It isn't easy to tell people that what they like is evil. That is why scoldings of that sort have traditionally been in the preserve of religion.

M. Simon's last post reminded me that left-wing economic scoldings have tended to fall on deaf ears, mainly since consumers of stuff tend to like the stuff they consume -- even if it is "overproduced." Overproduction often means lots of competing goods and an abundance of choices, and while many of us (myself included) complain of "too many choices" (I have complained about the "war against plain"), I think very few people would accept (much less want) bareness and austerity where it comes to available consumer goods and products.

So I left this comment to M. Simon's post:

The argument against "over-production" has had very little appeal to most people. Which is why the environmentalists are trying to manufacture a new form of "green" morality which condemns all activities deemed "unsustainable."

For the rest of us, Stan Cox in the Washington Post preaches about the joys of living without air conditioning:

Saying goodbye to A.C. means saying hello to the world. With more people spending more time outdoors -- particularly in the late afternoon and evening, when temperatures fall more quickly outside than they do inside -- neighborhoods see a boom in spontaneous summertime socializing.

But never mind Philly's hot weather melees! According to Cox, hot weather makes people nice:

Rather than cowering alone in chilly home-entertainment rooms, neighbors get to know one another. Because there are more people outside, streets in high-crime areas become safer. As a result of all this, a strange thing happens: Deaths from heat decline. Elderly people no longer die alone inside sweltering apartments, too afraid to venture outside for help and too isolated to be noticed. Instead, people look out for one another during heat waves, checking in on their most vulnerable neighbors.

Children -- and others -- take to bikes and scooters, because of the cooling effect of air movement. Calls for more summer school and even year-round school cease. Our kids don't need more time inside, everyone agrees; they need the shady playgrounds and water sprinklers that spring up in every neighborhood.

And elsewhere in the Post, a very different opinion exists over whether hot weather in fact leads people to random acts of kindness:

....Serious crime dropped 71 percent in Baltimore and D.C.'s homicide rate dropped to zero during the back-to-back snowstorms of early February.

However, the onset of summer means an increase in crime for D.C. Hot temperatures coupled with longer days, summer break from area high schools and a high unemployment rate could increase crime rates this summer.

[...]

A positive correlation between warm weather and crime has been known for years, going as far back as the 19th Century, though the relationship eventually tapers off when the temperature becomes too hot. As of May, D.C.'s homicide rate was down 30 percent this year compared to last, but D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier expects repeat offenders will come back with the increase in temperatures and daylight.

Or riding public transportation!

As temperatures soared to 100 degrees last week, there were few places in the Hub less miserable to be than underground, in a breezeless, sweltering, unairconditioned subway station.

[...]

Death Valley seemed like a better alternative. Without a fan, the oppressive, humid air clung to the hundred of us riders down there, inducing sweat-drenched brows, soggy shirts and gasping lungs.

"I feel like I'm suffocating," said Chani Wilson, 25, a student at Year Up Boston.

"You can't even breathe," added her classmate, Louis Triplett.

And nothing beats the joys of that spontaneous summertime socializing!

What's not to love about this?

To be fair to Cox, though, in a longer essay a few years ago, he didn't paint such a rosy picture. Instead, he likened air conditioning to drug addiction -- with predictable consequences:

if the effect of air-conditioning on a hot human being can be compared to that of a pain-relieving drug, its economic impact is more like that of an anabolic steroid. And withdrawal, when it comes, will be painful.

He uses air conditioning to artfully merge the environmentalist "unsustainability" meme with the pessimistic view that growth leads to decay:

As it creates fleeting enjoyment through a state of low entropy (in this case, an island of coolness in a sea of heat) but only by increasing entropy at an even faster rate elsewhere (by using up fuels and materials and releasing useless wastes), air-conditioning is a poster child for the inevitable decay that, according to Georgescu-Roegen, is a defining characteristic of economic growth.

It's no coincidence that when the first modern central air-conditioning system was installed back in 1902, it was to cool the New York Stock Exchange.

Evil as air conditioning is by itself, it has also fueled the twin evil of conspicuous consumption!

Marketing in America is an exceptionally wasteful means of extracting Georgescu Roegen's "enjoyment of life" out of valuable resources, and it's made possible partly by air-conditioning. In a summer without AC, the mall/big-box strategy of concentrated retailing would create little more than a hot stew of bodily aromas. With it, leisurely shopping has largely displaced noncommercial pastimes for many.

Air-conditioning can also make big purchases more attractive. You can't fully enjoy a jumbo-screen TV, a PC, an SUV or an RV unless you have AC. It allows you to grill steaks in the comfort of the kitchen, play indoor golf when it's too hot outdoors or, as President Richard Nixon used to do, enjoy your fireplace even in summer.

We are all Richard Nixon!

This stuff is more evil than I imagined. And if you think Nixon was bad, the author ended by blaming air conditioning for an even worse atrocity:

This story is the first in a two-part series on how air-conditioning has changed society. Next week: How air-conditioning may have helped elect George W. Bush.

The problem remains, though, that telling people that what they like is is bad is always a hard sell, and it can only be done in the context of morality.

Air conditioning may be comfortable, and it may make life fun and easier (even possible), but it has to be recast as evil.

Same thing for unsustainable activities like eating the food you like, or even the Fourth of July fireworks (which backward people once considered fun and patriotic). The new trend is to ban fireworks if possible, and at any rate scold people who enjoy them:

[F]ireworks shows spray out a toxic concoction that rains down quietly into lakes, rivers and bays throughout the country," wrote the Mother Nature Network's Russell McLendon on June 30. "Many of the chemicals in fireworks are also persistent in the environment, meaning they stubbornly sit there instead of breaking down."

McLendon suggested avoiding fireworks and finding other ways to celebrate Independence Day.

You know, that pursuit-of-happiness thing that the moralistic, authoritarian, pleasure-hating scolds want to ban because it's "unsustainable"?

Enjoy.

Especially because if they get their way, enjoyment won't be allowed!