Over AC We Disagree

This was an interesting blog topic since it almost naturally came up between a friend and I this week anyways. In one of my classes (Energy Politics) my teach informed us that utilities charges in apartment buildings are usually not based on individual apartments' consumption, but rather the aggregate averaged out between all the apartments in the building. A friend of mine had moved into a new apartment with separate utilities charges, and I informed him of this fact. He promptly responded "Awesome!" and declared he would run his AC all the time in that case. I was a bit taken aback and responded that he should at least be conservative for environmental reasons. At this point we hit our disagreement. He and I could not seem to agree about the moral imperative of individual conservation efforts. Though we both agreed on the dangers and reality of climate change, he was of the opinion that individual efforts were useless in combating itself. He suggested that the only way real change would come was either from the heavy hand of government or the invisible hand of the market. Though I am also of the opinion these are the most likely to really alter the trend, I also believe there is some sort of moral imperative for the individual to monitor and alter their own environmental impact. I realize no one can be the perfect "Mr. Green," but that there is some responsibility for each of us to act. He simply contended that as long as the whole system was flawed, there was no need for him not to be one the one that benefited from the flaws. After more lengthy discussion on ethics in general, we agreed to disagree and I secretly committed myself to running interference on his electricity use every time I visit his place.