Unequal cooling

Usually when the temperature climbs precipitously in Massachusetts, residents who don’t have air conditioning at home have a range of options to stay cool ― they might go to a public pool, spend the day at a community center, or meander around the mall.

But this year, many of those free and easy-to-access strategies are off the table or feel too risky because of the coronavirus.

Climate change has made extreme heat a feature of summertime in New England, and even before the pandemic, the ability to stay cool was an unequally distributed resource across the state. Now, some community groups fear that COVID-19 will leave lower-income people roasting at home, while wealthier people relax in chilled air or escape the city entirely.

Click to expand...

The reason for unequal cooling is one of both cost and city planning. Nationwide, about a fifth of households below the poverty line do not have any air conditioning equipment, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Even if a household has an air conditioning unit, the cost of actually running it may be unaffordable. A quarter of low-income households in Boston spend more than 12 percent of their income on energy bills, making them significantly “energy burdened,” according to a 2016 study from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy.

“The cost of having air conditioning is a concern, especially this year, when people have been hit so hard,” said Roseann Bongiovanni, executive director of the Chelsea-based climate justice group GreenRoots. “This year, people are really going to be thinking, ‘Do I want to put an AC unit in and jack my bills up, while I have rent to pay and I still might not have my full hours back?‘ ”

Click to expand...

iluvatar5150 said:

If the inequality exists, it’s not fabricated.





That’s nice. Generations of people grew up without indoor plumbing or anesthesia during surgery, both of which are considered unthinkable now. Living standards change.




Well, first off, the girls aren’t at the apartment building with the dishes; they’re next door on the other side of a fence.

Second, DirecTV doesn’t require you to return the dish when you cancel and Dish often doesn’t, either, if the dish is difficult or dangerous to access, which those obviously could be. To illustrate that point, observe that at least one of those balconies has two dishes attached to it. So, all that image shows is that somebody next door in those units could have had an account at some point in the past.

So, tell me again who’s the dimwit who doesn’t understand what’s being shown in a photo.

Click to expand...

eastcoast_bsc said:

The latest in the Boston Globes daily fabricated race inequality stories.








I never had an air condition growing up. Didn't even have fans until I was a little older.



I wonder how the Globe will explain this picture they posted to the story below with every apartment having a satellite dish. They typically cost over $100.00 a month. The Globe writes are such dim wits that they didn't understand the optics of this photo. I would have selected a different photo.

Click to expand...

Phoebe Ann said:

Well, I'm caucasian. I lived without air conditioning for all of my childhood in Florida and attended non-air-conditioned segregated schools. Then for many of my adult years (at least six) we lived without air-conditioning. But this doesn't change the fact that many people discriminate against other races and foreigners.

Click to expand...

iluvatar5150 said:

Again, you don’t know who there still has an account.



The people who die during heat waves would beg to differ.

Click to expand...

Nearly 70 residents sickened with the coronavirus have died at a Massachusetts home for aging veterans, as state and federal officials try to figure out what went wrong in the deadliest known outbreak at a long-term care facility in the U.S.

Click to expand...