Key-Word-Based Science

Posted by jns on 29 March 2005

I was reading an interesting article at Science Blog, “Changes in Earth’s tilt control when glacial cycles end“, about a new report (written by “Peter Huybers, a postdoctoral fellow in the WHOI Geology and Geophysics Department, and coauthor Carl Wunsch of MIT”) suggesting that changes in the tilt of the earth’s axis may indeed be the cause of periods of glaciation and other large-scale climate changes. Fascinating stuff, but not what this post is about.
This post is about the advertising. There’s a box on the page that has links provided by amazon.com, evidently chosen by matching subject key words, which in this case must have included “climate” and “warming”. At least when I loaded the page, they suggest two items:

1. A book called Global Warming, by John Houghton, and
2. A Panasonic, window model, 5,200-BTU air conditioner

Rather in poor taste, I thought, and showing a keen insensitivity to the second law of thermodynamics, not to mention several of the probable causes of global warming all represented by one device (that would be the air conditioner, not the book).
Were they suggesting that better air conditioning might be a tonic that would reduce the problem of global warming? The idea puts me in mind of all those people who don’t yet understand (we’ll get to it sometime, folks) why you can’t cool the apartment by leaving the refrigerator door open. Which, by the way, is significantly different from the reason why you shouldn’t heat the apartment by running the gas oven. Oddly, though, you could heat the house by leaving the refrigerator door open, but it would not be very efficient.