Give up AC to save future generations?

[coberst]

Give up AC to save future generations?

I am inclined to think that each human generation must consider itself as the steward of the earth and therefore must make available to the succeeding generations an inheritance undiminished to that received.

In this context what does "careful and responsible management" mean? I would say that there are two things that must be begun to make the whole process feasible. The first is that the public must be convinced that it is a responsible caretaker and not an owner and secondly the public must be provided with an acceptable standard whereby it can judge how each major issue affects the accomplishment of the overall task. This is an ongoing forever responsibility for every nation but for the purpose of discussion I am going to speak about it as localized to the US.

Selfishness and greed are fundamental components of human nature. How does a nation cause its people to temper this nature when the payoff goes not to the generation presently in charge but to generations yet to come in the very distant future? Generations too far removed to be encompassed by the evolved biological impulse to care for ones kin.

How is it possible to cause a man or woman to have the same concern for a generation five times removed as that man or woman has for their own progeny? I suspect it is not possible, but it does seem to me to be necessary to accomplish the task of stewardship.

Would it be possible to cause the American people to reject completely the use of air-conditioning so that generations five times removed could survive? Is it possible to create in a person a rational response strong enough to overcome the culturally developed nature of greed and selfishness? The motivation force must be instinctually based, i.e. based upon moral instinct honed through reason in the form of a science of morality.

I claim that a compelling sense of stewardship must come through a comprehension of the science of morality (yet to be developed).

 

[Renae]

Give up AC to save future generations?

I am inclined to think that each human generation must consider itself as the steward of the earth and therefore must make available to the succeeding generations an inheritance undiminished to that received.

In this context what does "careful and responsible management" mean? I would say that there are two things that must be begun to make the whole process feasible. The first is that the public must be convinced that it is a responsible caretaker and not an owner and secondly the public must be provided with an acceptable standard whereby it can judge how each major issue affects the accomplishment of the overall task. This is an ongoing forever responsibility for every nation but for the purpose of discussion I am going to speak about it as localized to the US.

Selfishness and greed are fundamental components of human nature. How does a nation cause its people to temper this nature when the payoff goes not to the generation presently in charge but to generations yet to come in the very distant future? Generations too far removed to be encompassed by the evolved biological impulse to care for ones kin.

How is it possible to cause a man or woman to have the same concern for a generation five times removed as that man or woman has for their own progeny? I suspect it is not possible, but it does seem to me to be necessary to accomplish the task of stewardship.

Would it be possible to cause the American people to reject completely the use of air-conditioning so that generations five times removed could survive? Is it possible to create in a person a rational response strong enough to overcome the culturally developed nature of greed and selfishness? The motivation force must be instinctually based, i.e. based upon moral instinct honed through reason in the form of a science of morality.

I claim that a compelling sense of stewardship must come through a comprehension of the science of morality (yet to be developed).

Giving up AC would do nothing to save anything, thus it's a silly precept. Man stopping all use of GHG producing technologies would do nothing.

So the entire premise of your argument is folly.

 

[moe]

It is not neccessary to give up our A/C. I am assuming you are concerned about CFC's? We no longer use CFC freons. Today we use HCFC's. Plus even if we were still using CFC's simply eliminating personal comfort A/C would probably have 0 effect on saving the ozone. Consider that the avearage window unit generally has less than 2 pounds of freon in the system. Refrigerators, Resturaunt beverage coolers in most cases only use a few ounces.

The big users are industrial. Most of our manufacturing processes use some type of cooling.

Also today even with the so called ozone friendly freons such as 134-a and the 404 series gases very strict recovery methods are mandatory. Gone forever are the days of dumping a charge to the atmosphere.

Today we use special quick connect/disconnect hoses with a recovery machine that pumps the gas out of the system and into a special gas bottle. The system is pumped into a deep vacuum. No gas escapes to the air. The recovered gas is then taken to a reclaim center.

Moe

 

[coberst]

AC was just one example of what sacrifices that must be considered by a person who seeks to act in a moral fashion about what we owe to future generations.

Morality begins with the moral instinct which is the instincts that make social groups possible.

I am studying "The Sense of Beauty" by George Santayana, "Moral Imagination" by Mark Johnson, and "Art and Visual Perception" by Rudolf Arnheim. I have discovered that the study of values, morality is a species of value, has led me into a study of visual perception, the meaning of 'meaning', and the science of art.

The study of psychology and cognitive science has provided a foundation for this effort.

Every aspect of our behavior and knowledge is affected by moral considerations. Morality is about relationships.