ilsa-fireswan:fereldenturnip:fandomsandfeminism:sporkqueen:As a Midwesterner who just endured a full
ilsa-fireswan:fereldenturnip:fandomsandfeminism:sporkqueen:As a Midwesterner who just endured a full week of -25°F weather, I have nothing to say to you besides “LOL”Did you fully lose power and water for 40+ hours during that week? I mean, people are dead because the Texas government insisted on privatizing and deregulating our power grid, allowing for decades of neglect to overwhelm our outdated system. But sure, laugh at the old folks dying of carbon monoxide poisoning in their homes because they desperately tried to use the gas stove to stay warm as their apartment reached the low 40s after 40 hours of no power. Laugh at people who are having their pipes explode and then the water refreezing in their apartment complexes, leaving them without power and water for days at a time. Thanks. Lol. And I’ll repeat the same discourse I’ve said re: American “heat” and British “heat”…Houses in the south USA are designed to deflect heat, not insulate it. As Yankee who used to live in Oklahoma for almost a decade, I’ve always noticed that the winters there got more and more miserable with each passing year. Wetter, too. This is unprecedented because, oh shit! CLIMATE CHANGE! So while a Michigander can sit moderately comfy and withstand the cold coming off the lakes, a Texan in a house built like an icebox to battle +110°F heat will surely face difficulties. [also, check the news every once and awhile: southwest has been hit with insane amounts of ice, crippling their already weak infrastructure. I’d like to see the people laughing stand outside in their -25° for 4 hours in nothing but a light spring jacket and house shoes. Grandstanding aside, you won’t survive it. That’s what Texans are facing right now in their own homes no less.]It’s the same if you reverse the roles: a Midwesterner might get heat stroke in 78° because their house is insulated. That 78° easily turns into +100°, which has in fact claimed many lives over every summer each year. Drop the sarcasm. Find some empathy. Because summer is fast approaching and it’ll be the north’s turn to struggle. This kind of ice in the house is literally because of home design! There is no mandated insulation of plumbing or protection against ice dams (even in areas that have code enforcement) and the sun is melting snow then the wind is re-freezing it but the sun is still melting more and that is running under the frozen bits. And then that melted snow builds up a nice waterpark on your roof and can’t go anywhere but down (through the underlayments and flashings that are not mandated to be heavy enough to guard against the amount of water from ice build up) into your walls and ceilings. And then, because POWER HAS BEEN OUT FOR MULTIPLE DAYS WITH SUB-ZERO TEMPERATURES, it’s re-freezing in the home because THE HOUSE IS LITERALLY COLDER THAN THE STANDING IN THE SUN RIGHT NOW. As has been true every day here for a week.Fun bonus fact: Most homes prior to 1980 were built WITHOUT INSULATION! Homes built prior to central AC might not even be able to add insulation without causing the home to build up condensation (and then mold) every time you run the air conditioner. Because they were designed to “breathe” to circulate air and stay cool. And guess what! Unless you can afford to build a new house THAT YOU ALSO DESIGN (because a builder is going to do what is “affordable”), you aren’t going to fix any of this easily. There’s things you can do to upgrade a house you own (you know, if you can afford remodeling), but if you rent like the pictured APARTMENT, you don’t get any choice. No choice in how your home is maintained. No choice in how the electric utilities choose to protect against outages. No choice in what areas have been targeted for INTENTIONAL POWER OUTAGES so that other areas can maintain power. No local option to buy winter clothes rated for actual freezing temperatures. No de-icing supplies at the local hardware store. No roads safe to travel even if you could buy things. WE HAVE NO POWER HERE. Power in the sense of electricity nor power in the sense of ability to change things. WE HAVE NO POWER HERE.And even better, those icicles are probably the only water they have right now, too. STOP MOCKING PEOPLE FROM OTHER CLIMATES WHEN IT’S SUDDENLY A WHOLE NEW CLIMATE -- source link