It's summer and 90 degrees -- so why am I freezing at the office?
A recent New York Times article on air conditioning has sparked a debate on whether air conditioning is a necessity or an indulgence.
Some say air conditioning has been a part of our lives for less than a century, yet we increasingly rely on it as soon as the weather makes us feel the slightest bit uncomfortable. We're not only losing our ability to adapt, the resulting green-house gas emissions are contributing to climate change. And public buildings are way colder than they need to be for comfort.
Others say: wait; It's a matter of public health. Heat waves are deadly for hundreds of Americans every year, mostly black, poor, or elderly. The CDC says black Americans are 2.6 times more likely to die from heat than white Americans.
As wealth and the demand for finite resources grows worldwide, the production of lots of things, like food and drinkable water, will hurt the earth. Why are we picking on air-conditioning? It increases productivity, saves lives and cooling us down wastes a lot less energy than heating us up in the winter.
GUESTS:
- Stan Cox - Research coordinator at The Land Institute and author of Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World, and co- author of the forthcoming Not Natural: Producing Disasters and Selling Resilience
- Daniel Engber - Contributing editor for Slate and Popular Science
- Carlo Ratti - Architect, engineer; director of MIT’s SENSEable City Lab
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Colin McEnroe is the host of the Colin McEnroe Show. Tucker Ives was today's technical producer.
