fastcompany.com
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  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    641·
    5 months ago

    To be clear, the headline refers to yank degrees:

    In outdoor tests in Arizona, the textile stayed […] 16 F (8.9 C) cooler than regular silk, a breathable fabric often used for dresses and shirts.

    They didn’t really compare it to many materials it seems.

    I also don’t know why they said 16+ degrees. That was the largest temperature delta they saw, not the least…

    Besides, this is only part of the tale:

    • Is it affordable?

    • Is it mass manufacturable?

    • Is it comfortable?

    • Is it durable?

    • Is it washable?

    • Is it crease prone?

    • Can it be easily mixed with other materials, e.g. to make it elasticated?

    • Is it recyclable?

    • Is it dyeable?

    • is it fine for sensitive skin?

    • etc

    Sounds cool (heh) though. I’m often too warm.

  • ZagamTheVile@lemmy.worldEnglish
    611·
    5 months ago

    I admit I didn’t read the article throughly, but surely if it’s impossiblely thin it can’t exist. I only bring this up because I’m an obnoxious pedant.

  • HelixDab2@lemm.eeEnglish
    21·
    5 months ago

    On top of that, as we experience higher temperatures, many people also crank up their air conditioners—which emit more heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

    This is not correct. Air conditioning units do not ‘emit more […] greenhouse gases’. Air conditioners use a refrigerant–usually R134a–which does have a high global warming potential (GWP) compared to methane or CO2, but that refrigerant is in a closed loop; it’s not going anywhere unless the system is damaged. Most a/c failures aren’t from refrigerant leaking out of the system, and the system no longer being able to effectively transfer heat, but from the compressor motor failing. When the compressor fails, in most cases you can evacuate the refrigerant, replace the broken part, and then recharge the system. (The fact that they can be repaired doesn’t mean that they usually are repaired. Which is shitty.)

    What is true is that a/c units emit heat themselves. An air conditioner moves heat from inside a space to outside of that space; in the process of doing so, the a/c unit itself is creating an additional small amount of heat from the function of the compressor motor, electronics, etc.

    Beyond that, most electricity that’s used to run a/c systems–and every other electrical device–is produced from burning fossil fuels. So if there’s more demand for electricity–such as from a heat dome that has everyone running their a/c full-time–then yes, more CO2 is going to get pumped out into the atmosphere. But if your electricity is coming from sources that are largely emissions-free, like solar, wind, or hydro, then air conditioning is a negligible source of heat.

    tl;dr - don’t feel bad about using your a/c when heat rises to dangerous levels; agitate at a local, state, and national level for renewable, carbon-neutral ways of generating electricity, and for more efficient use of electricity.

    • crawancon@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      5 months ago

      Thank you.

      I don’t think we should feel bad for housing AC. it was created by us to feel comfortable. Just because companies and bitcoin miners and ultron-ass skynet-ass LLM/ML-ass trainers are using stupid amounts of resource doesn’t mean the population is the cause. it’s the greedy few.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.eeEnglish
        42·
        5 months ago

        I agree with all of this. At the same time, I think that, in most cases, people should allow their body to adapt to heat, if they are healthy enough to do so. Most people can learn to be comfortable in higher heat than they believe, although some people have medical conditions that will make them more susceptible to heat exhaustion and heat stroke. If you can get by without it, you should. If you’re at risk by not using it, don’t feel guilty.

        (FWIW, my office only has a/c because I have a very, very large printer in here, and it tends to have head strikes and scrap prints out if there’s no climate control. But since I’m not printing at the moment, the current temp in here is 82F.)

    • invertedspear@lemm.eeEnglish
      111·
      5 months ago

      If we can recycle single use plastic into this, then great. Somehow I doubt that’s how it would be made.

      • masquenox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        5 months ago

        If we can recycle single use plastic into this, then great.

        They won’t - they’ll just use “Recycling!” as a pretext to continue business as usual… which was the whole point of “Recycling!” in the first place.

      • asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        Disagree. Even if we could, from what I understand, large, solid pieces of plastic are better than extremely small, thin, fragile pieces since those are going to turn into microplastics and get everywhere. I’d rather have them in one big chunk.