Rep. Broun says clean energy legislation will cause southerners to die from hyperthermia

Late last week, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) went to the floor of the House to slam clean energy legislation. As part of his bizarre rant against a progressive energy bill, the congressman said that, as a result of the bill, people throughout the “southeast and southwest” who “depend on air condition just to live” will no longer be able to afford it. Broun went on to claim that these people will then go into hyperthermia, where their body temperatures skyrocket, and then “people are gonna die because of that”:

BROUN: A lot of old people in Georgia and Florida and all out through the southeast and southwest they’re depending upon air condition just to live. And if their electricity goes sky high, and the energy bill is gonna make that happen if it ever passes. And a lot of people aren’t gonna be able to afford to run their air condition anymore. And a lot of people are gonna have a hard time with, hyperthermia is what we call in medicine as a medical doctor, their body temperature is gonna go up. They’re gonna get dehydration and people are gonna have a lot of problems and it’s gonna have a greater impact on our health care system and people are gonna die because of that. And it’s gonna kill jobs too

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/14/broun-energy-elderly-die/

It's not an ancient invention.

Or is his argument that air conditioning is now a requirement due to temperature elevations caused by global warming?

In any case...FAIL.

:eyes:

I didn't have AC in my house back in the 80's fer Crissake! Didn't have it in my car till even later. My family from the South (Florida, and not by the beach either!) all grew up without it. WTF?

but I do think that there is truth to the fact that prior to air conditioning, builders built houses that were designed to stay cool without air conditioning AND they left the trees around the houses. Go to a modern (post air conditioner) subdivision, and no attempt is made to design nature cooling into the design. Further, for these new subdivision they cut down ALL of the old trees to make it easy to get heavy equipment in, then plant back little ornamental trees.

If the price of carbon based energy is raised drastically, there will be a painful adjustment period.

Obviously, the badly designed house shouldn't have been built, but we have to deal with the reality of what exist.

Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to power exisiting type AC units from home-owned alternative power, such as solar panels or home-sized wind turbines.

It is going to be problematic everywhere if the tax is "across the board" which I don't think it should be.

It is not just so much per kilowatt hour. It is what we are doing to the earth..There is a cost and Americans need to wake up to that fact and start paying their way...

Here's a link to an article on a new AC tech that would use 90% less power than the AC systems used now. Could use the direct heat from solar collectors to drive part of the process. It's a marrying of a couple of cooling techs into one whole system.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100621071943.htm

It is entirely possible to power existing AC units, that is unless the existing unit is a thirty year old dinosaur.

It is amazing how efficient new units have become, it is also amazing how much power one can get out of thin film photovoltaics and windbelts.

However no matter what, we do need to start redesigning our neighborhoods and homes to be cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter. Old fashioned things like trees and window awnings can help a great deal, water walls, good insulation, and other measures need to be looked at. Perhaps not throughout the South, but certainly in parts of Texas, apartment buildings aren't built with insulation. The reasoning goes that since they don't get cold, they don't need insulation, not recognizing that insulation also helps in the summer.

Yes, we're going to be an adjustment period, but if we're going to have a sustainable future, we're all going to have to deal with it.

and the air conditioners will be running for free.

the republicans cut the fuel fund almost in half. And that was during that coldest winter on record. Where people couldn't afford to buy heating oil..wonder what he had to say about that...course most of the people effected were in the area of the Northeast where they had all that cold and snow. BUT they were mostly in a Democratic area, so that didn't count.

the flapping of skeeters' wings keep Southerners fanned at all times.

;-)

:)

But under Republican fealty to the status quo, and the concomitant flow of all the good stuff to them and theirs, we can't fucking do anything anymore. The Party of Personal Responsibility and Large Trust Funds has sapped our national will to the point where we can't imagine doing anything differently. They'll dress it up with scare stories about "people are gonna die," but the bottom line is that change might mean that Broun and his overprivileged cronies might have to pitch in to help the society that's made them so rich, and that's just not how things are done anymore.

He forgot that part.