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  #21  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2020, 11:36 PM
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Originally Posted by dchan View Post

Though I've never been there, Houston is notorious for having extraordinarily hot and swampy summers due to its proximity on the eastern coast next to the ocean and near the path of many tropical storms.
I love that I, a native and long time resident of Houston, (i.e., it's my hometown), am being told what Houston is notorious for by someone who's never been there.

Houston is actually on the Gulf Coast...near the Gulf of Mexico. Farther west than Minneapolis so it's definitely not on the eastern coast. Tropical storms have zero effect on the miserable day-to-day climate from mid-May to mid-October in Houston. In fact, if anything, a tropical storm would cool things down a bit. It's the loss of electricity, and thus a/c, that follows large storms that gives a clue of what life in Houston would be like without cheap energy.

The idea that every home and office and place of business in an area of 7 million people could be retrofitted or replaced during the lifetimes of anyone on this forum is almost as laughable as my being told what Houston is notorious for.

I suggest you spend a week in Houston in mid-August and get back to us.

And this doesn't even consider that Houston's highest elevation is 40 feet above sea level and, although the city is generally considered to be 50 miles from the Gulf, Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Channel are actually contiguous to, and/or enter into the city itself..in other words, sea level rise will back up into the city. And it'll do it right where all the petrochemical refinery and storage facilities are located.
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  #22  
Old Posted Jun 16, 2020, 2:36 PM
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Originally Posted by bilbao58 View Post
I love that I, a native and long time resident of Houston, (i.e., it's my hometown), am being told what Houston is notorious for by someone who's never been there.

Houston is actually on the Gulf Coast...near the Gulf of Mexico. Farther west than Minneapolis so it's definitely not on the eastern coast. Tropical storms have zero effect on the miserable day-to-day climate from mid-May to mid-October in Houston. In fact, if anything, a tropical storm would cool things down a bit. It's the loss of electricity, and thus a/c, that follows large storms that gives a clue of what life in Houston would be like without cheap energy.

The idea that every home and office and place of business in an area of 7 million people could be retrofitted or replaced during the lifetimes of anyone on this forum is almost as laughable as my being told what Houston is notorious for.

I suggest you spend a week in Houston in mid-August and get back to us.

And this doesn't even consider that Houston's highest elevation is 40 feet above sea level and, although the city is generally considered to be 50 miles from the Gulf, Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Channel are actually contiguous to, and/or enter into the city itself..in other words, sea level rise will back up into the city. And it'll do it right where all the petrochemical refinery and storage facilities are located.
Thank you for your insights into Houston, as it can help me craft my response with more info in mind. I appreciate that, though I wish you were less combative in your responses. Not everybody knows everything, you and I included.

By east coast, I mean any land that has a large unconfined body of saltwater (Ocean or gulf) on its east coast. I don't mean "the East Coast". As we have seen in both east and west hemispheres, land on the eastern coast tends to have lots of storms and humid sticky climates. That includes Houston.

It's the buildup to the storm, which pushes warm moist ocean air along its path, that helps lead to the sticky humid climate. And the fact that storms are constantly building up off of the African coast during the tropical storm season means that the air is probably constantly being pushed towards the southeastern US coasts.

As for retrofitting as much as possible in Houston in the coming decades, I say that comes down to political will. NYC, for example, has enacted a local law (Local Law 97) that will compel most privately-owned buildings 25,000 square feet and bigger to meet a strict annual carbon emissions limit starting in 2025, with an absolute date in 2035. This will affect an estimated 60% buildings in NYC as measured by square feet.

IMO, the best method to achieving such a lofty goal is through reducing operational energy use. And one of the best ways to achieve this reduction is through Passive House-type measures.

I think that you lack a bit of imagination here. If Houston were to legally compel most of its building owners to do the same, you would see some action as well. And this action will lead to a boom in construction due to the increased demand for retrofitting. You are here on a forum dedicated to charting skyscraper and building construction, yet you are somehow against the increase in construction activity? Weird.

I advocate for Passive House not just as a certified Passive House Consultant (via PHI), but also as someone who has seen it as a design standard that "just makes sense" since 10 years ago, when the standard barely existed in the US. It is making steady progress into the market for developers and retrofitters who want a comfortable building with low operating costs.

In the past, the initial building and material costs was around 20% more than for building a code-standard building. Nowadays, with material costs lowering, more domestic products being developed, better and standardized building techniques being developed, and more and more architects, engineers, and building contractors & workers being well versed in how to design and construct Passive House-standard buildings, the initial cost delta is anywhere from less than zero (negative) to 10%, and lowering by the year.

To illustrate the point of low operating cost, consider the example of a single family house on a cold winter day. Anecdotes from homeowners have stated that cooking a single baked potato is enough to warm up the entire house for several hours, if not the whole day.

To illustrate the point of indoor comfort, consider the same single family house during a cold winter morning. Frost and condensation will often form on the outside, and never on the inside. This is because the indoor window surfaces remain warm enough, and the whole window assembly is well-insulated enough to prevent heat from inside the house to transfer through the windows. Thus, the outside window surfaces remain cold enough to form condensation even in the cold dry winter air. There is no need for baseboard heating along the exterior perimeters or radiators under windows. In fact, occupants can sit directly next to an unheated window on a winter day because it is warm and comfortable enough.

As for the low elevation above sea level, that will require some flood resiliency planning and design. You probably shouldn't empty the city or move everyone inland, as it not only eliminates Houston's advantages near the water, but also increases the embodied carbon by needing to build a entire new city with buildings, roads, and other infrastructure. It is much more carbon-friendly to simply keep the existing embodied carbon (existing buildings and infrastructure) and redesign them to cope with the flood threats.

I'm not saying these solutions are easy, but what else can you do? People have been used to building cheaply and dealing with the consequences later. In terms of quality assurance/control, this is foolhardy. One of the key tenets of cost control in QA/QC is "do it right the first time, every time", and "re-doing steps costs money". The costs may be high for Houston to retrofit everything. But if they design and build everything to meet the flood resiliency measures as well as low-energy and comfort criteria (Passive House standard or similar, Houstonians (and anyone else, really) will only need to retrofit once and never have to worry about rebuilding again for many decades down the line.

One final point that is somewhat related. I believe that most humans tend to wince at making the big down payment on an automobile lease, but tend not to think much about the monthly payments. All they see is a big number up front, versus a much smaller and "friendlier" number for each month. In other words, humans tend to by myopic and short-sighted. Thus, they will think twice about plunking down a big payment for the initial retrofit costs, but will often think of their substantial monthly a/c and heating costs as "normal". They can't even imagine a world with little or no monthly HVAC costs.

Humans tend to be unimaginative creatures, especially as they get older. They won't believe a new normal until they see and experience it themselves. Once they experience the new normal and its advantages, they will wonder why they couldn't see the advantages before. And the cycle will repeat.
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  #23  
Old Posted Jun 16, 2020, 3:17 PM
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Originally Posted by bilbao58 View Post

The idea that every home and office and place of business in an area of 7 million people could be retrofitted or replaced during the lifetimes of anyone on this forum is almost as laughable as my being told what Houston is notorious for.
AC/ HVAC units have a limited life span (10-15 years) so not unrealistic for people to replace them several times within their lifetimes.
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  #24  
Old Posted Jun 16, 2020, 9:15 PM
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^ Toronto is like a Sun Belt city: even the city proper is mostly post-war. The GTA is very much a place built for cars, as you've probably seen from my threads. Wide roads and huge freeways everywhere, included 12+ lanes wide Highway 401. But the suburban bus systems still growing rapidly. It's very easy to drive around Brampton and Mississauga as well, but their bus systems have 3 times higher transit ridership per capita than Harris County.

Look at a place like Las Vegas. The Las Vegas metropolitan area had less than 50,000 people in 1950. It is place that was built almost entirely in the automobile era, with no rail system, but the metropolitan area has twice the per capita transit ridership of Houston's.

Even nearby Dallas saw 30% increase in bus ridership in 2019 just from simple bus service increase and restructuring. 30% ridership increase in one year! It doesn't take much effort.

Getting people out of their cars isn't about making using cars "difficult enough", but rather making the alternatives easy enough. Even half-hearted TOD measures in new subdivisions can make a big difference, as you can see in Brampton. Making driving "more difficult" will not help if you keep on ignoring the alternatives.

Getting people onto transit isn't about starting a war on cars, it's about ending the war on public transit.
It is also about making public transit an actual viable option for reliable transportation. As it is, most public transit in the U.S. is terrible. For the most part, it's a triple whammy of too many stops, too little frequency, and low average speeds.

For most U.S. municipalities, you would need to put a gun to driver's heads to switch. And I would agree with the drivers in this case. Why would I turn a 20-30 minute drive into a 1+ hour public transit ride?

To actually encourage drivers to switch, public transit needs to be an attractive alternative. A 20-30 minute drive should translate to no more than 40-45 minutes on public transit. Headways should be frequent enough that riders don't feel like they need to run to make the coming bus/train/light rail, lest they wait another 20-60 minutes (or more) for the next arrival.

And people should be made aware of what a CBD or other busy city neighborhood can possibly look like if a good chunk of the public roadways was dedicated to safe pedestrian and people usage, and not dedicated to providing space for parking, car thoroughfares, and parking lots/garages. As I have stated in my other posts, people generally lack imagination. They are only aware of what they have seen and experienced.
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  #25  
Old Posted Jun 16, 2020, 9:44 PM
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Originally Posted by JManc View Post
AC/ HVAC units have a limited life span (10-15 years) so not unrealistic for people to replace them several times within their lifetimes.
Windows and roofs also have a limited lifespan (about 20-30 years). So you might as well go with the option that provides the most energy savings over the long term. And if you are already doing that work, you might as well add insulation and air-sealing as well. There are techniques that allow you to add air-sealing and insulation in a non-invasive manner while the building is occupied (such as external continuous insulation).

And once you have made your building more energy efficient, you will see that you don't need replace your AC/HVAC equipment with new equipment at the the same size (BTU tonnage). In fact, installing an oversized AC is actually bad, because it will cool your space far faster than it can dehumidy the space, which makes the occupants feel cold and clammy. By reducing the size of the AC/HVAC that you need, you are saving a good deal of money upfront on equipment costs.
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  #26  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 12:30 AM
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It's the buildup to the storm, which pushes warm moist ocean air along its path, that helps lead to the sticky humid climate.
I'm sorry, but that is just absolute...nonsense. Houston's sticky humid climate is sticky and humid 24 hours a day, 7 days a week starting about mid-May and ending around the third week of October. There could be not a single tropical system anywhere on the entire planet and Houston would still be sticky and humid...and you forgot hot. Tropical storms have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Houston's hot, humid, and frankly oppressive climate for half the year.

And in fact, I will reiterate, except for wind blowing roofs off of houses and windows out of skyscrapers and trees down and apocalyptically excessive rainfall filling the bayous and then filling the streets near those bayous and then progressively farther from those bayous then filling the houses along those streets, tropical storms and hurricanes generally (if not always) bring a bit of temporary respite from the miserable heat and humidity. I know this from personal experience(s), I've been through enough of them over the decades.

Would any fellow Houstonians care to chime in, here?

Last edited by bilbao58; Jun 17, 2020 at 12:57 AM.
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  #27  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 12:48 AM
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AC/ HVAC units have a limited life span (10-15 years) so not unrealistic for people to replace them several times within their lifetimes.
I was really referring to his/her comments about old versus new building and energy standards. You can replace you air conditioner every month if you want, but if the design of your home or building is not such that interior temperatures remain tolerable, the only real answer is to replace the structure altogether. That's where things start taking some time when a population of 7 million people is involved.

Anyone who really knows Houston, knows that air-conditioning made the city's growth possible. In fact, a/c made today's Texas possible. I can't help but wonder what would happen if energy costs spiked suddenly. Or if the economy becomes such that people just no longer have the money to afford the sh!tload of electricity it currently (no pun intended...OK...maybe it was intended) takes to keep this state livable.
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  #28  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 1:30 AM
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Originally Posted by bilbao58 View Post
I'm sorry, but that is just absolute...nonsense. Houston's sticky humid climate is sticky and humid 24 hours a day, 7 days a week starting about mid-May and ending around the third week of October. There could be not a single tropical system anywhere on the entire planet and Houston would still be sticky and humid...and you forgot hot. Tropical storms have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Houston's hot, humid, and frankly oppressive climate for half the year.

And in fact, I will reiterate, except for wind blowing roofs off of houses and windows out of skyscrapers and trees down and apocalyptically excessive rainfall filling the bayous and then filling the streets near those bayous and then progressively farther from those bayous then filling the houses along those streets, tropical storms and hurricanes generally (if not always) bring a bit of temporary respite from the miserable heat and humidity. I know this from personal experience(s), I've been through enough of them over the decades.

Would any fellow Houstonians care to chime in, here?
Fine, I'll take your word for it. The point remains that we agree that Houston's climate is hot and sticky for much of the year.

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Originally Posted by bilbao58 View Post
I was really referring to his/her comments about old versus new building and energy standards. You can replace you air conditioner every month if you want, but if the design of your home or building is not such that interior temperatures remain tolerable, the only real answer is to replace the structure altogether. That's where things start taking some time when a population of 7 million people is involved.

Anyone who really knows Houston, knows that air-conditioning made the city's growth possible. In fact, a/c made today's Texas possible. I can't help but wonder what would happen if energy costs spiked suddenly. Or if the economy becomes such that people just no longer have the money to afford the sh!tload of electricity it currently (no pun intended...OK...maybe it was intended) takes to keep this state livable.
Nonsense. You didn't read much of my post. Read it again. RETROFITS can be done on the existing building to drastically increase its energy efficiency without tearing the whole structure down and rebuilding. Not only is tearing down and rebuilding prohibitively expensive, but it is also very carbon intensive.

All things that have ever been made have an embodied carbon footprint. The Passive House standard was designed explicitly to drastically reduce the carbon footprint of buildings. Yet, you're telling me the only way to cope with Houston's hot sticky climate is to tear down the entire structure. This "solution" of yours not only destroys a structure that already has embodied carbon, but replaces it with another structure with embodied carbon (albeit, one that is more energy efficient in operation).

Why not, instead, retrofit a building with properly designed insulation and air-sealing so that it can come close to a brand new Passive House building's energy efficiency standards? I have a feeling that you lack a bit of imagination, but that is a human trait. I suffer from the same problem, but I don't have the unwavering confidence to believe my ignorance is the only right answer.
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  #29  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 1:41 AM
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Nonsense. You didn't read much of my post.
Of course I didn't read it. There was no way I could get past the nonsense about tropical storms being the cause of Houston's climate.
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  #30  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 2:05 AM
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By the way, if I seem unreasonably cranky, it may be partially because my dog of 16 years died this morning.
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  #31  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 5:50 AM
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Originally Posted by bilbao58 View Post

Anyone who really knows Houston, knows that air-conditioning made the city's growth possible. In fact, a/c made today's Texas possible. I can't help but wonder what would happen if energy costs spiked suddenly. Or if the economy becomes such that people just no longer have the money to afford the sh!tload of electricity it currently (no pun intended...OK...maybe it was intended) takes to keep this state livable.
Houston/Galveston was a big city long before air conditioning was invented.
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  #32  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 5:52 AM
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Originally Posted by bilbao58 View Post
I'm sorry, but that is just absolute...nonsense. Houston's sticky humid climate is sticky and humid 24 hours a day, 7 days a week starting about mid-May and ending around the third week of October. There could be not a single tropical system anywhere on the entire planet and Houston would still be sticky and humid...and you forgot hot. Tropical storms have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Houston's hot, humid, and frankly oppressive climate for half the year.


Would any fellow Houstonians care to chime in, here?
As a Houstonian I will chime in and say that I can think of many times that the city has been cold in the fall or spring, including September or May. I can also think of times the city has been cold at night during the summer.
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  #33  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 5:28 PM
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Houston/Galveston was a big city long before air conditioning was invented.
From the Houston Business Journal:

Houston owes growth to air conditioning technology


https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/...ditorial4.html


By the late 1940s, window air conditioning units for homes were developed and were met with wide approval. On sweltering summer nights, flashing neon signs at restaurants, nightclubs and movie theaters enticed "Refrigerated air inside."

Then came the 1950's which engulfed us in not only home air conditioners, but also freezers, televisions, electronics and appliances -- all adding heat to the AC load. Centralized systems for AC supplanted the window unit and by 1965 one in 10 single family homes had total cool. By the mid-1960s hordes of folks from the North headed South. "The Sun Belt", or more accurately "The AC Belt" was born.

The New York Times dubbed the 1970 head count as "The Air Conditioned Census," prompting editorial writers to comment that "the humble air conditioner has been a powerful influence in circulating people as well as the air in this country."


From KHOU, Channel 11:

HOUSTON
— We take it for granted now, but there was time only decades ago when we didn’t have the luxury of living in air conditioning. In fact, air conditioning has been so influential, it’s one of the reasons Houston has grown so much today.

https://www.khou.com/article/news/li...e-42a20aef4c64


"The heat and humidity made life so hard back then, it’s why many people just didn’t live here.
Those who did just figured it out. “Houses and buildings were built much differently, you had
higher ceilings because heat rises, so you build higher roofs and higher ceilings to draw the heat up,"
Preuss said.
When they couldn’t cool off inside, can you believe, they went outside?! Or to places like The Majestic Metro."

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  #34  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 5:51 PM
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As a Houstonian I will chime in and say that I can think of many times that the city has been cold in the fall or spring, including September or May. I can also think of times the city has been cold at night during the summer.

COLD at night in Summer? Really?

Not "coolish." Not "bearable." Not "relatively cool" for that time of year. Not even just "unusually pleasant" for a summer night. Key word "unusually." You said "COLD."

Not before or after a big thunderstorm?

Again, you're saying "COLD." You can think of MANY times it's been COLD in summer at night? You used the word "COLD."

Really? Many times? How many? Five times in 40 years? I wouldn't even believe that many. Nothing but anecdotal exceptions which prove the rule.

It is exceptionally rare for there to be cool weather after late May. We're talking cool, now, not just pleasant. "Sweater weather" after mid-May. Cold weather in the latter half of May would be absolutely remarkable (and maybe a sign of climate disruption).

I'm old enough to remember when the worst of the summer heat would be over by about September 20th. Not anymore. There may be cool (or even cold) fronts that cool things off for a number of days but then the heat and humidity come right back. The third week of October seems to be when lasting relief from summer finally arrives now.

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  #35  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 6:09 PM
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Originally Posted by bilbao58 View Post
COLD at night in Summer? Really?

Not "coolish." Not "bearable." Not "relatively cool" for that time of year. Not even just "unusually pleasant" for a summer night. Key word "unusually." You said "COLD."

Not before or after a big thunderstorm?

Again, you're saying "COLD." You can think of MANY times it's been COLD in summer at night? You used the word "COLD."

Really? Many times? How many? Five times in 40 years? I wouldn't even believe that many. Nothing but anecdotal exceptions which prove the rule.

It is exceptionally rare for there to be cool weather after late May. We're talking cool, now, not just pleasant. "Sweater weather" after mid-May. Cold weather in the latter half of May would be absolutely remarkable (and maybe a sign of climate disruption).

I'm old enough to remember when the worst of the summer heat would be over by about September 20th. Not anymore. There may be cool (or even cold) fronts that cool things off for a number of days but then the heat and humidity come right back. The third week of October seems to be when lasting relief from summer finally arrives now.
Yeah, after a storm, happens all the time, cold fronts. People lived here before air conditioning and it has been established in this thread that there will be ways to live without it if necessary.
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  #36  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 6:49 PM
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Why not, instead, retrofit a building with properly designed insulation and air-sealing so that it can come close to a brand new Passive House building's energy efficiency standards?
I would advise you do some research into the differences in design of homes and buildings specific to Houston and to Texas from before and from after the advent of mass availability of air conditioning. Insulation and air sealing will not satisfactorily help a house whose physical structure is designed so that it heats up quickly and does not direct that heat away from its occupants.


I live in a 3-year-old house in San Antonio that exceeds current energy-conservation standards, has the latest insulation technologies, is clad in 4-inch thick stone, not brick, that absorbs and then radiates heat, and the house has a metal roof that reflects heat away from it. There have been a couple of occasions where the air conditioning was off for more than 24 hours because of poor drainage design for a/c condensation and even for bad plumbing work that tripped the a/c water-sensor cut-off, amazingly the home was quite comfortable for most of the day, but it was obvious that that comfort was not going to last much longer.

All the insulation and energy efficient windows and finely tuned a/c systems cannot compensate for existing buildings that are in-and-of-themselves not physically designed to stay cool or even stay tolerable.

And none of this addresses the sprawling nature of the vast majority of the region
which leaves most of its residents utterly dependent on automobiles to get to, frankly, just bout anywhere and everywhere they need to go any time they need to go somewhere.

To change Houston to a highly efficient city, and I mean everyone in the city, not just increasing the energy efficiency of City of Houston services (city government that is carbon neutral doesn't mean a lot when 7 million private citizens are still spewing carbon) will be a HERCULEAN task that includes, not only new and upgraded building standards and retrofitting, but it really would need a massive restructuring of the urban fabric of the entire city itself on a scale not seen since the days of Baron Haussmann and his "bulldozing" of old Paris.

It may happen at some point, it may HAVE TO happen at some point. Or the city may end up just being, for the most part, abandoned. But my original point was that I don't think any structural changes that are massive enough to address the problems can possibly happen in our lifetimes. I just don't think there is the political will in this country to accomplish such a monumental task.
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  #37  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 7:01 PM
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People lived here before air conditioning and it has been established in this thread that there will be ways to live without it if necessary.
I never said people didn't live there before A/C. But 7 million people didn't live there before air conditioning. Even the British government gave diplomatic staff assigned to Houston "hardship pay," similar to what they gave for assignments to places like Egypt or India.

It is my contention that high energy costs, or a reduction in people's ability to pay for energy, would start an immediate and major decline of the city and area.
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  #38  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 7:08 PM
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Originally Posted by bilbao58 View Post
I never said people didn't live there before A/C. But 7 million people didn't live there before air conditioning. Even the British government gave diplomatic staff assigned to Houston "hardship pay," similar to what they gave for assignments to places like Egypt or India.

It is my contention that high energy costs, or a reduction in people's ability to pay for energy, would start an immediate and major decline of the city and area.
So no more air conditioning also means no more heaters. People from the north moving out because it’s too cold. People from the south moving out because it’s too hot. People in Mexico have no where to go so they’re stuck there. This is the sense you’re using.
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  #39  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 7:10 PM
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Originally Posted by Double L View Post
Yeah, after a storm, happens all the time, cold fronts.
I mean, c'mon! You're talking to someone who's spent over 60 years in Texas, all but a few of those years within 100 miles of the coast. How many COLD FRONTS have you ever experienced in June, July or August?
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Old Posted Jun 17, 2020, 7:20 PM
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bilbao58 bilbao58 is online now
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Location: Homesick Houstonian in San Antonio
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Double L View Post
So no more air conditioning also means no more heaters.

A quick look at world history will reveal just how absurd that statement is.


I'm out of here.
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