Enjoy your air conditioning this summer, because it will never be the same again.
Congress, in a mindless act, has banned the production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) such as freon, the primary cooling agent in air conditioners, refrigerators and freezers.As of Dec. 31, it will be illegal to produce the cooling agents that operate the existing stock of air conditioning and refrigeration equipment.
But don't expect to pick up a can of a substitute for freon to use in your current systems. The new coolant won't work in our present machinery. Moreover, it is 30 percent more expensive and less efficient.
Some existing air conditioning systems can be expensively retrofitted to operate with the new coolant. Other systems will have to be junked and replaced. You had better start saving now for the thousands of dollars it is going to cost to replace your car and home air conditioning and refrigerator.
If you rent an apartment or office space, shop, eat out, or are faced with a hospital stay, expect higher rents and prices as owners of buildings, shopping malls, grocery stores and refrigerated trucks pass on the higher costs of cooling.
Americans have grown cynically accustomed to the stupidity of their elected representatives, but folly on this scale is unprecedented. It shows a total disregard for our pocketbooks and the budget constraints that all Americans face.
CFCs were banned on the basis of an assumption that they depleted the ozone layer that protects life from ultraviolet sun rays associated with skin cancer. Environmental activists whipped up hysteria about how freon was turning our friendly sun into a deadly ray gun that threatened all human life.
All of this was rank nonsense, but people fell for it in droves, especially then-President George Bush, his Environmental Protection Agency chief William Reilly and the current vice president, Al Gore. An international treaty was signed banning CFCs, and Congress made the ban law.
The government could have declared victory over ozone depletion and graciously accepted the people's thanks, but real scientists began raising questions.
When Will Happer, a prominent scientist who was director of research at the Department of Energy, tried to get some studies of surface ultraviolet radiation, he was fired. The government was committed to a path and didn't want to confuse its policy with any evidence.
In short, we are going to have to junk our air conditioners and refrigerators on what virtually amounts to idle speculation.