Air Conditioning Will Be The End Of Us Analysis

In the article "Viewpoint: Air Conditioning Will Be the End of Us" the author Eric Klinenberg builds an argument to persuade his audience that Americans should reduce the use of air conditioning by showing ethos, logos and pathos. He also uses several other strategies, including the use of factual examples and comparisons. The author describes how he received a letter from his utility provider advising him to use air conditioning "wisely". In fact, Americans use so much air conditioning that they "use twice as much energy… as they did twenty years ago, and more than the rest of the world's nations combined." Those who over use their air conditioning, raising the temperature to its highest are the ones causing this problem. The author appeals to pathos, wanting his audience to feel like they are not doing the right thing wasting energy and raising the …show more content…
Readers who can relate to turning on their air conditioners and making their house as cold as an igloo, may feel a bit of guilt that they contribute to the increased level of energy consumption. The second comparison the author makes is the amount of energy Americans consume. He goes on to explain how "Part of the problem is that in recent decades, the fastest-growing U.S. cities-places like Las Vegas, Phoenix and Austin-have effectively been built on air-conditioning. (This is also true in the Middle East and Asia, and as a result, global energy consumption is soaring precisely when it needs to be lowered.)" Americans no longer use shading from trees and cross-ventilation from windows and fans to try and keep cool. They now result to blasting the air conditioner and raising the consumption of energy which can lead to other problems like power outages and blackouts. These problems occur when there is too much energy being consumed and not enough power voltage to spread