Air conditioning is harming nature

It is used everywhere injudiciously, in the name of comfort, increasing resource consumption and waste production. By Sathya Prakash Varanashi

Human society has strange habits. When a great idea comes along, we may resist it until the idea wins us over or the idea itself dies. Strangely, when a disastrous product is introduced, even while knowing the harm it is causing, we blindly fall in love with it and promote it.

Look at the mineral water sold in plastic bottles, condemned by subject experts on all fronts like debatable water purity, challenges of waste disposal, and avoidable resource consumption, besides the use-and-throw culture. Yet, these bottles rule us today.

Another equally questionable part of modern civilisation is air conditioned spaces in homes, cars, offices, shops and virtually everywhere. Hyped as one among the greatest innovations of our times, the harm it has done and continuing to do is buried deep, so hardly anyone speaks against it, so everyone seeks it.

This is not to question the very technology of air conditioning, very beneficial at many places from operation theatres in hospitals to large public halls, which cannot be naturally lit and ventilated.

Technology of refrigeration has enabled newer avenues, be it in preservation or in food for space travel. The problem starts when air conditioning is employed not only where necessity beckons, but everywhere injudiciously, in the name of comfort.

No solution

All that air conditioning does is to throwing the indoor heat out, warming up the outdoors. Long hours of working under A.C. in offices reduces our body capacity to withstand heat, as such when we come out, we seek cool air in the car and home too, cumulatively leading to the proliferation of air conditioned indoors. The more we do it, the more will be urban heat islands which has no solution today.

Global warming is directly blamed on greenhouse gas emissions, which increase with increased use of any refrigeration system because of their dependency on CFC, HFC and such others. Though improved coolants have been introduced, harming of the ozone layer continues. Heating and cooling have been listed among the major consumers of electricity in developed nations and India is catching up. Electricity seldom comes from clean sources like solar or hydropower. As such, A.C. is an indirect cause for the depletion of non-renewable resources burnt to produce power.

Not all air conditioners are maintained well periodically. In case of any leakage, there will be the release of chemicals which harm the ozone layer, besides reducing the cooling power of the unit. Technological advances are creating rapid obsoleteness causing large wastages to the manufactured units with high embodied energy. Thus, air conditioning directly impacts resource consumption and waste production. Listing how air conditioning makes no green sense can go on, but it is time we introspect our habits and change them.