UPDATE - I wrote the newer version at Medianism.org
Humans evolved due to technologies for warming up in the cold: fire and clothing. Our naked skin is useful for regulating our temperature to keep our brains working well and cooking is necessary to allow us to have relatively tiny jaws and stomachs compared with the rest of our bodies. This allowed humans to specialize in developing the most energy-intensive organ, the brain. Whereas humans have always had technologies for warming up, it was not until the 1950s that humans had an equally reliable technology for cooling down. And cooling down is crucial for our brains to function well. Witness our naked bodies for evidence. The air conditioner has revolutionized economic geography almost as much as the car.
Ironically, the idea for mechanically cooling living space was invented in the 1840s by John Gorrie. Unfortunately, he marketed it as a remedy for malaria and yellow fever rather than as a plaything for everyday use and he was unable to get financial backing and died bankrupt. He believed in the common theory of the day that malaria was caused by bad air and he believed that cooling air could keep the poisonous gasses away. His quackery might have been one reason he could not sell his idea.
The next air conditioner was reinvented for industrial use in printing and to control humidity in textile factories. After that, Rebecca Rosen explains:
During the Depression, few places could afford to install the systems, but one venue saw returns on such an investment: movie theaters. The air conditioning in theaters became an attraction in itself, and people flocked to them. Not coincidentally, what many consider Hollywood's Golden Age began around the same time.
...Many of the central changes in our society since World War II would not have been possible were air conditioning not keeping our homes and workplaces cool. Florida, Southern California, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, and New Mexico all experienced above-average growth during the latter half of the 20th century -- hard to imagine without air conditioning. In fact, the Sunbelt's share of the nation's populations exploded from 28 percent in 1950 to 40 percent in 2000. And hubs of business and technology in hot regions of the globe, such as Dubai, may never have taken off.
Computers throw off a lot of heat, too. The development of the entire IT industry might not have happened without cooling technologies first pioneered by air conditioning.The advent of air conditioning has shaped our homes and family life as well. Houses are designed not for ventilation but for central cooling systems. Porches, where they exist, are relics of another age, and few new homes include them. Families gather inside, in the comfort of 72-degree living rooms, to watch TV. Would television have even gained its central place in American family life, were the rooms from which we watch it not so enjoyably cool?
Glass skyscrapers would not exist without air conditioning. There are no open-able windows in large new buildings. The largest skyscrapers air condition even in the winter because even when it is 5 degrees outside, when the sun comes through a massive glass wall, that side of the building still needs cooling. Rebecca Rosen:
The southern US has always been backwards, but it is commonly thought to be an example of conditional convergence. The idea is that because it has similar institutions to the rest of the US, that it will grow faster. I think a more plausible reason for its catch-up growth has been air-conditioning. A cooler climate makes people more productive and housing is cheaper (and more productive) in warm regions because air conditioning is cheaper and more efficient than heating. Emily Badger Reports:Before air conditioning, in a bygone and surely less comfortable era, people employed all sorts of strategies for keeping cool in the heat. Houses were designed with airflow in mind -- more windows, higher ceilings. A style once prevalent in the American south, the dogtrot house, was really two smaller cabins -- one for cooking and the other for living -- connected under one roof with an open-air corridor between them. In addition, many homes had porches where families could spend a hot day, and also sleeping porches with beds where they could ride out a hot night. Many home designs took passive solar design principles into account, even if they didn't name them as such.Besides housing design, people had other tricks: taking naps during the heat of the day, carrying hand-held fans around, and, of course, swimming. My grandmother told me she used to pay a bus fare and sit on the open, upper deck for hours, riding all around the city.
Michael Sivak, a research professor at the University of Michigan, compared Minnesota's largest city (and the coldest major metro in the U.S.) with Miami (our warmest metro on average), looking at the energy it takes for the two just to keep themselves at livable temperatures.Minneapolis – just talking here about heating and cooling – is three-and-a-half times as energy demanding as Miami,...The ideal temperature inside your home is considered to be about 21 degrees Celsius (or 70 degrees Fahrenheit), the point at which you'd probably be perfectly comfortable without heating or cooling. But researchers look instead at the benchmark of 18 degrees Celsius, because humans naturally heat a house a few degrees just by living in it (and running the shower and cooking dinner)."Think of it this way," Sivak says. "Let’s say you would like to have 70 degrees indoors. Think of how cold it can get in Minneapolis or Chicago or Ann Arbor. It can get down to zero." But on a really hot day in Miami, maybe the temperature tops out at 100. It takes a lot more energy to heat a room by 70 degrees than to cool a room by 30. In fact, it takes more energy to heat a room by one degree than to cool it by the same amount. And the typical air conditioner is about four times more energy efficient than the typical furnace or boiler.
