Viscious Cycle

A closed room has a refrigerator with the door open. What happens to the temperature in the room?

The temperature goes up because more energy is added to the room while the refrigerator is plugged in. When Julie quizzed me on this oh so long ago I hesitated, but the real answer made complete sense.

I kept thinking about that as I read William Saletan’s article in Slate about our need to refrigerate contributes to our global warming problems. I can’t remember the last time an article made me feel this unpleasant.