When it comes to discussing
climate change, older people may have one advantage: They have watched it happen. In the nine northeastern states in US, for instance, where average winter temperatures climbed 3.8 degrees
Fahrenheit between 1970 and 2000, they have seen fewer snow-covered days, and more shrubs flowering ever earlier. And they have experienced hotter summers. In
New York City, summer temperatures at La Guardia Airport have risen 0.7 degrees per decade since 1970, according to the city’s Panel on Climate Change.
Older Americans also are significant contributors to climate change. A just-published study has found that residential energy consumption rises as a resident’s age increases.
Buildings, and residential buildings in particular, are the world’s largest energy consumers. Two researchers recently analyzed federal data on household energy usage that was gathered from 1987 to 2009, and involved nearly 30,000 owner-occupied units. Distinct patterns emerged by age. Usage was lowest among young adults, who typically occupy smaller households, said Hossein Estiri, a computational demographer at
Harvard Medical School and an author on the paper.
Consumption rose rapidly among the 30- to 54-year-old cohort — “the peak of having kids and larger houses,” he noted — then stabilized when people reached their 60s. But “after 70, it goes up and it keeps going up,” Estiri said. The trend persisted when the researchers controlled for income and
housing types, but it varied by geography. When the researchers looked at climate zones, they found that “energy consumption in warmer regions becomes really elevated for the older group.”
Why do older people use more juice? The study could not provide explanations, but “there might be more need for air-conditioning,” Estiri speculated. “Or older people may not be able to maintain their homes as well to conserve energy. Maybe their appliances are old and less efficient. All of these could contribute.” The climate change story has plenty of villains; seniors are hardly wrecking the environment on their own. Still, the demographic trends do not bode well.