Congratulations, America. We’ve finally figured out a way to make ourselves fatter while simultaneously heating up our planet. We’re quite apt at doing each by itself, but recently we have made a gigantic leap forward and become much more efficient in doing both at once. This technology has been around for over a century, but is becoming much more widespread as our summers get hotter and our population gets more obese. America has become stuck in a vicious cycle. As we become fat and sweaty, we need to use more, which ultimately makes us fatter and sweatier. This evil technology that is spreading like wildfire is called air conditioning.

If you’ll excuse the hyperbole, there is actually solid evidence behind this argument. Air conditioning, which has been around for just over 100 years, is clearly an indispensable part of our daily lives. No one likes working, sitting or sleeping in a sweltering hot room. Unfortunately, this daily overuse of air conditioning has a negative effect on the planet that is more drastic than most of us realize.

Those familiar with physics know that energy cannot be created or destroyed, and that heat is a form of energy. All that air conditioning does is push heat from inside our homes and offices to the outdoors. However, the electricity that is used in this equation is the worst part. One-sixth of our total power consumption is used to cool ourselves. This energy is generated through the burning of coal and oil, creating more greenhouse gases. These greenhouse gases make our planet hotter. I’m not an English major, but that seems to be a pretty good example of irony. In attempting to make our planet cooler and more livable, we are making it warmer and less inhabitable.

Air conditioning has even spread to the Arctic. According to CNews, the Eskimo village of Kuujjuaq — 1,000 miles north of Montreal — purchased 10 air conditioners this summer for use in commercial and government office buildings. Temperatures there exceeded 90 degrees for more than a week this summer. In 1981, according to Slate magazine, one-third of American homes with central air reported using it all summer. In 1997, more than half used it every day. Not only that, but the total number of homes with central air has increased from 22.4 million to 47.8 million in that same time frame. The number of homes using central air every summer day is now greater than the total number of homes that had central air 20 years ago.

The hotter our summers get, the more air conditioning we use to counteract this heat. The more air conditioning we use, the hotter our summers will continue to get. Eventually, we will reach a point where our lives will be lived entirely inside. Every day this summer, as I drove home from work, I wondered why there were no kids outside playing in their yards. Ten years ago, driving around my town was a dangerous activity. There was always the threat of a child dashing into the street to retrieve a stray ball. Lately, that threat has all but vanished. Though I don’t know where they all went, I would say that inside their air-conditioned homes is a pretty good guess. It could simply be a symptom of the declining fertility rates of our population, but that is for another column.

In addition to making the Earth unbearably hot and speeding up global warming, air conditioning carries the benefit of making us fat. It promotes a sedentary lifestyle by allowing people an escape from being active in the outdoor heat. In addition to that, it actually decreases our ability to burn fat. When our body temperature decreases, our metabolism slows in order to save energy. This results in a decrease in the amount of calories we burn. Much like bears hibernating in the winter, humans hibernate in the summer. The greenhouse gases that we churn out to keep ourselves cool heat up our planet, which forces us inside to escape that heat, which makes us fatter. Being overweight makes us less able to tolerate the heat, which causes us to turn up our air conditioning, which increases the amount of greenhouse gases we create. It is a horrible cycle and there is virtually no end in sight.

I’m not advocating a ban on air conditioning, only more judicious use. It is not necessary to have central air blasting on 75 degree summer days. Houses do not need to be 65 degrees in order to get a good night’s sleep. My family managed to survive this summer with little more than an attic and ceiling fans. We have a few window units which were used during the heat wave, but other than that, they were rarely turned on. It is perfectly possible to survive a New England summer with little-to-no air conditioning. Next summer, instead of turning that thermostat down to 62 and leaving it there for three months, try opening a window and turning on a fan. You’ll be saving our planet and improving your health at the same time. And you don’t even have to get up from your couch to do it.