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Comment by hueving | Hacker News Reader

With the invention of air conditioning and an abundance of solar power during the desert day, it's pretty stupid to let the weather dictate your behavior.

People exist in Chicago despite the fact that it would be completely inhospitable without heating sources. The only difference is that air conditioning is a newer invention so people like you view it as some kind of opulent luxury rather than a technological tool like anything else.

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You're comparing 2 different things though. Heating/AC is required for people's survival whereas green lawns in the middle of an arid desert... not so much.

No I'm not. I'm literally comparing air conditioning to heating. Read my comment again.

> With the invention of air conditioning and an abundance of solar power during the desert day, it's pretty stupid to let the weather dictate your behavior.

Not everyone works in an office, though.

Same thing applies to the cold in the North.

> With the invention of air conditioning and an abundance of solar power during the desert day, it's pretty stupid to let the weather dictate your behavior.

You do have to go outside to get anywhere. We don't have completely domed cities yet.

We sort of do. My 20 mile commute in Seattle involves about 100 feet of walking outside the "dome". I go from my house to my attached garage into my car. To the park-n-ride. From there I walk to the bus. Then ride the bus downtown, where i then walk half a block to my office.

Same thing applies to the cold in Chicago/New York.

Sounds like a decent chunk of the population could deal with living on a Mars colony :)

Try to go out with 45 degrees, with direct sunlight, etc. Some people will even faint within minutes. Because remember you don't get teleported to the shop, you have to walk.

I'm from a much milder but still hot climate, and while the summer weather probably wouldn't make you faint in minutes, people spent very little time outside of air conditioned homes, cars, and shops, and the towns were designed around that fact.

It was 48 degrees in Phoenix a couple weeks ago. We all walked around outside successfully without fainting.

I congratulate you to a good health. Here in sweden people drop dead when temp goes above 25 C. All depends on your health...

Phoenix is not even in the same conversation as Spanish cities when it comes to walking. Madrid, Barcelona and others you walk everywhere to do anything.

have spent much time in 110+ degree weather - you just have to hydrate.

What's the humidity there though? In much of the Southern US, we get temps well above 100 with very high levels of humidity. Even with hydration it is dangerous.

As they say about Phoenix, "it's a dry heat". It's near 20% humidity during peak sunlight during the day. I've been there in really hot summer weather and I was surprised by how really high temperatures didn't feel as hot as I was expecting. To give you an idea of how much this matters, in a gentle breeze, 39.5 C at 20% humidity feels like 57.3 C at 90% humidity.

People definitely don't faint within minutes in a typical Phoenix sunlight. The biggest risks are sunburn and dehydration, both of which take a lot longer.

> To give you an idea of how much this matters, in a gentle breeze, 39.5 C at 20% humidity feels like 57.3 C at 90% humidity.

That cannot possibly be correct.

Humidity has a massive multiplication effect on both cold and hot temperatures.

I would take 110F dry over 80F humid any day. I would also take 10F dry over 30F humid.

The prior claim was that, in a gentle breeze, 135F and 90% RH was the same as 103F and 20% RH (that hotter AND more humid was the same as less hot and drier).

Sorry, I meant to say that 57.3 C at 20% humidity feels the same as 39.5 C at 90% humidity.

I have in the Phoenix and Death Valley deserts. I think you don't understand the difference between low humidity heat and high humidity heat. The latter is intolerable and causes the problems you described. The former just requires adequate hydration.

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