Cox went on to describe how wonderful life would be without A.C. “Families unplug as many heat-generating appliances as possible. Forget clothes dryers -- post-A.C. neighborhoods are crisscrossed with clotheslines. The hot stove is abandoned for the grill, and dinner is eaten on the porch.” So not only should we shut down air conditioners, but dishwashers, dryers and other appliances. All the comforts of home are, in Cox’s view, endangering the planet.
About the only real benefit is that Congress would be forced to get out of town. “Post-A.C., Congress again adjourns for the summer, giving ‘tea partiers’ the smaller government they seek,” Cox writes.
That may seem tempting, but keep in mind that lawmakers are famous for exempting themselves from the policies they foist on the rest of us. We could end up with a world where the Capital building is the only air conditioned place in town, with lawmakers passing onerous regulations in chilled comfort while the rest of us sweat it out in quiet desperation.
Elsewhere in the July 11 Outlook, Joshua Glenn writes that a new book titled The Evolution of Artificial Light “presents damning evidence that in our millennia-long quest for ever more and brighter light, we’ve despoiled the natural world, abandoned our self-sufficiency and trained ourselves to sleep and dream less while working more.”
How is electric light so bad? Well, for one thing, it’s supposedly led to inequality. “The wealthy and powerful have always acquired new kinds of light first and enjoyed a disproportionate share of their splendor,” Glenn writes. There’s an interesting argument.
First let’s note that if lawmakers hadn’t banned the traditional -- and cheap -- light bulb (starting in 2012) more people would be able to afford artificial light. Second, even if we’re all forced to use expensive CFL bulbs, they are still cheaper and better than the candles that even the richest households relied on a century or so ago.
Today’s poorest Americans live in lighted splendor that their great-grandparents couldn’t have dreamed of. Rather than increasing inequality, progress tends to make life better for everybody.
Tonight, leave the porch light on to show you support traditional American progress. Oh, and feel free to crank the A.C., while you’re still allowed to.