I was going to think about this, but Brink Lindsey has already done so...
Posted by DeLong at July 17, 2002 09:17 PM | Trackback100 YEARS OF AIR CONDITIONING: On July 17, 1902, one hundred years ago today, Willis Carrier designed the world's first modern air conditioning system for a Brooklyn printing company. There's a nice centennial tribute in today's Washington Post.
Growing up in north Florida -- where for many months of the year it is, to use a local expression, hotter than dog's breath -- I took the view from an early age that air conditioning topped the list of Western civilization's accomplishments. Youthful hyperbole perhaps, but not too far off. Other than antibiotics, it's difficult to think of a single technological advance that has done more to abate human misery.
If you've never lived in a hot climate, you may not be able to appreciate fully the miracle that is climate control. Well, as the saying goes, the best thing about smashing your hand repeatedly with a hammer is how good it feels when you stop -- and by the same token, the best thing about living in the South is how good it feel when you go inside. When it's so hot it actually hurts to put your hand on your sun-scorched hair, and the air is so choked with humidity that it feels like you're walking through molasses, when you're so sweaty that even your belt is soaked -- to come out of that inferno into the ecstatic embrace of sweet, crisp, 65-degree heaven is to know in your bones that submission to nature is oppressive and degrading, and that the Baconian project of power over nature serves not only comfort and caprice but elemental human dignity.
posted by Brink Lindsey at 3:34 PM
This is particularly true if there is high *humidity*.
In Mediterranean (spelling!) coutnries there is much less air conditioning. This is partly because they are poorer, but also because it is (mostly) a dry desert-type heat, which tends to cool off at night.
The result is a working day with a 4 hour siesta in the middle, which gives 4 rush hours a day, and is bad for productivity (arguably) but is good for human health (doctors favour a mid day nap): probably one of the reasons seniors in Spain, Italy, Greece, are among the longest lived in the western world.
The southern US would probably never have modernised after WWII without 1). the defeat of malaria (a triumph of the New Deal draining the swamps, rather than modern medicine per se) and 2). the widespread distribution of air conditioning.
One of the tragedies of global warming will be that, as it gets worse, we will air condition more and burn more energy, compounding the cycle.
Just as in the Great Fog of London (1952), as the sulphur dioxide made the winter colder, people burned more coal, compounding the problem (several thousand died from smoke related respiratory ailments).
Have you noticed on that score, that the summers seem to be getting worse? When I grew up, spending the odd summer in Toronto, no one had air conditioning. Now, everyone does. Whether this is simply an income effect I do not know.