preview

Air-Conditioning By Erick Klinenberg

Decent Essays

In “Viewpoint: Air-Conditioning will be the end of us”, author Erick Klinenberg argues that American society is over-reliant on the use of air-conditioning and drastic efforts need to be implemented to prevent its detrimental effects in the future. In order to persuade his audience, Klinenberg considers other perspectives, utilizes an exasperated tone, and presents drastic examples to expose America’s over-reliance on air-conditioning. In his article, Klinenberg incorporates two different sets of perspectives into two of his paragraphs. This allows for him to seem very reasonable and not one-sided to his audience. Also, the positions those two “different perspectives” are presented in[2nd & 3rd paragraph] indicates that Klinenberg wants …show more content…

Additionally, his selected word choice of “dumb” depicts his annoyance with American society, to the point where he decides to not even replace “dumb” with a more formal version. For “wisely”, Klinenberg mocks the meaningless and ineffective methods that are utilized by energy providers to prevent an overuse of the air conditioner; and with “suicidal fashion”, he depicts the reckless way Americans use their air conditioners. With these 3 examples, the audience is able to observe that he is grave about the topic of “air-conditioning in the United States.” Furthermore, he is invested to the point where he even reluctantly proposes a “ban...might well be necessary if we can’t turn the dial on our own.” His reluctant solution portrays him as an author who wants to end America’s AC problem; but also as an author that many of the audience can agree behind. His exasperation, effort, and seriousness compels the audience to be more inclined to support him in his efforts to lessen America’s dependence on air-conditioning. Throughout the passage, Klinenberg presents drastic examples to showcase the severity of America’s reliance on air-conditioning. Examples such as “fastest-growing U.S cities...have effectively been built on air-conditioning” and “our[America’s] habit of converting houses, offices, and massive commercial outlets into igloos” present the dire situation America is in. For “America’s fastest-growing cities” to all rely or moreover “been built on” air

Get Access