The unprecedented Europe-wide June heatwave has fanned the debate about the eco-credentials of air conditioning. Many believe that widespread adoption of the technology would be irresponsible, if not immoral, as the energy it burns would contribute to just the problem it is trying to mitigate.
Thinking clearly about the issue is made difficult by the well-known psychological distortions status quo bias: a tendency to prefer things as they are to how they might be. This is a little contentious because you could argue it is not a bias at all but perfectly rational. It is often more reasonable to stick with what is tried and tested than roll the dice. Still, there is reason to believe status quo bias operates even when there is no risk in change.
I see status quo bias as one among many ways in which what we see as normal or acceptable is determined by ultimately non-rational factors. The anchoring effect is one of these. TFor example, imagine a restaurant menu has three main courses priced £15, £17 and £20. (Hoe much imagination this requires will depend on where you usually eat out, or if you do at all.) Now imagine that it also has a fourth dish, priced £12. Looking at such a menu, most people would think the £20 dish was expensive and would feel extravagant ordering it. However, if the fourth dish cost £25, the £20 offering would seem quite reasonable and would be ordered without guilt. Nothing has changed about the price of the dish, but the prices of other menu items provide the “anchors” which change how we perceive it. Status quo bias is similar, except that the anchor is what is familiar.
How does this relate to air con? In many European countries, most homes do not have it. But they do have central heating. Both are means of controlling temperature to keep people comfortable—and sometimes safe—that usually require a lot of energy, usually provided ultimately or proximately a fossil fuel. Because we all have heating, although we may lament how much energy it uses, we would never dream of saying that we should give it up or never use it. But when people say we should not use air con, that sounds more reasonable, because we don’t already have it. But why should one energy-intensive means of temperature control be verboten while another is widely accepted as not just desirable but necessary?
To get some sense of the essential symmetry, imagine that instead of experiencing global warming we were going through global cooling. Imagine also that this meant that countries with low central heating use were thinking about adopting more of if. Would it be reasonable to deny them this option?
As an aid to your imagination, I have taken a BBC News article about the French air con debate and changed references to global warming to ones about global cooling, and mentions of air-conditioning to central heating. Give it a read—it’s weirdly unsettling.
The analogy invites the suggestion that psychological biases are creating a sense that the ethics of heating and air con are different when they in fact are the same. We rightly believe that we should not increase our greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), so starting to use air con looks bad because that’s what the result would be. But when totting up our GHGs, why should the emissions from heating get priority in the counting? If air con is immoral, why isn’t central heating? The harms from heating seem more acceptable because they are part and parcel of the anchor of current emissions. Status quo bias reinforces this: we are used to burning gas to heat our homes so it just seems ok.
The argument is not that we should all install air con guilt-free, nor that we should all rip out our central heating. Rather, it shows that neither air con nor central heating is entirely good or bad. While it would be wrong to demonise air conditioning while giving heating a free pass, it would also be wrong to start using air conditioning as freely as we have got used to using heating. We’ve got to see both as having an essential role to play, but only when necessary. In other words, we should feel less bad about using air conditioning but worse about our sometimes casual use of heating.
Given the imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, I think this means if we install more air con, we should ensure that our total energy usage, for heating and cooling, is the same or less than it was for just the heating. That should not be difficult, given that the whole reason for getting air con is that there are fewer and less colder days than there used to be.
Personally, although upstairs temperatures reached 30º at night in our house, air conditioning is low down the list of mitigations to keep it cool. I’ve been saved by fans that cool the body without cooling the air and I’m looking for ways to block the sun from the greenhouse-like glass windows. But we can get too hung up on what we do as individuals. Our countries need to adapt to changing climate and to do that we need our governments to create the incentives that make going green the most practical and affordable option.
That is perhaps the most important aspect of the air con wars. As is so often the case, an issue that requires a co-ordinated, society-wide response is treated as though it is a matter of personal responsibility. We will not save ourselves from a heating planet by individuals keeping themselves environmentally pure. We’ll sink or swim together.