Name: Hanie U. Yagin Teacher: Jen C.

Taan

Section: 11 - STEM (Ampere)

Introduction

The title of the article that I read is “Are We Air-Conditioning our Planet to Death?”

that tackles about the U.S. residence that lacks knowledge about how air-conditioner

affects our planet Earth because all they know is that they are entitled to comfort,

regardless of the consequences. The author of this article is Duo Dickinson and he stated

in his article that he already designed 500 building with air conditioning, but his family

has lived in two buildings across 35 years that have no air-condition of any kind. They

use other ways as a substitute to air condition.

This article focuses on the disadvantage of having air conditioner in U.S. This is also

relevant because it gives us information that having air condition in our houses or offices

is not only good for us but also has bad effects on our planet.

Article Summary

This summer, the federal government released an astonishing statistic: 87% of

American homes are now equipped with air conditioning. Since the world is getting

undeniably warmer, we all expected that the number of homes with air condition will

increase but the question is when did air conditioning in the U.S. became a requirement,

rather than an add-on? 

All of this churning air would be fine, if we weren’t killing ourselves by releasing

megatons of carbon into our already warming atmosphere. We’re told that we have about

11 years to rein in emissions before the world will be irreversibly damaged. (Some

scientists are warning that it’s already too late.) Despite this, the electrical draw for air

conditioning in the developing world is expected to triple in the next 11 years. 

  According to a 2015 article in the The Guardian, the U.S. remains the world leader

in a rather dubious distinction: “A nation with 318 million people accounting for just

4.5% of world population consumes more energy for air conditioning than the rest of the

world combined. It uses more electricity for cooling than Africa, population 1.1 billion,

uses for everything.”

Over 60% of electricity in the U.S. is generated with fossil fuels, which produce the

carbon that heats the climate that makes us want air conditioning that, in turn, makes the

planet even hotter. And yet we somehow feel that we’re entitled to comfort, regardless of

the consequences. My clients hire me because I think of these pre-emptive measures that

allow buildings to use less energy. But almost all of them want the option of central air.

It’s about control and choice, even if is not always the right thing to do. 

Most of us in the U.S. do not require air conditioning in our houses, except as

“quality of life” enhancements. Life is about what we value and how we live our values.

Do we value air conditioning enough to accept its real cost?

Analysis

The article for critique gave an information about the disadvantages of having air

condition on our planet. The title is “Are We Air Conditioning our Planet to Death?”.

Paramount in the article discussion has evidences from another articles. These include

statistics of American homes that are now equipped with air conditioning and citation

from scientists and a 2015 article in The Guardian that U.S. consumes more electricity

for cooling than Africa which has more population that the U.S.
 The article is informative, however, the author should first stated his perspective or

point of view about the topic before he mentioned the facts about the disadvantages of air

conditioning so that something will prove his opinions in the following paragraphs.

The author should also include the statistics of homes with air conditioner of other

progressive countries like Japan, Iceland, Sweden and China because these countries

tend to help other small countries to lessen their use of electricity for cooling.

In the end of the article, the author failed to gave any suggestions or

recommendations on how are we going to help our planet even in simple ways such as

using electric fans instead of air conditioner.

Conclusion

Overall, I found this article quite interesting because the author gave enough

evidences and he also mentioned his work. This article would be more interesting to read

if the author gave his personal perspective and suggestions about the topic. However, it

was already proven that air conditioner has bad effects on our planet because of the

evidences given by the author from different sources.