The modern passion for air conditioning began in the 1920s and, as you might guess, it began in Texas, which long ago replaced California as the world capital of unreality. Houston is said to be the most air-conditioned city in the world. In such places ordinary fresh air is regarded with about as much enthusiasm as poison gas. For several months of the year, citizens live in an artificial bubble, very much like space colonists in old science fiction stories – aliens on their own planet.
By the 1960s, air conditioning was everywhere, even in places like Maine and Alaska, where the homeowner has to stand alertly poised over the switch, waiting for those few moments of warmth that come and go every summer.
The nasty little secret of air conditioning is that it's not even comfortable. The body rebels against those shocking changes from hot to cold and back again, from bright sun and summer smells outside to icy filtered air inside, from short sleeves and sandals to sweaters and wool socks. Home air conditioning can be adjusted, but in public buildings and workplaces the temperature is controlled by sadistic Eskimos in the basement, who sit in overcoats in front of an electric fire, pumping the last few degrees of warmth out of the building. Just to make sure that nobody gets a breath of fresh air, they seal up all the windows.
There are many lovely places to walk outdoors on Long Island, and every one of them attracts a crowd of nature lovers, sitting in their cars with the windows tight closed and air conditioners running. It may be that, for whole generations brought up on family road trips and television nature specials, trees and oceans just don’t look right without a frame around them, and glass in front, and a steady air temperature of seventy-two degrees. They seem happy in the isolation tank of their cars, where the sounds, smells and sensations of nature are blocked out.
The human race got along very well without air conditioning for most of recorded history. They lived and farmed and fished through the summers for thousands of years without air conditioning. The most tropical areas of the world were explored and settled without air conditioning. Great empires were gained and lost without air conditioning. Capitalism, factories, railroads, and even democracy were built without air conditioning. Just about all the most important works of art and science and philosophy in the world were created by people who had no air conditioning. In other words we have overwhelming historical evidence that a bit of sweat never did anybody any harm.
I think we pay rather a high price for the comfort of air conditioning, and I don’t just mean the vast consumption of electricity. Canceling the very climate is a huge leap into unreality – pretending that nature doesn’t exist, doesn’t matter, isn’t real. We would like our lawmakers to do something about global warming of course, but they are all sitting in air conditioned offices. If all the air conditioning in Washington, D.C., could be switched off for a few days in summer, we would soon see decisive action. The government would move, en masse, to Canada.
Copyright: David Bouchier
