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A/C D.C.
The deluded world of air conditioning
William Saletan, Slate
Have you heard the news? Scientists have found a planet that can support life. Its atmosphere is too hot for year-round habitation, its gases impede breathing, and surface conditions are sometimes fatal. But by constructing a network of sealed facilities, tunnels, and vehicles, humans could survive on this planet for decades and perhaps even centuries.
The planet is called Earth.
If you’ve seen this planet lately, you know what’s going on: temperature records shattering, scores of Americans dead. By summer’s end, the toll will be in the hundreds. It’s not as bad as 2003, when a heat wave killed 30,000 people in Europe. But according to global-warming forecasts, within 40 years, every other summer will be like that one.
Thank goodness for air conditioning. To keep old folks alive, cities from Washington to Los Angeles are opening artificially cooled buildings to the public. Meanwhile, people are lining up to buy window units. According to the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute, shipments of air conditioners and heat pumps have tripled over the last three decades. The percentage of single-family homes built with central air has gone from 36 to 87. The percentage of cars built with air conditioning has risen from 61 to 98. In 1970, only 42 percent of occupied mobile homes had it. By 2003, that percentage had more than doubled.
It’s a heartwarming—or, more precisely, a heart-cooling—story. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. Air conditioning takes indoor heat and pushes it outdoors. To do this, it uses energy, which increases production of greenhouse gases, which warm the atmosphere. From a cooling standpoint, the first transaction is a wash, and the second is a loss. We’re cooking our planet to refrigerate the diminishing part that’s still habitable.
All over the country, power consumption is breaking records, and air conditioning is a huge reason why. We use about one-sixth of our electricity to cool ourselves. That’s more than the total electricity consumption of India, a country whose population exceeds 1 billion. To get the electricity, we burn oil and coal. We also run air conditioners in our cars, which reduces urban fuel efficiency by up to four miles per gallon, at an annual cost of 7 billion gallons of gasoline.
More burning of oil and coal means more greenhouse gases.
(5 Aug 2006)
Antarctica Under Siege
Nick Squires, Christian Science Monitor via CBS
Icy Continent Faces Threats From Countries Vying For Oil And Other Minerals
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At the bottom of the world, more than two miles beneath the wind-blasted surface of Antarctica, sits a wonder of the last untouched continent.
Locked deep in the Antarctic ice is Lake Vostok, the seventh-largest body of fresh water in the world, yet one that has never been glimpsed by human eyes. To scientists, it is nothing less than an alien world, where the surroundings are so extreme that they could harbor previously undiscovered forms of life.
Yet just 420 feet above its unseen surface, a Russian drill is poised, ready to break through and potentially pollute a pristine and unique environment.
The Russians’ goal is scientific, but it points to a growing threat in the Great White South, as a new boom of activity erodes Antarctica’s isolation. Once the domain of doughty explorers such as Scott and Shackleton, Antarctica is becoming increasingly crowded by curious tourists, spellbound scientists, and countries hungry for oil and minerals.
Though mining is banned until 2048, more nations are in a race to gain a toehold on the continent now – hoping to secure a voice when and if the world decides to divide up Antarctica’s spoils.
(4 Aug 2006)
National Ocean Policy Study Subcommittee Hearing: “State of the Oceans 2006″
Senate.gov
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation’s Subcommittee on National Ocean Policy Study has announced a hearing on the state of the oceans. Subcommittee Chairman John Sununu will preside.
(3 Aug 2006)
Jellyfish Plague Blamed on Climate Change
Stephen Castle, UK Indpendent via Common Dreams
A plague of jellyfish along Europe’s beaches has become the latest environmental hazard to be blamed on global warming.
Holidaymakers heading for Mediterranean beaches are being warned to prepare for an unprecedented invasion of the invertebrates whose sting can, in extreme cases, cause heart failure.
Oceana, which campaigns to protect and restore the world’s oceans, attributes the rise in the number of jellyfish to a rise in water temperature because of climate change. It also highlights over-fishing of natural predators that feed on jellyfish, and pollution along the continent’s coasts.
The group sent a research boat around Spain’s coastal waters last month and concluded that many beaches are suffering an “invasion by this species”.
(8 Aug 2006)
