Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer)

Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer) by Stan Cox

Air Conditioning has caught on in a big way. It has allowed people to live comfortably in hotter areas. It has also contributed significantly to global warming. People can live in hot areas without using compressors to cool the air. India has had hundreds of millions of people live in hot climates. Most Sub-Belt cities (even Phoenix!) were settled before air conditioning. However, living conditions were different. Rather than having buildings sealed off, they were left open with features to allow for natural cooling. Schedules were adapted to the heat. Shade trees were valuable coolers.

Today air-conditioning is omnipresent in new construction. Even in the Seattle metro, air conditioning usage has crossed the 50% mark. This is in a coastal area, filled with trees with an the average yearly peak temperature is in the 70s. Yet people have invested in air conditioning for those odd peak days. To make the air conditioning more efficient, some of the "natural cooling" is sacrificed, requiring the air conditioning to run more frequently. (We are lucky to have our "air conditioning" in the form of big shade trees.)

Air conditioning also impair the social environment. Air conditioners are loud. They warm the outside air. They encourage people to be inside in their climate controlled environment rather than outside catching a cool breeze.

Air conditioners are huge greenhouse gas emitters. They consume a large amount of power. This is primarily produced by burning fossil fuels. Other sources, such as nuclear, solar or wind do not emit CO2 in production. However, they do require significant energy to produce. In addition, the refrigerants are orders of magnitude worse. We have gone from flammable (ammonia) to ozone-depleting (CFCs) to significant greenhouse gases. There are alternatives that are not as bad, but they are also not as efficient. 

Some work has helped to make air conditioning more efficient and affordable. However, this is often subject to rebound problem, with savings resulting in more cooling. Window units can be more efficient because they focus the heat on a single room for a short time. However, as more rooms are cooled, energy consumption goes up.

There is contradictory research on the improvement of workers in cooled environments. Productivity is low in super hot environments. However, things get fuzzier down in the 60s and 70s. People are in general fine with a temperature that more closely represents outdoors than an absolute low temperature. (I recall working in China where the building was heated or cooled to make it "comfortable" but not super hot or cold.) In India air conditioners were advertised as improving performance in bed. (I feel it should be the other way around.) Server farms produce huge amounts of heat and demand cooling. 

There are some hopes for improvements in technology. However, the best way for humans to survive is by not living in places hotter than they can handle.