Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of Modern Singapore, was asked once the most important invention of the twentieth century. He did not say penicillin, which has saved more than 500 million lives, or the nuclear bomb, which has shaped geopolitics as nothing before. Hey, I didn’t say television!
Instead, Lee had a simple two -words response: “air conditioning.” Without air conditioning, Singapore, where temperatures regularly reach the 90s with tropical humidity levels, would never have developed from a small city state with a GDP per capita that was a third of Western Europe in 1960 in the world.
Air conditioning is as essential for the modern world as the Internet. But like the Internet, air conditioning has a bad reputation. Cooling already eats 10 percent of global electricity, and the demand for air conditioners is expected to triple for 2050 without more difficult energy efficiency standards. Many units still use refrigerant gases that produce a planetary heating effect that is thousands of times than that of a similar amount of CO2.
The air conditioning is also a physical manifestation of the energy gap between the rich that can pay it and the poor that must sweat. It has allowed the development of energy intensive cities in places where humans simply should not live, such as Phoenix. Fundamentally, A/C is seen by some as an unnecessary luxury, an excellent example of a “harmful habit of consumption”, as Pope Francis once expressed.
I have the point. It seems morally incorrect for many of us to use a device that contributes approximately 3 percent of world greenhouse gases emissions, just so that we can escape the effects of that heating.
But “it seems” it is not the same as “is.” The air conditioning has become much more than a luxury. So, in this, the second day of summer, when the east coast is about to be wrapped by a really suffocating wave of heat and humidity, I sacrifice five reasons why we should be grateful for the air conditioning.
Heat is not only uncomfortable. It is dangerous, killing more Americans in a typical year than any other form of extreme climate. Air conditioning access can mean the difference between life and death. Seven hundred thirty -nine people died in the great heat wave of Chicago in 1995, but having a job air conditioning reduced the risk of death by 80 percent. Another study analyzed cities in multiple countries between 1972 and 2009 and found that more air conditioning helped reduce excess heat deaths.
As explained by a 2021 review in the Lancet, the air conditioning “will become the most frequent strategy worldwide to deal with hot climate and heat.” And although only about 8 percent of the 2.8 billion people living in the most popular regions in the world have A/C at home, that is an argument to close the A/C gap, not an argument against the very real value of the air conditioning.
If it struggles to concentrate when heat and humidity are high, it is not alone. A study analyzed the office work and discovered that productivity begins to reduce around 73 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit, while at 86 ° F, the performance falls by almost 9 percent. Another study found that each 1 grade increase in the average classroom temperature during a school year corresponded to a loss of approximately 1 percent in the expected learning of the students, but the air conditioning installation eliminates approximately three quarters of that effect.
As continuous temperatures increase, the importance of air conditioning in schools and companies will only grow. A 2016 working document finds that the widespread adoption of air conditioning, especially for the most productive plants, exceeds the substance of the heat induced fall at the manufacturing output of the United States, which makes cooling a critical adaptation tool.
The more we learn about sleep, the more important it seems to be, and staying fresh is a key part of a decent sleep night.
Humans fall asleep faster around 64–68 ° F, while temperatures above 75 ° F cause a vital deep sleep and the brake dream to the crater. A 2024 review of more than 50 laboratory and field studies found that the bedroom increased the total sleep time from 15 to 20 minutes and reduced the total amount of time that people waked up after falling asleep in a third.
It has given us everything from movies to microchips
Do you like to go to the movies to see a summer box office success? Well, you can thank the air conditioning: before its invention, the assistance to the cinema always fell the duration of the hot summer months. It is no accident that the first public air has been installed in a cinema, the New York Rivoli Theater, in 1925.
But maybe you prefer to take your films in the comfort of your own home? Well, producing microchips that enter your transmission or smart telephone television requires total precision in temperature and humidity control. In summary: No A/C, without microchips.
Let millions live and travel where they want
Look, my negative feelings about living in meters to red live as Phoenix are a matter of public registration. But I am clearly in the minority: Americans love living in hot places. Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, added 1.2 million people between 2013 and 2023, more than any other county, and 96 percent of the new homes built to absorb these new residents comes A/C.
What US cities such as Phoenix or Houston or Atlanta have in common with Singapore and Hong Kong is that none of them exists as something like the general use of air conditioning. Before A/C, the South American was mired in poverty, far behind the rest of the country. After A/C, the south more that was updated, and the southwest inhabitable became a magnet for people. If you think it is good that people can choose between a broader spectrum of places, and I do, A/C is one of the main reasons why that is possible.
The air conditioning as it exists today is far from perfect. But it is also necessary, especially in an increasingly warm world. What we need is no less air conditioning, unless they work in an office where they keep the temperature at 60 ° F, but a better conditioning, with more efficient units fueled by cleaner electricity.
If you want to go without air conditioning, keep going (although I will probably not visit your home in the summer in the short term). But anyway, it should be an choice.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News Bulletin. Register here!