Unfortunately, you must live in a society that doesn't mind adapting. The US is not this society.

Take, for example, work. I can't wear shorts to work, even though they would save a lot of money by simply turning off the air conditioning and letting us dress comfortably. No, I have to wear pants on 85 degree days with 90% humidity, then get in my oven-like car and waste gasoline by turning on the air conditioning. I sweat so much I have to take two showers a day and can't wear clothes two days in a row.

All because it's not "professional" to wear short in an office where I never deal with clients.

Of course, they also make me drive to work everyday when I'm more productive at home.

But I'm not bitter or anything. /sarcasm

This is one of those simultaneous social/design problems. I live in Brooklyn, New York, and I tried to do without AC for years, and recently gave up/gave in. Unless buildings are designed to be passively cooled, its very hard to retrofit an apartment. I agree with the principals, but I've discovered that running AC at a low level is actually cheaper than running the enormous exhaust fan I had been using, and the amount of particulate matter and soot ending up in my apartment (and lungs) is greatly reduced.

I love her blithe insistence that if the U.S. could just pretend to be Barcelona, we'd all be happier. I live in New York City, where the subway cars must be air conditioned to prevent people keeling over from the heat during rush hour (that's not hyperbole, either; Gothamist recently ran a survey about the hottest subway platforms, some of which topped 100 degrees midday). We have no ocean breezes and precious little shade, and we have plenty of bugs and stifling smog-enhanced humidits. I'd rather not "throw open" my windows and give my cats a perfect avenue for jumping or falling out of our fifth-floor apartment; perhaps there are also no apartment buildings in this idealized Barcelona, or no cats.

We have two air conditioners, one for each bedroom. Each one is the smallest and most efficient that will cool the space to tolerable levels. We set them to 70 degrees and run them on the "energy saver" setting, turn them off when we're not in the room and whenever there's any kind of breeze, and pay a little more for ConEd's green energy program. When possible we spend time together in the smaller bedroom so that we're minimizing the space that needs to be cooled. My fiance works outdoors all day, and I spent two summers as a camp counselor; we understand how to survive the heat, and even how to enjoy it if we have no other choice. We also understand that if we can give ourselves an hour or two of coolth at home, it lets us do things like sleep and eat (heat absolutely kills my appetite, and aggravates his insomnia). One person's five glorious weeks are another person's hell.

I hate the sounds of fan and compressor, and love the sounds of the city at night. Even when it's 85 degrees overnight--which means 90 in my room--I turn off the a/c and open the window. I work for one park and live next to another, I've gone to community board meetings to support local restaurants that want to run outdoor cafes, and I know how to glory in nature and savor warm summer evenings. I refuse to listen to someone who claims that it's impossible to own or occasionally run an air conditioner without being completely insulated from the outside world forever and ever amen.

Rose, one reason why the subways are so hot is that the hot exaust from the AC on the subways has to be dumped onto the platform and tunnels. In fact, I once saw an analysis that tasid that if you wait more than a few (Was it 10? I don't remember) minutes for a train you actually experience more net discomfort from the AC.

Fire rendered temperate parts of the country inhabitable (during the winter), where they once were not. Consider the cost of heating a building vs. cooling a building. It is surely more expensive in terms of BTU's or energy.

Miami feels a lot like Barcelona sounds, but that everything is air conditioned. Walking down Lincoln Rd or Ocean Drive on South Beach, you can feel AC units dumping cold air out of open doors. It's insanity. Properly ventilated, these shops could have a gorgeous cross-breeze, and would be ensconced in their artifically shaded comfort. It's unnecessary. Everyone is wearing shorts and flip flops, breathable shirts (or none at all). Women are wearing bikinis and wrapped in sarongs. People could be comfortable without AC here.

I lived in NYC before this. I think New Yorkers hold on way too tight to their love of the artificial. Tear me up for that comment if you will, but turn off all the air conditioning (I mean all of it) and I think there would be less suffering than people expect. That said, there are too many office buildings with windows that can't open, too many closed passageways with no air circulation, and too many cramped apartment without enough windows to get a decent breeze (or no windows at all.) It's not possible. So I think you're exempt. Now calm down.

This was a great article not because it tells us what we Should Be Doing, but because it tells us what is Possible. The possible gives hope. And we could all use a little more of that.

Jacob,
If you're talking about heating or cooling large office buildings, it's actually more expensive to cool them. Due to the number of people boxed into a sealed, confined area, most office buildings are running AC year round - even in the frigid northern wilderness of Toronto.
As for AC in general, I too admit to caving this summer. All it took was a conversation with some dog walking friends about their extra units after having installed central air. $75 later, I felt like a crackhead with a rock the size of a bowling ball - I was in a frigid, guilt-laden heaven. I do however believe that there's a difference between cooling the environment in which you sleep and cooling the whole house ('cause we ALL need icy cool hallway closets).
Some time ago I read a story about how AC enabled the growth of several large US cities that were simply too inhospitable to settle without it. I think perhaps that's part of what Lloyd and Barbara Flanagan are noting. Having spent most of this summer neck deep in a humid and debilitating heat wave I can attest to the fact that many otherwise active people I know have simply hunkered down in their climate controlled environment and waited for it to pass. I've felt this rather acutely as I've got no qualms about getting out and doing things, in fact, my apartment is hot enough that I'm usually out as much as possible (until I sleep in my blissfull Arctic bedroom that is).
Personally, I love the ritual of getting home, ditching my work clothes, putting on some shorts & an undershirt and getting outside with the mutt. Hot or cold, a season is a season and should be experienced to the fullest.

Terry - Excellent comment!

Garth,

Commercial energy reduction is a much different issue, as buildings are not even constructed to take advantage of things like natural drafts.


But on the poster's original topic, which was air conditioning in private dwellings, heating is far far more expensive in the northern climates than air conditioning. In Boston (similar climate to NYC), 3 months typically require AC, sometimes 4. Usually from late May until mid September. From November until March, typically 5 months, heating bills for a small, 1 br apartment(550sqft), well insulated, can range upwards of $150. A similar cooling bill for identical environment is maybe $20. Considering the losses in transmission with electricity, where less than 50% of the original energy makes it to a building, it would still be less than the heating bill. With central air conditioning units, cooling bills are typically much less. In Arizona, where temperatures have been over 100 for the past two months, a cooling bill for a 1000sqft apartment would be about $60/month. Factoring that regular A/C is required probably 5-6 months, and giving a 50% energy efficiency (not cost), we're still talking roughly the same energy for heating as cooling. of course, Phoenix is an idiotic place to build a city, but that's because of water more than anything.

Because of construction costs in the Northeast, buildings typically go un-renovated much longer, meaning that windows and insulation are not updated, and landlords postpone energy savings because tenants pay the bill (typically). I've seen a $550/month bill for a 1200sqft apartment during a particularly cold winter. The same apartment was occupied without A/C in the summer.

I often wonder how much cooler and less humid the city would be without any air conditioners.

To get an idea of how the city would feel like without AC, you can probably ask someone in his 60s or 70s; AC hasn't been prevelant forever, after all. They'll probably tell you it was fracking hot; kids have been cracking open fire hydrants for street sprinklers for a long time, after all.

Furthermore, when my Barcelonan friends came to visit me in July when I lived in Baltimore a couple of years ago, they refused to turn on the AC in the bedroom. They told us it would make them sick.

However, Rose, I lived in Barcelona for a while, and I can tell you that their subways are airconditioned too.

The number of days over 90 degree average is plotted on isopleth maps for all to see by US WEather Service. Computer programs integrate such data with census tracts to estimate cooling and heating "demand" by region. No surprise, the hotter it is outside, the lower people want their AC's set. Climate change pushes the isopleths northward and makes people hunker down in AC comfort more often and longer. The reverse is true for "heating day" indexes. More time and energy goes now to cooling than it did to heating. Long past are the days when 20 acres of woodlot were needed to heat a farmhome for a decade and folks slept out on the big spacious porch during summer. Our culture has changed to fit technology and our technology has changed nature.

I currently live in Austin, where it is 95 F for most of the summer. Sometimes my office is so freezing cold that I have to wear a hooded sweatshirt! People here have made themselves dependant on AC, but I don't consider this place inhospitable. When my home air conditioner broke I decided that I hate air conditioning, took steps to lower the temperature through other means, and didn't use it for more than a year.

Modern noise pollution is the bane of us folks who leave our windows open in the summer. Sleeping in a warm room cooled only by the breeze or a fan is a great treat after a long cold winter. Loud noise is nerve wracking and unhealty, and it kills the pleasure of the street life sound filtering in. We should be addressing noise pollution so people can go without A/C and still get a sound sleep.

As someone living in Toronto (though, admittedly, not spending much of my summer here) I have never really seen the need for air conditioning. Knowing firsthand the joy of sitting on the porch and reading my book with only the breeze and the shade to cool me, I can appreciate living without airconditioning. There are times it is important, though: my grandmother, a seventy-something woman, relies on her airconditioner to get her through the hot summer, like many other people her age. It can be dangerous for the elderly or the infirm to be living in the extreme heat found in Toronto in the summertime. But on average, people don't need it in their homes. Just go outside. It will work wonders.

On a side note, I can understand having it in public places - my school does not have airconditioning, and it gets dreadfully hot in a small room with twenty other people. Why do you think movie theatres are always so cold? Saying that you don't need AC in subway systems in the summer is silly. The heat just from that many people being in a contained space is enough to make anyone miserable.

I can understand why people use AC in New York, but I can't understand the culture that's spawning AC cooled buildings everywhere.

I work in Edinburgh, Scotland - a city not generally known for it's heat, yet in the summer I often take an extra jumper into the office because of the airconditioning.

This amazes me, as we've got signs all over the place telling us to turn off our monitors to save power, yet most of the office are sitting in jumpers or suit jackets, even on the rare occasions when it's 30 degrees outside!

Since starting work I've had skin problems, respiratory infections and numerous colds, despite being young, fit and healthy. I firmly believe that if I worked in a naturally ventilated environment, I and many others would be more comfortable and have fewer of these complaints.

emmaa- i don't know what toronto you live in, but in my toronto where i do live all summer- and have no airconditioning-- it is opressively hot sometimes... like John Laumer says, its getting hotter, greenhouse effect and all that-- and make matters worse, the neighborhood i live in has been cut by hydro's not-really-a-brownout 3 times!! It sucks real bad for anyone who is poor and sorry, but head out of the sand please, its the hottest summer on record. and i drip at my computer regularly

...at the same times here's what i've seen as bearable

1) change your work schedule if at all possible... usually a 'day person' i've been becoming more of a night owl, doing lots of work at night when yes, its a lot cooler

2) pools pools pools. take a break. get some excercise, theres public pools everywhere.

3) for you DIYers.. take some PVC tubes (or copper if youre a zillionaire) and fill them with that blue ice-pak stuff (you can buy the blue liquid in bulk- no waste), put them in the freezer-- preferably 2 sets. take the first set of tubes and velcro them on to your fan (no doubt if you have no AC you have at least one circular fan). When they reach room temp (2.5 hours) replace them with the ones in the freezer. it's not AC, but i'll tell ya: when youre dripping at yoru computer, those few extra degrees C will make a difference

i've lived in nyc for many years without AC and honestly, it's perfectly fine and it does have it's up sides. those tiny vornado fans work wonders. when it's really humid, we get together with others and go to a movie and freeze ourselves so when we get back home, the heat is a relief. it's our hot-weather social ritual that wouldn't happen if we had AC. that said, i don't think the trend is going in our direction.

i think the bigger problem here is that workspaces are absurdly cold with no operable windows. i have to keep sweaters and blankets at work. some people even use space heaters.

Has anyone recycled an airconditioner?

worldwise.com states that...

"Appliance Recycling Centers of America (ARCA) operates recycling centers in a number of communities throughout the United States, which will pick up your appliances curbside and take full responsibility for managing the hazardous materials from them."

The number they list is 1-800-871-2722

I'm intrigued to have found this article and discussion. As I type, I'm sitting in an unair-conditioned apartment in Brooklyn, NY, at midnight. According to the TV weather people, it's approx. 88 degrees F outside, and it's probably 90 degrees or higher in my apartment.

This is the hottest overall summer I can remember in the last 5-6 years in NYC...and the first one I regret not having A/C. In the past 2 months, I've been stricken with heat exhaustion at least 3 times, and my apartment heat has been a contributing factor. I was so sick last weekend that I couldn't eat and I slept for 12-16 hours per day. Fans don't help (just blows hot air) and hydration only gets me so far. I have no energy and haven't washed my dishes in a long time...because I'm too physically weak to stand in this heat at my kitchen sink for any period of time. I live in a 5-story large tenement building that is 85+ years old, with few windows and virtually no construction details to allow for air circulation. Right now, with all my windows open, all the air is still and hot and I'm too weak to do anything except type on my laptop computer. I have no appetite when I'm this hot, and it's almost impossible to sleep.

I stopped using A/C approx. 7 years ago in NYC because my apt. at that time didn't have a window that could take an A/C. But after that point, it became a choice guided by my environmentalism. And up until now, I thought it was the right thing to do.

Right now all my windows are open, and I'm ironically breathing in all the exhaust gases and chemicals from all my neighbors' A/C units...and I'm feeling sick...and I'm wondering how wise it is for me not to have an A/C this particular summer. I feel like either I have to get an A/C next summer and forsake that part of my environmental ethics...or I need to move out of NYC to a rural area where there aren't tall buildings, pavement and pollution that create an artificial heat bubble that makes me miserable.