On climate change and air conditioners

I read this book review recently in the New York Times. My gut reaction to the book’s message is that making people feel guilty for air conditioner use is not going to solve problems at the scale we need to. In addition, heat pumps are going to be essential to electrifying the world. What do heat pumps and air conditioners have in common? They both move heat around with refrigerant and are practically the same thing. We need to be installing them everywhere we possibly can.

That said, if we can minimize refrigerant leaks and/or dangerous refrigerants when possible, we should do so. The Sanden heat pump water heater uses carbon dioxide as a refrigerant. It would be cool if we could use that for HVAC systems as well.