The Digg Crew wants to hear your thoughts!
Please take our short survey about Digg and potential feature ideas.
Blasting AC Outdoors No Longer Legal in New York City
thedailygreen.com — This week New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a first-of-its-kind law that takes away that right in the name of energy conservation. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which helped the city prepare the legislation, hopes the law will serve as a model for other cities, helping the fight against global warming and air pollution
- 203 diggs
- digg it
- socialpyramid, on 09/04/2008, -3/+3This had always bugged me.
- RSandman, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1Especially since the stores with air conditioning, willing to pay ~$1,000 over the course of a summer to profit $10,000-$20,000 extra in sales, really bugs the homeless people sweating out on the sidewalk...lol
- reyalp, on 09/04/2008, -5/+8new york and california: competing to be first to take away your civil liberties.
- TheMachine1, on 09/04/2008, -5/+6You have no right to pollute the air.
- Roryking, on 09/05/2008, -1/+1-I- don't pollute the air. Power companies who continue to build coal plants and refuse to look in to alternative energy are the ones polluting the air.
- TheMachine1, on 09/05/2008, -2/+4By using electrical power you are a conspirator in the process.
- reyalp, on 09/05/2008, -0/+3Then get off the internet, TheMachine1
The least you can do is eat your own dog food - RSandman, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1Cool, filtered air is now pollution?
What planet are you from?
- airwalkery2k, on 09/05/2008, -1/+4At what point do your rights encroach upon my rights?
- TheMachine1, on 09/05/2008, -0/+3There is a concept in justice that you can break a minor law to prevent a more serious crime. If I climb a fence into a business with a no trespass sign and hide from someone trying to kill me I'm unlikely to face trespass charges. All law is based on that concept. That the law is preventing a greater evil.
The debate is quantifying the evil the law is preventing verses the evil that the law causes. The evil the law causes is likely fairly easy to determine from store sales with and without blasting AC outdoors. The precise dollar figure that wasting energy causes is very unclear. So if the cost has been over estimated then your rights have been encroached.
- TheMachine1, on 09/05/2008, -0/+3There is a concept in justice that you can break a minor law to prevent a more serious crime. If I climb a fence into a business with a no trespass sign and hide from someone trying to kill me I'm unlikely to face trespass charges. All law is based on that concept. That the law is preventing a greater evil.
- RSandman, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1exactly.
- TheMachine1, on 09/04/2008, -5/+6You have no right to pollute the air.
- Ninh, on 09/04/2008, -3/+6All hail eco-fascism, an idea whose time has come!
- WiseWeasel, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3This seems like an arbitrary law. So it's OK to put up a bunch of neon signs and video displays to attract people into your store, no matter how much power they sap, but blow a little cold air onto the sidewalk, and you're breaking the law for some reason. In one case you're wasting power to shine excess light onto the sidewalk, in the other you're wasting power to blow excess cold air onto the sidewalk. God forbid someone should hand out free t-shirts in front of their store, lest we waste a bunch of energy shipping them in from China... This just seems like a slippery slope. If the tactic improves business, then it is hardly a waste, so who's to draw the line between responsible and wasteful energy use? Also, if some technical advancement makes the environmental impact of cooling the air in front of your store negligible at some point, why should this law get in the way of it? This just seems like a solution in search of a problem, and some politicians trying to score some easy 'green' points...
- wonderchemist, on 09/05/2008, -1/+2You're actually warming up NYC if turn on the AC with the door open in NYC.
- RSandman, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1No, you're not.
Physics still applies.
- RSandman, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1No, you're not.
- airwalkery2k, on 09/05/2008, -0/+2If I didn't know anything about thermodynamics, I would say... "BUT air conditioning would cool the world down! WTF, these guys are morons!"
- ElAmo, on 09/05/2008, -0/+1Sarah Palin hates this law because it slows down global warming. She wants to speed it up as much as possible and kill all the polar bears.
- michaelpinto, on 09/05/2008, -1/+1Sarah just loves killing God's creatures!
- JagPop, on 09/05/2008, -0/+5You sent me a Shout but you block me from responding (else you need to make me a Friend).
You shouted:
"I hope your entire family is shoved in an oven you anti-Semitic piece of *****."
Was this Shout misdirected or do you have strange eating habits? - RSandman, on 09/11/2008, -1/+1Only the ones God put here to eat!
Oh...and the ones that eat small children...
- JagPop, on 09/05/2008, -0/+5You sent me a Shout but you block me from responding (else you need to make me a Friend).
- RSandman, on 09/11/2008, -1/+1Hilariously stupid - don't you realize if anyone actually thought Sarah Palin was against this law, it would help her support, as this is an idiotic Fascist law that is as arbitrary and impossible to enforce as it is green-washing?
Ahh...at least you admit the problem we have with the huge over-population of polar bears.
But this law slowing down Global Warming? Are you kidding?
Since when does New York have control of the thermostat on the SUN?
- michaelpinto, on 09/05/2008, -1/+1Sarah just loves killing God's creatures!
- tophizzle, on 09/05/2008, -0/+1New York I love you, but you're bringin' me down.
- GWBExplosives, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Mayor Bloomberg is SUCH a prick!!
The Digg Toolbar for Firefox lets you Digg, submit content, and keep track of Digg even when you're not on the Digg site. Download the official