Lawrence.com Mobile

"But, I'm not a small business owner, so what do I know?"

That might be the crux of the question.

If they pay for it, they can do whatever like, no matter how dumb.

"But if you're running on-the-grid and your energy use is causing pollution, well it just seems wasteful."

We could probably apply that metric to any number of people, places, and situations, no?

Not trying to be snarky, Chris, because I think you do one of the better blogs at L.com...but given the current state of affairs in this country, this just seems inconsequential.

If THE GAP or some such place thinks that they might make a net gain of $2 by leaving their doors open, no blog post in the world is going to convince them to stop.

I'd never have imagined that an argument could be made against Chris' position on this. But one has. Not an effective one. Not a reasonable one. But an argument nonetheless.

No - I'm not arguing against it (I think I've made that really, really clear). His position makes all the sense in the world. My only point is that this isn't a super pressing issue, and given that Congress and the Dems laid down today on FISA, the air conditioning situation at "Lids" isn't going to keep me up tonight...

On the Obama = Muslim = Terrorist thing, I work in a field teeming with, erm, let's just say people who spread those types of emails. I recently got one that showed a picture of young Obama on the left and young McCain on the right, and Obama had some muslim garb on and McCain had some military garb on. Its caption was: "If your (sic) still thinking of voting for Obama ; I have a question for you: is your head up your ass?"

I can understand that the idiots who spread this kind of nonsense wouldn't actually *try* to learn the truth about Obama, but aside from that, do they really think Obama is a terrorist trying to infiltrate the white house? Are they so afraid that they'll willfully sacrifice the most basic common sense?

I mean, it breaks down like this:

McCain looks like a guy in the military.
Obama looks like a Muslim.
A Muslim is more likely to be a terrorist than a guy in the military is.
A vote for Obama might be a vote for a terrorist.

In reality, most of these people probably think Muslim = terrorist and I'm giving them too much credit here.

I was in Phoenix recently, and talk about a place that will get you pissed off about the waste of energy...

Thanks to major environmental manipulation, they have secured a decent, cheap water supply for years to come, but it's like they try to find ways to waste the stuff. The swimming pools, fine. It's hot -- even I'm not so hardcore that I don't see the appeal there. But many of the lawns are as green as Kansas (greener than Kansas in August) because they flood their yards nightly. Why would you WANT grass in a place like that? The desert landscaping looks better in that environment anyway, and you never have to mow.

And they love to waste the AC too. We went to Scottsdale for dinner one night, it was 100+ degrees (even at 7 pm) and the doors were open in several restaurants, the AC blowing full-blast. It's not right when you walk through a wide-open door and the temperature drops 25 degrees. And they ran those stupid little spray-misters in an empty seating area (because even with the misters it was too damn hot to sit outside).

Chris, I'm with you on this blog. I would think an old-fashioned sandwich board that said "Come on in! The air conditioning is on!" or something similar would do the trick as well...

"This time of year, I betcha the AC won't cycle even if you close the doors. If the chiller is running full time, you can take the roof off the fuckin' place, and it won't use any more or less energy."

This is a quote by a genius from the old blog, and is certainly an effective argument against Chris' position, which is purely psychological. Those old buildings downtown are not insulated well enough to retain enough chilled air during the days when the doors are left open. These business would run their AC full time whether the doors are open or not just to keep the inside temp somewhere under 80. Leaving the doors open doesn't use any more power. The same laws of physics apply in New York, believe it or not.

I'm just saying.

I dunno. Seems to me we're just griping about something as insignificant as a drop of water in the ocean with regard to wasting resources.

These businesses probably see a direct correlation between leaving their doors open and having the cool air wash over passersby and sales. It's important for them in that it helps them make money, just as watering the shit out of their greens and fairways helps Lawrence Country Club retain customers.

I wonder if the inherent economic benefit for the community outweighs the hit we'd take by not "wasting" resources in these examples.

Buck has just been waiting for the opportunity to use the word "twink" in a thread.

Please take no offense, Buck. You know me, but that's between us...I was just kidding around.

"right, dotdot, because every single building we're talking about - in lawrence or nyc - has the exact same quality of insulation."

Well, gosh, I don't know. Especially in NYC, not only are many of the buildings insulated in 30s, 40s,and 50s style, but there are a variety of AC systems in use in the various retail establishments. Some central to the building, others with independent units. My guess that most of these systems would run full time in hot enough weather to entice people with an open door whether said door was open or not is based on practical experience.

The leap in the other direction, that these business owners are carbon bigfoots intentionally destroying the poor planet to make a buck is based on this (from your link): "Contributions... are always accepted."

"yep, just genius."
I blush.

For the record, I also think it's dumb to leave the door open when the AC is going.

And I think we should start closing the doors downtown yelling, "Shut the damn door, the airs a-goin," in our best grandfather voice.