Dining al fresco -- is our pleasure worth the damage?

Many restaurants give their customers the possibility to have a meal outdoors even while the weather is still cold. Outdoor heaters create a cosy warm bubble in which to sit pleasurably: less noisy than the cramped indoors; more variety in watching the people passing; so much more space around you; the beautiful natural light of the sun during the day, or even a sight of the moon at night.

But I cannot help but think of all the energy unnecessarily produced, all the energy unnecessarily released into the atmosphere, all the Arctic ice unnecessarily melting.

I keep hoping of a time when we, the customers, will just not take up such opportunities, and the restaurants will not offer them. I keep hoping of a time when we, the humans, will think that in order to enjoy the outdoors we need to adapt to it, rather than adapt it to ourselves.