Conquering the Heat–Fans or AC?

With the summer in full swing, people everywhere are trying to beat the heat. This being my first summer in a formal work environment (I’m interning instead of the typical babysitting gig), I’ve certainly come to miss wearing my summer dresses. No longer can I seek relief from the weather by wearing breezy clothes. Instead I’m trapped in pants and a top. For these reasons, I find myself thankful for the office air-conditioner and even the train’s cooling system (this seems a luxury to me–most of my train experience comes from the crowded Parisian metro where AC is nonexistent).

The game changes once I get home, however, and I’m left alone to battle the warmth. A lack of air conditioning combined with a third-floor bedroom do not make for the most comfortable summer conditions. Whenever I come home, I blast the fans that I’ve got in my room–a ceiling fan, a window fan, and a free-standing one that I orient towards my bed. However as an environmentalist, I always wonder how eco-friendly it actually is to use multiple fans for such a long period of time. Would it be simpler and more efficient to run an air coniditioner for an hour or two and then keep the trapped, cool air in the room? After researching a little on the topic, I found with some surprise and with a great amount of certainty, that there is absolutely no reason to replace the fans with the AC.

I will start off by admitting that fans don’t have the same cooling effect as air conditioners. While they may provide you with a refreshing breeze, they can’t actually lower the temperature of the room. The way they “cool you down” is simply by pushing away the warm air surrounding you (as living beings, we emit heat which wraps around us) and allowing cooler air to fill the space. So fans will only relieve you of the heat without eliminating it. For this reason, I understand why many people and businesses turn to AC systems to keep their rooms at a tolerable temperature.

And yet is it really necessary? After all, fans do the trick–don’t tell me it isn’t nice to be sitting in front of a fan in the dead heat of summer. We don’t need the air conditioner to filter in cold air. As long as we have the semblance of a breeze, in my opinion, you’re not going to suffer too much (although I have to make more of a concession for the work office, where it is certainly less feasible to keep all the employees cool with small personal fans. Plus imagine the disorganization that would ensue from papers blown in every direction).

If you absolutely need the AC in your home, at least be aware of what temperature you set it at–no one will be able to convince me that having the house at 65 degrees in mid-August is reasonable. If you find yourself putting a sweater on in the middle of a 90 degree day, think about how nonsensical that is.

Air conditioners are well-known for consuming enormous amounts of electricity. If you want actual numbers, know that a free-standing AC unit takes up about 600-3,000 watts of energy per hour, while a central AC system consumes from 2,000 to 5,000. Outrageous! Particularly when you compare it to a fan, which consumes a maximum of 100 watts of electricty and often less (the average ceiling fan takes 75 watts, while a table fan can be as low as 25 per hour).

But the question still remains–is it better to run an AC for a couple hours just to cool the room down before bed, or is it better to leave 2 fans on all night while sleeping? If I did my math correctly, then according to my equation is it still more energy efficient to run 2 fans for 8 hours than to run a single AC unit for one or two hours (because let’s say 8 hours with two fans is around 800 watts, but an AC unit can be even more than that within one hour)! Talk about saving energy! Plus, you’ll save yoursef a bundle on your utility bill–running AC costs about 10 times more than running a fan.

In general, if you can avoid using an air-conditioner, try it. You’d be surprised how simple cooling tricks can really make a difference and how a non-air-conditioned home can be made comfortable. One useful trick is to keep your windows open at night and to shut them in the morning. Keeping the blinds down during the day will do even more to help keep the room cool. The cold air from the night will be trapped in the room, and with the shades down, the sun can’t warm the temperature up as much!

Also, keep the lights off during the day! I never understood why people have lights on in the middle of the afternoon while the sun beams down on them. First, it creates an unpleasant atmosphere–wouldn’t you rather enjoy the natural light than feel like you’re living in a cave (note–putting the blinds down doesn’t mean the room will be pitch dark. Or if you have blinds that block out all the daylight, then maybe only lower them halfway)? Even more importantly than the atmosphere of the room is the effect it has on our own atmosphere–if you don’t need to be consuming electricity, then STOP! We shouldn’t be wasting more than we already are.

The biggest change you can make, if you can bear it, would be to drop the AC and replace it with a fan system. Install some ceiling fans (they’re cheap–often less than 50$!) and set up a few free-standing ones if you like. A fan will save a lot of energy and a lot of money, and unless you enjoy simulating an arctic habitat, blowing an AC system all day is a collossal waste. Comfort is a relative thing, and if you learn to live without an air conditioner, you really won’t find yourself missing it that much.

P.S. I am from Massachusetts. In comparison to mid-western states, it’s much cooler in the summer. So if you’re living out in the desert with temperatures of over 100, I won’t find fault in your using an air conditioner. But for all those of you who aren’t suffering from extreme heat and still find it necessary to add a chill-factor to your house, think again!

Does the Vegetarian Know Best?

I won’t deny it–consuming animal products is not the most eco-friendly decision. And it’s probably hypocritical and selfish of me to claim I care about the environment while enjoying a hamburger or snacking on cheese. I have no way to justify the fact that I don’t change my diet according to my own ethical beliefs and this really does disappoint me. I wish I could just automatically become a vegan, and I know it sounds weak to say that I just know it’s impossible. But sadly (and hopefully not permanently), I just know it. I accept the accompanying shame.

What I don’t accept, however, is when vegetarians act high-and-mighty by telling me they are environmental heroes for not eating meat. Because, let me tell you, being a vegetarian doesn’t leave you guilt-free in the least. The most admirable food-choice to make would be to go vegan. But that’s a huge commitment, and certainly not always a viable one, particularly when you can’t choose the food that’s offered to you (ahem–college dining halls). I guess what I’m trying to get at is that vegetarians have no right to flaunt their meat-free diet in front of me when they still regularly consume other animal products, like milk, cheese, eggs and the like. Doesn’t that consumption contribute as well to the “negative livestock impact” on climate? How much does not eating meat contribute to reducing your carbon footprint if you still consume plenty (and perhaps more than average amounts) of animal-based produce?

Well, I looked into it, and the important thing to remember is that while innumerable amounts of livestock are fed into the meat industry, many of them often come first from dairy farms. We can’t forget that millions of cows are raised and bred, often in unethical manners, to supply our country with dairy, a commodity in high demand. Just like a beef cow, a dairy cow requires large amounts of land and water. They both release the same gases to the air, and they both contribute to the water pollution that people complain about. So why does everyone give the meat industry such a harder time than the dairy? The reason is simply a matter of numbers: meat farms kill notorious amounts of livestock a day, while the dairy industry is significantly smaller. If dairy cows and meat cows existed in the same quantities, there probably wouldn’t be a huge difference in switching from a meat diet to a vegetarian one (then again, I’m just saying that–my intuition could be completely wrong).

However the dairy industry has taken considerable steps that the meat industry hasn’t. Many cows, for example, have been genetically specialized to create the most productive and long-lasting cow possible. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to do the same with beef cattle. One cow will equal roughly the same amount of beef no matter what you do to it. Dairy cows can be bred so they last longer and provide more milk in greater and more frequent quantities. You can’t keep using a cow for its meat–you use it once, and it’s gone. Dairy cows are more efficient in that sense.

Despite this, a cow is still a cow, no matter whether it is being raised for meat, dairy or some other reason. And it’s true that they do contribute, in a sense, to the global warming trend we’ve been seeing. Perhaps the biggest way in which cattle “cause” climate change is that letting them graze requires deforestation in many parts of the world, particularly in Brazil, which has the second largest number of cattle in the world and deforests the Amazon rainforest at astonishing rates. Between 65 and 70% of the deforestation in the Amazon is done by ranchers seeking a place to put their cows. In this way, it’s true that cows (although indirectly) do cause changes that affect our climate negatively. However, I would like to point out that quite frequently in Brazil the cows are put on deforested territory not for their produce, but rather as a symbol of power and ownership of that land. Therefore a large part of the problem in Brazil is the inefficiency and disorganization of their agricultural and economic practices.

Another way that cows contribute to the “global warming” phenomenon is that they emit generous amounts of methane, a gas that is, in essence, a greenhouse gas. However, I would like to point out that rice cultivation in Asia supposedly also emits a lot of methane to the atmosphere, so eating rice instead of meat doesn’t completely cover one’s sins.

Overall, it seems that while cows are cows and they all do the same to affect the environment, it still holds true that the dairy industry is less disastrous than the meat industry. Vegetarians might have a lighter load on their shoulders, but it’s still not perfect.

………

In the end, it’s the vegan diet that is obviously the most eco-friendly. So if anyone is already a vegan, I highly commend them and I give them the right to claim superiority to my standards (although, watch out–I don’t believe children should be raised on vegan diets. I’ve actually heard that parents have gotten charged with malnutrition of their children for not allowing them to eat any animal products, which you have to admit are extremely important for building a strong, healthy body at a young age). I hope that one day I can get myself to that level of persistence and dedication, although I don’t know at this point how possible it is considering I’ve been raised on my French mother’s diet of cheese, yogurt, and of course, plenty of meat. Vegetarians do help the environment in the sense that they lessen the demand for meat, but they shouldn’t act completely innocent or superior. And for those who are going to tell me “meat is murder,” I will respond with the saying I saw on an awesome t-shirt once, “…tasty, tasty murder.” 😉