Given that machines typically use ancient, finite, climate-changing fuels, life is and will be better if they sit idle as much as possible until we get around to bringing better energies online. Some machines use a lot. A central air conditioner or furnace consumes 100 times what a computer might use. Which is why, if we had thought of it, we could have consumed a toast to non-consumption recently. Until this week's chill, we had a good two month run of comfort without the need of A/C or furnace. In August, the nights were cool enough that the house could release any accumulated heat and hold on to that overnight coolness through the day. And the house had enough mass to stay warm through periodic cool spells in September. Pulling shades in the summer and opening them up to harvest solar heat on cool autumn days has been enough to maintain comfort. Fans gave a low-energy assist in August. For two months, then, the house buffered the modest highs and lows.
But small comfort this, for on the street out front the mad parade of cars and trucks streams by. Conspicuous consumption, individually rational, collectively irrational. Engines straining to move bulky metal frames, a passing truck's biting exhaust, the wheels's spin--machines built by machines and ultimately to be broken down by machines. Combining servitude and subterfuge, they compliantly get us where we're sure we need to go. The drivers' eyes face ahead, not seeing the mischief spreading out and up from behind. Cars impel us forward, while the unseen tailpipe dictates what's to come. The earth buffers this common sense madness, maintains our comfort for the meantime, but not for forever.
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