How Air-Conditioning Conquered America

from New York Times I'm Michael abaro. this is the. [Music]. daily. today the story of how air conditioning. has become both our answer to a warming. planet and a major obstacle to actually. confronting it my colleague Emily badger. on the increasingly dangerous parado.

of trying to control the. [Applause]. temperature it's Friday August. [Music]. 16th Emily I want to start with a very. personal question for you what is your. relationship to air conditioning so at. this exact moment I am sitting in no air.

conditioning and it is kind of. uncomfortable and I've turned it off. because it's loud and it's not very. conducive to recording a. podcast I didn't mean right now I meant. in the larger Arc of your life but thank. you for turning it off for the purpos of. this episode yeah so I grew up in. Chicago in this brick three flat. apartment building this very classic. Chicago architecture you know built in. the early. 1900s and it didn't have air. conditioning so I didn't have air.

conditioning growing up hardly anybody I. knew had air conditioning growing up. because we all lived in buildings like. this not even window units just didn't. happen nope we didn't even have a window. unit in my family and it wasn't that big. of a deal in retrospect we had in this. apartment these big open windows that. you could open and you generate a cross. Breeze through them and there's this. kind of lovely Breeze that comes off of. Lake Michigan in the summer and when it. gets really really hot you know you take. a cold shower at night before you get in.

bed you eat a lot of ice. cream I can't even remember if we had. air conditioning in the schools that I. went to but it just wasn't something. that I thought very much about or really. even experienced very much right you. didn't miss it you didn't even know it. could be yeah. [Music]. exactly and then the first job that I. got out of college I moved to Orlando. and totally different environment I mean. living in Florida is the story of sort.

of moving from one air conditioned box. into another you're in your air. conditioned apartment you get in your. air conditioned car you don't walk. anywhere you drive everywhere you go you. drive to your air conditioned office you. go to air conditioned bars and it's a. really really integral to life there in. a way that was very foreign to me as. someone growing up in the. [Music]. north so you went from a dir of air. conditioning to suddenly being saturated.

by it and was that a happy development. you know I don't think that I really. gave it that much thought I mean living. in Orlando surrounded by air. conditioning it's just sort of that's. the air that you breathe that's the way. everyone lives and I think this is. probably true for lots of people we. don't really give it a lot of thought. it's just sort of a background part of. our environment but as I have written. for years now about Urban policy and. cities and how we live and how we. develop cities it's sort of become. increasingly clear to me that air. conditioning is this incredibly. important thing that is shaping.

everything around us you know it's. shaping where Americans live where they. choose to move to it shapes how our. houses look it shapes what our skylines. look like you know it's responsible for. saving lives and heat waves in many ways. it's really improved our quality of life. but it's increasingly clear to us that. there are some downsides to this and one. of those downsides is that while we're. all sitting in our air conditioned homes. and offices and cars and we've set the. thermostat to exactly 72 Dees we're. becoming increasingly detached from.

what's happening in the environment. outside it is a lot easier to ignore. that it's 100° outside when you're. sitting inside air conditioning and in. some ways I think you know we have. forgotten how to live with heat we have. forgotten how to live with the climate. as it existed before air conditioning. and you know having forgotten that is. probably going to cause some problems. for us going. forward well em what did the American. landscape look like when people did have. to contend with the heat in the days.

before air conditioning so I think about. two big things in particular one is that. the buildings that we spend time in. looked different we designed houses and. other kinds of buildings and ways that. were really sort of thoughtfully trying. to contend with the temperature outside. and so you've got these buildings in the. southwest in the United States that have. these thick Adobe walls that do a really. good job of keeping the Sun and its heat. out you've got these cottages and. bungalows in the Southeast that are.

raised up off the ground so that they're. not kind of receiving the heat that's. absorbed by the Earth they've got big. windows they're thinking a lot about. cross ventilation they've got high. ceiling so that as heat rises inside. your home you're not marinating in it. while you're sitting in your living room. they've got front porches where people. sit at the end of the day in order to. try to cool off and then you've got the. building like the one I grew up in in. Chicago which I mentioned these sort of. thick brick masonry buildings which are. also designed in a way that is making it.

possible for me to grow up in the 1980s. and90s and be okay with the fact that I. don't have air conditioning because. brick kind of retains cool air right. right and so part of what results from. all of this is that the buildings in. Georgia look different from the. buildings in Arizona look different from. the buildings in Chicago because in each. of those places we're designing. buildings that react to the particular. climate in those environments and so. this is the first big change think of a. time when you have to design a building. to interact with what's going on outside.

with how humid it is with how hot it. gets but the other thing that was very. different in the pre-air conditioning. environment is that there were just a. lot fewer people living in the parts of. the United States that were really hot. and swampy so you know it's kind of. incredible to think about it but like. 1940 there are fewer people living in. the State of Florida than living in the. state of Arkansas well there are about. 8,000 people total living in the city of. Las Vegas Dallas and Houston are nowhere.

to be found on the list of the largest. cities in America so fundamentally. before air conditioning they're just. aren't a lot of people living in places. where it is uncomfortable if you're not. controlling the temperature in some way. right if it's too hot then you just. don't live there right so climate shapes. your decisions about where to live it. shapes your decisions about how to build. housing it shapes your decisions about. where to spend your time in your house. maybe you go onto your front porch in. the evening when it's cooling down you. know in many ways our behavior is shaped.

by the climate MH and then air. conditioning comes along and it totally. changes everything that I've been. talking about because now the outdoor. climate doesn't really affect what your. life is like indoors just tell us about. that moment CU I don't think any of us. really know the story yeah so I mean. there had been Contraptions invented in. the 1900s that were trying to do things. like blow forced air over Big Blocks of. ice in order to cool it but the thing. that we really think of is air. conditioning is just totally a 20th. century story.

[Music]. story it starts at the very beginning of. the 20th century in 1902 when Willis. carrier invents this machine it's kind. of controlling the temperature and the. humidity and the purity of air. particularly in an industrial context. you know the very first use of this in. 1902 is in a printing plant and. fundamentally the problem that it's. solving is that the moisture content in. the air is really of becoming a problem.

for printing documents you're saying. basically publishing journalism is. responsible for air. conditioning yes everybody can thank us. and then later they can blame us and so. in the beginning what air conditioning. is doing is it's sort of solving an. industrial problem the machines are hot. or maybe it's a textile mill and too. much humidity is sort of destroying your. textiles and also you know you want your. workers to be productive in these. manufacturing spaces lots of people in a. small space with hot machines right yeah.

and so in the very beginning of the 20th. century it's not about providing comfort. for people it's about conditioning the. environments that manufacturing and. Industry is happening and then it is. this very sort of long story that plays. out over several decades where this. invention moves from these industrial. spaces into these other kinds of. spaces yes you lucky people just sit. back for a moment relx relax and notice.

the delightfully clean cool and. refreshing atmosphere of this. scientifically airconditioned theater. great isn't it so then it comes into. theaters and becomes almost this. marketing tool to attract people inside. you can enjoy great Motion Picture. entertainment All Summer Long in cool. Comfort go see a movie and enjoy air. conditioning while you're in there yes. lowcost allseason air conditioning is. the right kind for you and you're so. right to choose a 55 Rambler cross. country now at all and then at the same.

time you know cars in America that have. air conditioning in them the share of. those cars is rising and Rising it moves. into Office Buildings instead of. traveling away from business and home to. seek relief you can obtain this same. Comfort right in your own home or office. through air conditioning and then. eventually after sort of Decades of. refining this technology and it gets. smaller and it gets more affordable and. it becomes more advanced this lucky baby. will sleep quietly through the night it.

reaches the American. home and we get the window unit this. Baby's RCA air conditioner will keep his. room filled with cool dry fresh air and. the window unit is this much more. affordable portable easy to pick up at. the store bring to your house you don't. need to get a special installer you. stick it in your window and now all of a. sudden you're getting all of these. benefits of humidity controlled. temperature controlled air inside of.

your home humidity controlled dust and. pollen filtered my indoor climate is. always perfect at that point it's Off to. the Races it sort of takes over the. American home and we can sort of see in. census data for instance that by about. the start of the 1970s about half of all. new single family homes that are built. in America have air conditioning in. them and the other thing that we see in. Census Data at this time is that. Americans themselves are starting to.

move to places that are really hot like. Florida like Texas like Arizona like. Nevada places that were kind of. uninhabitable before air conditioning. now they're booming in population and. there was this wonderful editorial that. was actually published in the times in. 1970 about the census that year and how. 1970 was like the air conditioning. census and it refers to how air. conditioning had become this really. powerful influence for circulating. people as well as air in this country.

[Music]. and this is a story that continues like. right up until this day where air. conditioning is sort of extending its. reach into every corner of the country. you know every sort of housing type and. today about 2third of American. households in this country have central. air and about 90% so nine and 10 of them. have some kind of air conditioning if we. include things like window unit and if.

we look just at new housing that's built. in America today looking back in 2023. about 98% of new single family homes in. America had air conditioning I mean what. you're talking about is basically 200 or. so million air conditioning units. condensers boxes that's a lot yeah and. as air conditioning has extended its. reach into every corner of the country. into so many of the buildings where we. spend time I think it becomes clear that. we've really kind of engineered our.

modern lives entirely around. [Music]. it and our Reliance on this technology. going forward is both unsustainable and. in fact it's put a lot of people in a. very vulnerable position. [Music].

we'll be right. [Music]. back Emily walk us through how our. Reliance on air conditioning is both as. you just said. unsustainable and perhaps even kind of. dangerous to us so the first obvious. thing that it does is it just requ. requires an enormous amount of energy.

for so many people to be air. conditioning so many spaces all the time. and so to sort of think about this in a. larger sense our buildings in the United. States are responsible for about 30% of. the greenhouse gas emissions and that. refers to the fossil fuels that we burn. directly to heat and cool buildings and. to cook in them but also to generate the. electricity that then allows us to do. things like plug in our window units. right so there's a ton of energy use. happening here but part of what's also. happening is that all of the buildings. have been fundamentally designed to.

consume lots of energy a lot of these. buildings were built during a time you. know in the 50s and the 60s and and in. more recent years where energy was cheap. the idea that you're designing a. building that demands lots of energy who. cares we're not paying a ton of money. for the energy and in the 60s and and in. the 50s we weren't particularly thinking. about whether or not using energy is. going to cause climate change mhm so. because of this we get this glut of in. efficient houses and this happens not.

just with houses but with everything in. the built environment think about strip. malls shopping centers workplaces even. offices the sort of ubiquitous tall boxy. glass covered office building that we. think about in cities all over the. country all over the world this is a. building that is born out of the air. conditioning age that glassy box is. designed around air conditioning such. that you know without air conditioning. those kinds of offices don't make sense. right I'm thinking about the office that.

you and I call home the New York Times. high-rise building in Midtown that does. not feel for all its virtues like a. building you'd want to be in without air. conditioning no it's glass and tall and. I think it'd be very hot yeah I mean. when you think about tall glass Office. Buildings they're basically green houses. if you're not controlling the air inside. they're designed such that not only do. you not have to open a window in order. to cool off you couldn't open a window. even if you wanted to these buildings.

don't have Windows that open because. they're designed to be these. hermetically sealed environments where. we're going to keep the outside climate. out and we're going to control the. climate on the inside and this idea that. the outside doesn't matter is true in. the design of so many of our buildings. our offices even our homes and that. actually puts people into an incredibly. vulnerable situation and vulnerable how. exactly so let's assume a storm comes. through and the power goes out or your.

air conditioning stops working because. you've been running it all the time all. summer long or when we have these. extreme heat conditions and the electric. utility tells you please try to preserve. the amount of air conditioning that. you're using what happens when all of a. sudden millions of people who have been. living in an environment designed. entirely around air conditioning can't. have that air conditioning like we start. to see real problems and you know this. isn't abstract like we have actually. seen this happen in the United States. even this year in other recent years. where terrible storms have ripped.

through the state of Texas and millions. of people have been left without power. and when this happens in the middle of a. heat wave people die right and that. seems like an example of the multiple. ways that air conditioning conspires to. make us avoid contending with the. realities of heat to return to this idea. you introduced earlier on AC allows more. people to go to a place like Texas than. they'd ever go if there weren't AC. making them comfortable and to design.

and live in homes and offices that. become a cauldron without air. conditioning when it fails exactly I. mean air conditioning makes it possible. for people to believe that you could be. comfortable in Texas in the summer in. Arizona in the summer and so people move. to these places in large numbers and. then when the air conditioning fails. they're sort of suddenly thrust into a. world where they're living in the middle. of the Arizona desert or they're living. in the middle of Texas on a 110 dee day.

and that could be lifethreatening. especially with climate change making it. even hotter in these places it doesn't. really seem sustainable for a lot of. people to live in those places without. air conditioning without some kind of. artificial tempering of the environment. yeah and it's not just because of the. heat I mean is it sustainable for a. metropolitan area of 5 million people to. exist in Phoenix in the middle of the. desert when there's also not enough. water there for everyone you know so air. condition sort of lulls people into.

moving to these places which might be. problematic for lots of other reasons as. well but we've sort of convinced. ourselves that the climate doesn't. matter we're going to control it we're. going to engineer our way into living. with it you're reminding me Emily of an. episode we did on the show about this. very idea it focused on the water. shortage in Arizona and the plans to. pipe in and as I recall desalinate ocean. water to deal with the problem of not. enough water in Arizona and it doesn't. really seem fathomable that that.

proposition would ever occur to people. if they weren't living there in the. comfort of air conditioning in the first. place yeah so I mean there have been. people living in the region of Phoenix. for centuries so it's not that nobody. can ever live there but what air. conditioning does is it enables millions. of people to live there who don't. actually want to contend with 100 degree. temperatures all summer long so a place. like Phoenix then becomes this perfect. example where we now have 5 million. people living in the middle of the.

Arizona desert and they all have this. expectation of comfort there that any. environment that I move into in my home. in my office in my car I should be. encased in the sort of cooling calm 72. Degree humidity controlled environment. and that sense of comfort becomes so. deeply entrenched kind of culturally and. and this isn't just about Phoenix this. is about sort of all of us I think we. have set up an expectation or even an. entitlement around Comfort such that it.

makes it really difficult to start to. ask people do you really need to turn up. your air conditioning today so that. makes me wonder how people are ever. going to get off the air conditioning. hamster wheel that we're describing here. I mean why would anyone well we have to. figure out how to do something if we. want to address climate change right so. there there are a number of different. things that are going to happen here air. conditioning is going to become more. efficient we're GNA have more renewable.

energy sources to power it in the future. and I think we're increasingly going to. see Architects and Builders trying to. ReDiscover these lost ideas that we used. to have about how to design buildings. with the climate in mind you know how to. shade them how to ventilate them in a. more natural way but I also have talked. to some people who say that all of that. is not going to be enough one of them is. Daniel Barber who's an architectural. historian who has thought a lot about. life after air conditioning or as he it. after comfort you know life in a world.

where we're not depending on air. conditioning so much and the point that. he makes is that there are difficult. things and changes that we would have to. do going forward if we know that our. buildings are responsible for a lot of. greenhouse gas emissions our dependence. on air conditioning is responsible for a. large share of that and we have to. reduce it in some way like what we all. need to do is change our own behavior we. need to sort of think a new about our. relationship to comfort and are we. willing to be uncomfortable some of the.

time am I willing to wait until July to. turn my air conditioning on am I willing. to turn it off at night when it's not. really necessary to use it am I willing. to sleep at 80° instead of. 72° and or 68 or 68 or. 65 and he's talking about asking people. to do something really difficult he is. asking people to be uncomfortable h you. are of course by conveying this message.

putting this problem on. individuals not governments not States. and lots of people might hear this and. think the real. solutions have to come from Regulators. have to come from institutions have to. come from the people who have a lot more. control over how this all works I think. that there are some ways in which that. will happen too when we think about new.

buildings that are being designed or. renovated today that are trying to adopt. some of these techniques to be less. reliant on indoor air conditioning. they're often institutional buildings. you will see cities commit to when we. rebuild our schools when we build a new. library when we build a new Civic Center. we are going to embody these things that. we are asking other people to do to and. obviously there are government. incentives in the United States for. instance to better insulate your home to.

do things that would make your home. Greener so there's certainly a role for. government but what Daniel Barber at. least would argue is that we all bear. some. responsibility and air conditioning has. lulled us into thinking that we're not. impacted by how hot it is outside but. it's also maybe lulled us into thinking. like I'm not the one who needs to. particularly change my behavior in any. way but fundamentally what we're talking. about is people embracing a kind of. different cultural idea about what it.

means to be comfortable the idea that. existing in a room that is artificially. cooled to 68 to. 72° Fahrenheit that that's the ideal. temperature that's not like some true. fact about the human body that's like a. cultural idea that's been created over. decades by the air conditioning industry. by Architects and Builders and culture. and shopping malls and movie theaters. and the idea that comfort means this one. particular thing is an idea a that we. have constructed ourselves and so you.

know what if we culturally came up with. a different idea about Comfort what if. more people came to accept the idea that. going and sitting out on my front porch. in the evening is where I get comfort. from and it's also by the way like how I. interact with my neighbors and I had. stopped doing that when we were all. retreating inside to air conditioning. what if we revived the idea that it's. actually quite lovely in the summertime. to sleep with an open window and to have. fresh air you know that it's it's not. impossible to change ideas about this.

because we created these ideas in the. first. [Music]. place well Emily thank you very much we. really appreciate it yeah thanks. Michael we'll be right. back here's what else you need to. another. day on Thursday the White House said. that its new authority to use the.

Medicare program to negotiate prices of. prescription drugs with pharmaceutical. companies is likely to save taxpayers. about $6 billion a year that power came. from President Biden's inflation. reduction act which became law 2 years. ago under it Regulators have now lowered. the price of widely used treatments. including blood thinners and medications. for arthritis and diabetes some by up to.

79% and both vice presidential nominees. Minnesota Governor Tim Walls and Ohio. Senator JD Vance have agreed to debate. each other on October 1st during a. televised Faceoff hosted by CBS news. that means there will be three debates. before election day one vice. presidential debate and two presidential. debates between Donald Trump and kamla. Har. teris finally remember to catch a new.

episode of the interview right here. tomorrow this week David maresi speaks. with the singer jelly roll about. addiction recovery and putting his whole. self into his music I think of. everything as a going out of business. sale and I give everything I got. everything I do every time I do it right. now. [Music]. today's episode was produced by Shannon.

Lynn and Diana win with help from. Michael Simon Johnson it was edited by. Devin Taylor contains research help from. Susan Lee original music by Maran Lozano. Dan Powell R nisto and will Reed and was. engineered by Alyssa Moxley our theme. music is by Jim brunberg and Ben lansar. of wonderl. [Music].

[Music]. that's it for the daily I'm Michael. borro see you on Monday. [Music].