ยป A Tax on Living Large
Lefty website AlterNet recently posted this list of tips for living without an air conditioner, aimed at residents of the Sun Belt. They forgot the most effective: move somewhere cooler. There’s a theory that one of the causes of the Sun Belt’s population boom since WW2 is the availability of air conditioners: you no longer had to be crazy to live there, so people did.
This reminds me of the criticism that BC’s carbon tax disproportionately costs rural residents, who have to drive everywhere. Well duh, if you want to live somewhere that will require a lot of resources* to survive in, you should have to pay for that. In BC’s case it turns out that commuters in the Lower Mainland use more gas than rural residents, which is not surprising because the whole point of sprawling suburbs is to trade travel distance for more living space.
Some of the AlterNet comments imply that alternate energy should let us crank our air conditioners to the max all summer long. But I think that if cheap energy giveth these lifestyles then it’s totally reasonable that climate change should taketh them away. Or, preferably, that the cost of lifestyle choices should include externalities and people can decide for themselves if living in places like Lousianna is worth it.
On the other hand, the appropriately-named Sun Belt could have a sufficient advantage in producing solar electricity to more than make up for the heat. A move away from electric air conditioning could lead to a boom in cities near bodies of water for deep water cooling. And although it’s easier to green heating than cooling (entropy’s not just a good idea – it’s the law), Canada may face a similar movement away from places that are particularly cold.
hmm — seems they are missing the whole point of living in buildings. you can make ‘em use little/no energy for very hot + very cold climates with the correct design choices. this is not an a/c question, it is an attitude question. there is a little thing called clothing as well — maybe alter your garment/material choices based on climate.
I guess the problem is essentially one of universalisms or MODERNISM — we cannot have the same version of cultural expression (buildings/clothes/lifestyles) in every locale in the world — what is appropriate for one is not appropriate for all. Equally, we cannot imitate inauthentically an expression (a la post-modernism).
down with the business suit (unless you are in northern europe)!?!
Stewie
28 Aug 10 at 11:56 am
Nice one, Jared.
And of course it’s not just places that are cold that we might want to rethink, but more importantly places that are distant…whether that be suburbia (more vehicle combustion of its residents compared to those who live in stacked housing in town), or that little town way out in the middle of nowhere that gets its food and building materials transported from way too far away for it to make any logical sense.
But then, when has logic played much of a role in culture and politics.
n.
nina
29 Aug 10 at 9:04 pm
Whoa @Stewie, that’s a great idea! The South’s culture has been gradually Yankeeized since the Civil War and it has sped up with the invention of air conditioning. They should be having siestas and wearing Bermuda suits to low-effort work, not sitting in factories in the middle of the day.
Jared
30 Aug 10 at 3:21 pm