Adapted from Eric Klinenberg Viewpoint Air Conditioning Will Be the End of Us 2013 by Time Inc Originally published July 17 2013 1 Earlier this week as the temperature in New York City hit the upper 90s and the heat index topped 100 my utility provider is

As a matter of fact, climate change, or global warming, has been of the utmost concern worldwide. That being said, air-conditioning has been an unseen contribution to this serious problem. Eric Klinenberg, in his article “Viewpoint: Air-Conditioning Will Be the End of Us”, addresses the urgency to reduce the dependence on air-conditioning, with the aid of allusion to a current situation, humor tone and clear reasons and examples.

To begin with, the author starts off with a current state of affairs in New York City, in terms of its distressfully unprecedented temperature. He mentions the advice of his utility provider to the problem to “wisely” use air-conditioning. The word “wisely” is enquoted in the passage in order to add a sense of humor to the piece of writing and to somewhat criticize this advice, as well as the way Americans use air-conditioners. The word “ineffectual”, meaning ineffective, implies that try as one might, one hardly can persuade and change the tendency and the way people use air-conditioners. To prove his point, Klinenberg provides some factual information that “Today Americans use twice as much energy for air-conditioning as we did 20 years ago” and emphatically, “more than the rest of the world’s nations combined”. He strongly stresses the reliance American people on air-conditioners. He draws the readers’ attention by using a strong, quite informal for an article, word:“dumb”. He shows his disapproval to the way Americans deal with the problem of the effect of air-conditioning on climate change.

Furthermore, Klinenberg shows his unbiased view on the problem by stating that he “hardly against air-conditioning”. He provides some beneficial merits of air-conditioning, including helping old people, reducing heat during “dangerously hot summer weeks”, enhancing productivity in workplaces. He mentions “epidemiologist” in order to make his argument more valid and trustworthy to the readers. Strong adjectives like “broiling”, “sunbaked” and “searing” enable the writer to address the problem of heat and consequently, highlight the value of air-conditioning. Without air-conditioner, workers wouldn’t be able to work effectually due to the extreme heat. He also alludes to the fans and windows to show air-conditioner’s dominance over both of which. Therefore, he emphasizes the benefits of air-conditioning, despite the “indisputable” and “irreversible, both of which are strong adjectives, the downside of it. Although the benefits from air-conditioning cannot outweigh its drawback, according to the author, it is still widely used because of “hot air”.

Since the author holds an impartial viewpoint on the real value of air-conditioning itself, why does he disapproval of the use of it? He attributes problems related to air-conditioning to people’s habit, stating that it is “indefensible”. He criticizes the way stores wasting air-conditioning just to “lure” customers in. In doing so, stores burn an abundance of fossil fuels, which is considered to be one of the main cause of climate change. With the sensible use of the adjective “suicidal”, he addresses that over-burning fossil fuels is nothing else but to destroy our own precious environment. Klinenberg suggests that if cities like New York “prohibit” stores from maintaining their temperatures under 70°F, they will be “no doubt” objected. He recalls “Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s attempt to ban big sodas”, which was highly disapproved of, to create a humor tone in his article as well as to stress the absurdity of such ideas. This is because he is “skeptical” that the use of air-conditioning would be cut off, especially without “new rules and regulations” because of its economical benefits. For example, he illustrates that in recent decades, the use of air-conditioning has even been increased in many parts of the world. Air-conditioning has outclassed traditional, or “time-honored” ways of cooling by trees, windows and fans. Statistics of the increasing sales of air-conditioners shows that air-conditioning will continue to play an integral part in people’s lives.

Last but not least, Klinenberg condemn most people for trying to get rid of hot weather by air-conditioning instead of adjusting our consumption of it. He considers this is a “blind spot” of humans since people would never be able to realize and fix what they have done wrong for the sake of the environment. Although air-conditioners help us withstand heat, eventually, fossil fuels released from them would contribute to making the environment we are living in “even hotter”. People are blinded by the short-term benefit of air-conditioning that they tend to forget the detrimental effects that it brings to the world. The phrase “put our air conditioners on ice” implies that we shouldn’t use air conditioners as much as we do now or it will be too late for us to do anything.

In conclusion, Eric Klinenberg uses allusion to a current situation, humor tone and clear reasons and examples so as to warn the audience to less rely on air-conditioning. Although air-conditioners enable us to bear the increasing heat, they are, in fact, contributing to climate change.