How do I feel about air conditioning? On the one hand, I’m extremely hot. On the other, it’s destroying the planet | Emma Beddington
IT is too hot. I curl up inside, the curtains drawn, the pale members exposed enemies, the sound of my superheated laptop fan drowning the sound of an old office fan. If it becomes warmer, I want my air conditioned car and go to the air -conditioned supermarket to stand in its cold alleys, out of the way out of the ice cabinet ravaged in the alley of the freezer. I even became nostalgic for the summer when I shared an office with a man who insisted for having the turnover at 17c, which means that I had to wear a cardigan to work in August.
Ah, air conditioning, the dream. Or the nightmare? Welcome to Appliance Culture Wars, 2025 Edition. You may remember, in 2023, the United States debated if the induction hob were a communist plot; Last year, the Republicans tried, throughout the apparent seriousness, to pass freedom in the laws and acts of freedom of the refrigerator. This year has already presented Donald Trump committing to “return the American showers again” (the low pressure of the water means that it takes 15 minutes to wet his “beautiful hair”) and now France is struggling with Marine Le Pen declaring his champion AC.
While the country suffered from a heat wave at the start of the summer, with temperatures reaching the 1940s, the closing of schools and, depending on the modeling, around 235 deaths, the PEN is committed, if it is elected, to launch a “large plan” to cool France. His ally, Éric Ciotti, called AC compulsory in schools, hospitals and care homes to “protect the most vulnerable”.
With even higher temperatures planned, this could be a popular promise. This would certainly appeal to the many Americans on vacation in Europe, expressing their astonishment in sweat in the way we manage here without the cold kiss of the air cooled by the refrigerant gas. But the French debate AC quickly warmed up: Le Pen faced scathing criticism from the Greens and the Minister of Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who noted that Le Pen’s party voted against plans to develop more sustainable “cooling networks”. The president of the Environment Agency called AC “an alibi for inaction”. Accused of hypocrisy by right commentators after reporting environmental concerns concerning AC, Liberation has even published follow -up confirming that its offices were not Air conditioned air (although conceded a few “air coolers” had lowered the temperature to 32C – UGH – in the hottest places).
Because climate is a climate problem. In the United States, where air conditioning is omnipresent and its necessity is not debating, the Ministry of Energy says that it represents around 12% of energy consumption in homes and “significantly contributes to carbon dioxide emissions, releasing more than 100 million metric tonnes per year”. In 2019, the International Energy Authority predicted that, as the rest of the world is catching up, AC will produce 2 billion tonnes of CO2 annually. Building on him to face a planet still hottest contributes to global heating, which needs more. It is not a solution; Depending on Pannier-Runacher’s words, it is an “unsuitable” adaptation mechanism.
AC is quantifiable, but I think it is also philosophically problematic. Cooling offers comfort, making the unbearable bearable, at least for the moment. This happens at the community level (nobody really has us that we should keep the very old, the very young and the vulnerable cool), but also individually. When you can buy a personal freshness bubble and do not really feel the heat, the howling emergency to tackle the collective problem of a world on fire can retreat slightly.
And that’s where I have to make the fassion. I actually have AC – a little self -supporting unit that we only use in the evening, perhaps 10 times a year. We also have solar panels and a battery, which helps me sleep at night, but cool helps more. If the government came for my air conditioning a republican Said about his gas stove, but in times like these, I am deeply, with guilt.
Air conditioning is not the answer. We need more ambitious plans, but, without them, many more people – not only creeping individualists, climatic negators, laundry liberators and fighters of refrigerator, but hot furtive hypocrites like me and who is desperate to sleep – will be tempted by the easy, cool and brown solution.
