Air conditioning; a win lose proposition

It was interesting to read in yesterday's StarTribune that meteorologist Paul Douglas is going without fixing his air conditioner during this stretch of terrifically hot weather (21 days with highs of at least 85 degrees).  He noted a significant problem with air conditioning, that while it cools the individuals within their residence, it fuels global warming, which then compounds the problem.

"Between 1993 and 2005, with summers growing hotter and homes larger, energy consumed by residential air conditioning in the U.S. doubled, and it leaped another 20 percent by 2010. The climate impact of air conditioning our buildings and vehicles is now that of almost half a billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year." - from an article at The Guardian