Global Breaking News - Friday, May 17, 2024

Should Air-Conditioning Go Global, or Be Rationed Away?

Temperatures in New York City have pushed toward 100 degrees this week, and air-conditioners strained the power grid (thanks in part to stores with their doors open). Meanwhile the demand for coolant gases, especially in rapidly developing countries like India, threatens to accelerate global warming. Is it a good goal for everyone in the world to have access to air-conditioning — like clean water or the Internet? Or is it an unsustainable luxury, which air-conditioned societies should be giving up or rationing?

 세상 모든 사람이 에어컨을 이용하는 것이 좋은 목표인가요? (물, 인터넷) 아니면 에어컨을 사용하는 사회가 포기하거나 사용을 제한해야하는 지속 불가능한 사치인가요?

1) A Luxury the World Can’t Afford
There's little we can say to the developing world about its pursuit of air-conditioning until we end our own society's dependence on it.
 
2) Crucial to Modern Life
Without air-conditioning, we would have to live and work differently: no Internet, no big office buildings, no preseason football in Arizona.
 
3) We’ve Forgotten Natural Cooling
Architects used to take advantage of breezes, shade and insulation. Now many just plug in an air-conditioner.
 
4) A Green Roof Would Help
We should focus on reducing demand and consumption and providing renewable alternatives for our cooling needs.
 
5) Air-Conditioning Made This Debate Possible
Ask any I.T. manager about the importance of air-conditioning in server rooms. Without A.C., we would not have an Internet as we know it.

Sample Essay: Crucial to Modern Life

Air-conditioning is a necessary luxury. For thousands of years before the invention of air-conditioning in 1902, humans survived high heat and humidity by constructing protective shelters and limiting their activity during the hottest times of the year. Air-conditioning puts us in control of our comfort and frees us from the discomfort, risk and uncertainty of the weather.

Without air-conditioning, we would have to live and work differently: no data centers or Internet, no big office buildings, no preseason football in Arizona.The availability of air-conditioning allows architects to consider building geometries that were not possible when it was critical that everyone be seated near a window. This allows larger floor plates that encourage collaboration and permit the high densities of our modern cities.

Air-conditioning makes it possible to construct the data centers that power commerce, the Internet and research. Without air-conditioning, we would lose our ability to work and communicate as a modern society.

Air-conditioning makes it possible to comfortably assemble in large groups. Over the past 30 years, the proliferation of sports venues with fixed or operable roofs has changed the way we experience sports and allowed the expansion of professional sports into warmer regions. The Phoenix Cardinals now have an air-conditioned retractable-roof stadium, an indoor oasis that can be cooled below 80 degrees in a climate where the temperatures can exceed 100 degrees. This allowed the team to host preseason and opening weekend home games for the first time since moving to Arizona in 1988.

Engineers are now working on designs that will make it possible for crowds of more than 80,000 people to experience spectator sports in the hot desert sands of the Middle East. Operable roofs make public assembly buildings sustainable by allowing the use of low-energy natural ventilation when possible and higher-energy air-conditioning only when necessary.