What’s all this about air conditioning?

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Jun 23, 2015

It never ceases to amaze me that some people who consider themselves good Catholics are ever ready to jump all over the Pope, even with ridicule, whenever he says something that—in their sole and generally ill-considered estimation—is “stupid”. Such persons frequently appear driven (by what spirit we can only guess) to find fault by interpreting everything out of context and in the worst possible way.

Thus I have noticed several writers who have condemned Pope Francis for writing in Laudato Si’ that the use of air-conditioning is seriously sinful, and for implying, therefore, that contributing in some way to global warming is a greater sin than, say, abortion.

Please.

The pope mentions air-conditioning just once in paragraph 55. Here is the text:

 

55. Some countries are gradually making significant progress, developing more effective controls and working to combat corruption. People may well have a growing ecological sensitivity but it has not succeeded in changing their harmful habits of consumption which, rather than decreasing, appear to be growing all the more. A simple example is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning. The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand. An outsider looking at our world would be amazed at such behavior, which at times appears self-destructive.

 

This paragraph is in the section on “Weak Responses” to the need we have to take greater care of Creation—to use Creation in a way which conserves it, perfects it, and assures that its gifts are enjoyed by all, as God intended. In the opening paragraph of this section Francis stated: “The problem is that we still lack the culture needed to confront this crisis.” He explains that we simply have no coherent way of addressing these problems today, which is why the main request of the encyclical is that there be a wide-ranging dialogue (among all affected parties) to develop not only new approaches but a culture which takes Creation seriously as a gift.

In paragraph 55, Pope Francis simply states that the growing use of air-conditioning is a good example of this problem. In the affluent West, we take this for granted (I don’t know about you, but I do not want to lose my air conditioning), yet air-conditioning depends on staggering energy consumption (remember brownouts?) which almost certainly has some sort of significant negative impact worldwide. It is probably safe to assume that 90% of the world’s population lacks AC. Heck, we lacked it when I was a small child. The first air conditioners in America were in department stores; we’d sometimes go shopping to keep cool.

The point is that we live in a certain culture which, despite growing ecological sensitivity, takes its tremendous consumption of energy for granted. This means we find it very difficult to think about it “outside the box”.

Is this really such a stupid thing to say in a social encyclical on the subject of how we care for our “common home”, and how we honor the gift of Creation? Is the Pope really to be mocked for mentioning this example of how wastefulness is so endemic in our culture that we don’t even see it as waste? Might this not be a reasonable example to use in jogging the mind?

Nowhere does Pope Francis says that the use of air-conditioning is a serious personal sin. He says it is an example of tremendous energy use which we take for granted without really grasping the consequences. And he suggests that our privileged, wealthy, dominant culture tends to be like this across the board. I do not find this stupid; I find it painful.