Don't Sweat It

It's true, there is something twisted in the way we warm the planet when we try to cool it. This summer could end up the hottest in 60 years, and all our hiding out indoors will have made the problem worse. Stan Cox, whose 2010 book, Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World, makes this argument with blistering intensity, points out in the Times that the cooling of buildings and vehicles accounts for the release of 500 million tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent every year. But it's easy to get distracted by the giant numbers. Yes, A/C units have grown in popularity, but they are not more of a threat to the environment than heaters; in fact, they may be the lesser sin. Analyses of home-energy use reveal that we use more energy to heat our homes (41.7 million BTUs per year, on average, at a cost of $631) than to cool them (7.8 million BTUs, at $276). That?s true even though millions of people have moved into the hot and humid metropolises of the Sun Belt since the 1970s. In fact, as Cox himself points out, that southward migration produced a net decline in energy use for climate control, since all the extra demand for electricity?in the frigid shopping centers of Houston, Phoenix, and elsewhere?has been more than offset by a reduced need for oil- and gas-based home heating. As of a few years ago, homeowners in cold states like Minnesota were putting out 20 to 25 percent more carbon dioxide through the use of their heaters than were the A/C-happy folks in Florida. And while it's true that the HFC refrigerants now used in home appliances are themselves a source of global warming, these will soon be phased out by manufacturers. Even now, they amount to just one-fourth of the total greenhouse emissions associated with air conditioning.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=f686b28e5705b9a2b337a69ba740a2a8

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