Howarde Baker, former Senate Majority Leader, White House Chief of Staff, and presidential candidate, used to say (half) jokingly, "The beginning of the decline of the Republic was the day they air-conditioned the Capitol."
Indeed, until the Capitol building was totally air-conditioned in the late 1930s, Congress was forced to recess during July and August due to the stifling, dangerous heat in Washington. Baker's point was that since Congress couldn't meet during the hottest months of the summer, taxpayers could breathe a little easier. No official business was conducted, and few members were in town.
Baker inadvertently demonstrated why air conditioning (AC) has been the most transformative invention in U.S. history. It has redrawn our political map by allowing humans to live comfortably in places like Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. It has also enabled huge increases in productivity and production by enabling people to work indoors in factories and offices.
It's changed how we live, given rise to the modern skyscraper, and radically changed the design of homes. And it has extended and saved lives by protecting us from the killing heat. The World Health Organization reports that, between 2000 and 2019, "studies show approximately 489,000 heat-related deaths occur each year, with 45% of these in Asia and 36% in Europe." By contrast, just over 1,000 deaths a year from heat-related deaths occur in the U.S.
The beginnings of AC were certainly humble.
In the beginning, it wasn’t the heat, but the humidity. In 1902, the workers at Sackett & Wilhelms Lithographing & Printing Company in New York City were fed up with the muggy summer air, which kept morphing their paper and ruining their prints. To fix the problem, they needed a humidity-control system. The challenge fell to a young engineer named Willis Carrier. He devised a system to circulate air over coils that were cooled by compressed ammonia. The machine worked beautifully, alleviating the humidity and allowing New York’s lithographers to print without fear of sweaty pages and runny ink.
Carrier went on to develop AC that eventually cooled homes, offices, skyscrapers, and everything in between. If you want to know what living without AC is like, you don't have to take a ride in a time machine (not physically anyway). All you have to do is get on a jet plane and fly to Europe.
Only about 20% of Europe's homes are air-conditioned. Many Americans are shocked to stay in a hotel without AC. Most of the best hotels in Europe are old, and EU nations have strict rules about retrofitting buildings. It's insane, especially considering hospitals have no central AC either, although some departments are cooled independently.
It's not that the Europeans are any tougher than Americans. It's that electricity prices are sky-high compared to the U.S. Now, with the threat of climate change driving European politics, authorities have a perfect excuse to continue to discourage the use of AC.
How's this for misinformation about AC?
The prospect of U.S.-style air conditioning sends shivers through some Europeans. In France, media outlets often warn that cooling a room to more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit below the outside temperature can cause something called “thermal shock,” resulting in nausea, loss of consciousness and even respiratory arrest. That would be news to Americans who expect indoor temperatures to be cooled to around 75 degrees even when it is near 100 outside.
Nowhere has AC had a political impact more than in the U.S. Air conditioning has altered America's migration patterns, from a movement north and eastward following the Civil War to a movement south and westward after World War II. Those conservative southern and western states have maintained a laissez-faire attitude toward business, which has continued to attract companies and families to Republican-governed states.
As a result, those states are experiencing huge spikes in population, which results in them being awarded more electoral votes, while the states in the frost belt are losing representation. This is the primary reason blue states want to abolish the Electoral College. They would prefer that large-population cities be the determining factor in elections.
Air conditioning is getting more expensive as politicians seek to force America to use less energy. They are trying to command the tide to return to the sea. Increasing energy production and making electricity cheaper to produce is far preferable to punishing people for where they live.
