To the editor: The opinion piece on getting ready for rising, harmful temperatures brought on by local weather change rightly factors out that air-con saves lives, however it’s not, alone, the software that’s going to avoid wasting us (“Air conditioning alone won’t save us from killer heat,” July 19). Many shouldn’t have air-con or can’t afford to run it. And what’s extra, conventional air-con provides pressure to the grid and releases carbon.
Contemplate this: Rising tree cover close to houses is a crucial technique that reduces warmth whereas rising co-benefits like stress discount and, if the tree is native, enhanced biodiversity. One analysis paper that ran within the journal Nature notes {that a} dense tree cover cuts city warmth island results almost in half.
Moreover, bushes cut back the necessity for air-con by round 60%. Planting bushes round houses, together with condo buildings, is a superb technique to cut back warmth.
And relatively than utilizing conventional air-con, switching to environment friendly warmth pumps lowers annual vitality emissions on common by 36% to 64%.
So, let’s plant extra native bushes and add vitality effectivity to our houses and companies. These interventions will assist us deal with the specter of a modified local weather.
Tessa Charnofsky, West Hills
This author works for L.A. County’s Inner Companies Division, specializing in increasing vitality effectivity measures in Southern California.
