Chilling out
How I love air-conditioning! I’m camped out in my office, reflecting on the blessing and gift of AC. And yes, I understand the terrible irony of it: air-conditioning puts carbon in the atmosphere, which leads to global warming, which leads to wacky weather that plagues the Northwest with desert temperatures, the Southeast with drought, and the Northeast with floods. Ideally we humans will figure out how to cool ourselves–and transport ourselves, and warm ourselves, and everything else we do–without making the whole situation worse. But for now, I hope you can understand that I’m choosing to enjoy a few hours of AC.
If you’re interested in my take on the ethics involved, read further.
I live in a 1916 Craftsman bungalow, hardly a candidate for a green-building award. And yet our house has a basement, so rather than buy a window air-conditioner, we just tough out these few bad days down there. And we’ve replaced some of the windows (with more to come), made significant kitchen upgrades, and make good use of our outdoor space.
Having said that, I know my workplace carbon footprint is more problematic. I have air-conditioning, and though I share an office building with other counselors and massage therapists, I know it wasn’t constructed really well (by environmental standards, at least). I know a therapist whose office is not air-conditioned, and no doubt my lease would be cheaper if I went in that direction.
But when it comes to the environment, I believe in trade-offs. It would be better, I know, if I were a purist: no investment in AC, a vegan diet, a fully sustainable lifestyle–the works. But at the same time, I think that most of us will bring a new environmental era into being more gradually, and I’m not sure that’s all bad. Lots of jobs and livelihoods depend on non-green industries (at least for now), so in my view it makes sense to do two things: be conscious, and be moderate. I’m conscious of my carbon footprint, and moderately responsive to my need to continue reducing it. It will take a long time for our country (and all the others) to get a handle on the myriad environmental problems we face, and a moderate approach is undeniably slower. But we’re also wrestling with an economy in crisis, and lots of people are affected by that. Slowly but surely, I’m confident we’ll address both our environmental crisis and our economic issues.
In the meantime, my office thermometer says 71.4 degrees, and though I know the trade-offs, wow, it’s nice to be comfortable for a few hours.
What do you think? I’d be interested. In my line of work, I welcome all sorts of ethical discussions. Please comment below if you have your own thoughts and reflections. And either way, stay cool!
