Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
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Distributors will receive incentives for selling heat pumps. They will keep a small percentage of the money for themselves and pass most of the savings on to the contractors buying the equipment. The contractors, in turn, will pass the lower price on to the customers.
Hah. As if.
If they were really serious about it, they’d make it so that air conditioners must be reversible under code. The BOM isn’t that significant and Midea is making them dirt cheap now.
This is why I find it hilarious that suddenly people are talking about heat pumps so much. They're not a new technology by any means.
The only reason your current air conditioner doesn't run in reverse (a heat pump) is because they wanted to save $10 in materials, and charge $1000 or more for one that does.
No, there’s a lot bigger difference than that. I have a modern cold climate air source heat pump. Unlike an air conditioner, it’s designed to operate continuously with a variable speed compressor and cooling fan. It’s easily capable of running for days on end during the coldest times of the year (well below freezing). It’s also capable of defrosting itself which is critical for winter operation because it’s literally cooling the air around itself way below freezing.
My previous air conditioner could not run for long cycles like that without the compressor shutting down as a protective measure. It had no ability to defrost itself and its vertical fan orientation allowed it to fill up with snow and ice during the winter, clearly making it totally inoperable until spring when the weather was warm enough to defrost it and dry it out.
You say this as if things like variable speed compressors, multiple compressor stages, and designs other than the generic mostly empty box with an open vertical fan on top don't exist for air conditioners as well.
Your previous air conditioner was designed for its intended purpose. Based on your description it almost certainly didn't have the hardware to function as a heat pump, so being inoperable during a snowy winter wasn't an issue, given it's designed use. On the other end, it was the house I'm in has had three air conditioning units over its lifetime. None of them were an open vertical design like that, and I'm in AZ where snow is irrelevant.
You're talking about equipment designed for the intended use case of cold weather that takes environmental aspects like snow accumulation into account for its design instead of ignoring it, and acting like that is some sort of new technology. It's just better designed and not just the cheapest shit they can get people to buy. Whoever bought an exposed air conditioning unit like that in an area with regular snow was an idiot that clearly did zero research.
The big change that's happened recently (if I understand correctly) is that there's been a big upswing in usability/efficiency in colder temps. The newer models continue working well below freezing, and don't necessarily require a traditional heating system for backup.
Also using DC motors apparently is making a big impact in efficiency as well especially in window units
If by recently, you mean decades. Cold climate heat pumps have been able to handle temps down to -30F for quite a while.
The recent difference is just that they're now being advertised, have articles being written about them, and most importantly... government subsidies to upgrade.