significant social goods, housing can be built with very different levels of energy usage and external heat emissions, and while people need housing they don’t need cars the same way so you can offset a substantial fraction of the pollution from housing by reducing the number of cars used by residents.

The main lesson I draw is that everything would improve by taxing externalities: the land is vacant because the property owners doesn’t have enough incentive to do something useful with it and we have a lot of inefficiency in our housing and transportation which a carbon tax would go a long way towards reducing.

[fuzzfactor]

>the land is vacant because [of some imaginary occurrences]

Texas is bigger than that.

They have always taxed more carbon and more land in ways that make them rich as hell, at the average citizen's expense.

To the envy of other states' greedy taxing entities.

That wasn't so bad when there was still enough widespread prosperity for the average citizen to be able to afford it.

The land is vacant after they tore down the buildings because the taxes were already too high, and rising too fast.

No brag, just fact.

"How far up is the river now, Ma?"

"Six feet deep, and rising . . ."

[parineum]

a white roof and a green lawn is going to reflect a lot more light than is emitted by an efficient AC.

[fuzzfactor]

>air-conditioning the inside of the building for them will obviously add even more heat to the outside?

Roger?

Well, if Roger's not here somebody's going to have to do the thermodynamics their own self, and it's good to take the initiative plus show it can be done wihtout scaring anybody by using equations or any of that complicated stuff :)

[lukan]

Is that a sort of joke?

If not, you cannot make the land cold with air condition. You can just move heat around, with AC from the inside to the outside, but that costs extra energy -> more heat

[fuzzfactor]

>Is that a sort of joke?

Yes!

But only if your name is Roger :)

>you cannot make the land cold with air condition. You can just move heat around, with AC from the inside to the outside, but that costs extra energy -> more heat

Which is exactly what I've been saying since I was a teenager.

According to thermodynamics anyway . . .

[LamaOfRuin]

This is still just moving the heat around, but with metamaterials you can now passively convert the heat energy into wavelengths that do not get absorbed by the atmosphere and beam a decent chunk of it back into space.

[quinndexter]

I would like to know more.

[LamaOfRuin]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_daytime_radiative_cool...