Air Conditioned Nightmare, a History

I was born on a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, in 1955, near the ocean. That is a temperate climate by most standards. It got hot in summer and cold in winter, but as a child I did not worry about it. We had no air conditioning, almost nobody did back then, but we certainly had heat. I remember being seriously cold only once, when Legendary Mother locked me out of the house during a snow storm in Greenville, Texas when I was four, to punish me (Legendary Father was stationed in Japan that year).

In 1955 the human population of the United States was about 165 million. The population of the planet Earth was about 2.6 billion.

When I was six years old Legendary Father was retired from the Marine Corps (they failed to anticipate the need for trained, reliable murderers starting in 1965 in Vietnam) and we moved to Florida. It was hot! But again, no air conditioning. Our house was in a suburb that had recently been a swamp. My grade school was not air conditioned either.

Then around 1964 we moved into a fancier neighborhood and the house had central air. Legendary Mother set the thermostat at 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21.1 degrees C.) In summer it was 70, and in winter it was 70. Whatever budget strains the family had, no thought was given saving a bit of electricity by letting the house vary from 70. The electricity, in that place and era, came from burning fuel oil.

In 1965 the human population of the United States was about 190 million. The population of the planet Earth was about 3.4 billion.

I have to admit I became a bit of a weenie. Cold was seldom a problem. I continued to play outside when I could, and I continued to sweat profusely while sitting still at school, in the fall and spring. But I also enjoyed walking into our air conditioned house and cooling off. At some point a new car was bought that had air conditioning.

In school I never, ever had air conditioning. Not in grade school, not in high school, not in college.

But in the winter of 1973-74 I ran into a different problem. That was a result of the Arab Oil Embargo. I had no budget for clothing for college (Legendary Father and Legendary Mother had thrown me out of the family), or I should say that working for minimum wage to pay for college made me extremely careful about buying anything. My freshman year I had endured the cold of New England dressed in Florida appropriate clothes. But at least the dorms and classrooms were well heated.

Not so the winter of 1973-74. My college economized. I was cold all the time, in my dorm room and in classrooms. But I did not die, and when Spring rolled around, I had largely acclimatized. My Florida clothes (now becoming rags) were adequate because my body had adapted.

In 1975 the population of the U.S. was about 215 million. The global population was about 4.1 billion.

My body had adapted to cold despite spending most of my childhood in Florida. In the meantime, since the start of the Industrial Revolution, America was converting vast amounts of fossil fuel into carbon dioxide. In 1975 Global Warming itself was still somewhat hidden among the ordinary fluctuations of weather, but we, the human race, had built a big ol' Greenhouse by burning fuel to run heaters and air conditions, cars and trucks, factories and armies.

Now political leaders (well, heads of state anyway) are gathered in Paris to pretend to do something about greenhouse gasses and global warming.

Couldn't they just agree to Turn Off the Goddam Air Conditioners! No one on earth had air conditioning until the 20th century. People can acclimatize to heat. They can wear shorts in summer, even at places of business. The first year will be tough, sure, as we get used to sweating again (and other people sweating).

Instead the Air Conditioned Nightmare (Henry Miller's term) is spreading like a cancer on the earth. As soon as people have the dough, they want their first air conditioner. Just like my Legendary Mother.

Sure, do all the other things. But turning off all air conditioners can be done quickly and would have a major impact.

An estimate of the current human population of the United States is 322 million, and of earth is 7.2 billion.

The other important item that should be on the Paris agenda is lowering the human population by setting up a global One Child policy. Half the population would produce only half the environmental problem. But sadly, that idea is not on the agenda. It is not on the agenda of most environmental non-profits, either, because they are afraid of the fundraising repercussions of speaking the real core truth to Power. Better to blow up skirts and reap the rain of donations.

The Air Conditioned Nightmare

The United States Congress apparently appropriated some $5 billion to help certain American citizens decrease their air-conditioning bills. This is supposed to be green and a stimulus to the American economy at the same time. Low income people get their houses insulated. Their air-conditioning becomes more efficient, so their electricity bills go down. Less electricity means less carbon dioxide emissions, so less global warming. At the same time, jobs are created for unemployed construction workers. Who could argue against that?

Me, of course. I don't see why low income citizens need air conditioning at all. Put me in charge, and I would ban air conditioning except for special circumstances, such as hospitals and nursing homes.

I don't advocate that simply because the amount of electricity used in the United States would plummet the first summer after such a law is enacted. Although that should be a good enough reason for an environmentalist.

I think air-conditioning has deconditioned the human species in the United States more than heat and humidity ever did.

I speak from experience. From the ages of 6 to 9, I lived in a house in Jacksonville, Florida that was not air-conditioned. We did have fans, but mainly we just adjusted to the heat. The schools I went to in Jacksonville never had air conditioning. Somehow we survived. We even played in the heat in the summertime. Sure, we liked to go swimming in cool waters too. But you can't play baseball in a swimming pool.

My family moved into a house with central heating and air conditioning when I was 9. My mother controlled the thermostat, setting it to 68 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and 72 degrees in the winter. Man oh man, had we arrived in the middle class. It threatened to ruin the outdoors for me. If the inside of a house is 95 degrees and outside it is 95 degrees, you might as well be outside. At the age of 8 I had been well-acclimated to the heat. At the age of 12 I was acclimated to the "perfect" indoor climate. I still went outside in summer, but I often had a bad attitude about the heat.

A lot of people did not just play outdoors in the heat. They worked outdoors in the heat. A man who would not work in the heat, if that was the work that was available, was considered a lazy man.

So, when did air conditioning become a human right? Not just a luxury for the rich, but such a necessity that taxpayers are required to pay for it for poor people? Even though it is a major creator of greenhouse gasses?

Some early cultures had primitive versions of air conditioning, but the modern versions were based on cooling engines of various types first created in the 1800's. Willis Haviland Carrier is credited with the first practical air-conditioner, invented in 1902. The invention of Freon in 1928 made air-conditioning more practical, but mostly until the 1950's air conditioning was a luxury item. In the 1960's air conditioning became a standard feature of middle class homes in the southern sweep of the United States. Air-conditioned automobiles did not become common until the 1970s. But some time between then and now air conditioning came to be considered a necessity, not a luxury or just something nice.

Which means, we can do bloody well without them. Let us stop denying nature. Let us feel nature's summer heat. Let us feel that Autumn is a relief and that even Winter has its merit.