Hello! My name is Mark Beaudet and this is My Damn Air Conditioner, my personal blog about becoming engaged in the fight to save our planet.
I called this site My Damn Air Conditioner because in late 2022 I realized that it had become so hot, so often in our home, that we could no longer live without air conditioning. I wrote about this experience in my first post.
I know – poor me. People around the world are suffering and dying due to floods, fires, and extreme storms brought on by global warming – and I had to exercise the privilege of buying a luxury appliance. Boo hoo.
But I was upset. It was not so much that I had to buy an appliance. It was that I was being confronted, personally, for the first time, that the world has changed, and not for the better. For the first time, my family was being forced to make climate adaptations.
It is unlikely to be the last.
I have to admit I felt somewhat embarrassed as well. Climate change is the defining challenge of our generation. We are constantly surrounded by news about the climate, the science, the politics, the protests. But until this moment, I hadn’t really fully connected with the implications of what was happening to our planet.
A recent study estimates that due to warming, about 9% of the world’s population, 600 million people, are now living outside of the “human climate niche” – the collection of climate conditions that have sustained human life and human activities, like agriculture, for millennia. And on our current track of +2.7 °C global warming, scientists believe that number will grow to one-third of the global population outside the niche by the end of this century. They characterize the human suffering of that scenario as “phenomenal”.
This is the world we are leaving to our kids.
This realization cultivated a new resolve in me. I feel like I need to play some sort of positive role in this. I just don’t know what that is yet. This site is part of my process for figuring that out.
I realized I really did not know all that much about climate change – this most important issue of our time: How much has the climate warmed? What are the projections for the future? What do we need to do to stop it? Are we on track or not? What should I be doing to help?
My first step is to get answers, to cure my relative ignorance, so I can make a valuable contribution. I find that one of the best ways to learn things is to write about them. So that’s what I’m doing. And if I’m writing these thoughts out, I figure there is a chance that in sharing them, someone else will benefit as well.
So I hope you’ll find these articles helpful. And if you do, I hope you’ll help me build a wider audience and recommend this site to your friends.
I’m always open to hearing your thoughts and comments. Please feel free to contact me – you can find me online in the links below or just send me an email : mark at mydamnac dot com.
About Me
I am an award-winning entrepreneur and marketer having built a career in the pharmaceutical and consumer products industries. I’ve served on the boards of several public and private companies and played leadership roles in not-for-profit organizations promoting health care, education, and social justice causes.
I live in Montreal, Canada, with my wife, two sons, our two dogs and a cat. My happy place is outside: running, biking, hiking, and back-country skiing.