The next invention

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Some technologies promise convenience. Others end up changing civilization. WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney says one everyday invention did both.

JANIE B. CHEANEY: When people complain about the heat, I often think—and may even say—“You should have grown up in Texas. Without air conditioning.” I remember a swamp cooler in the dining room of our small boxy house before we finally got a window unit. But the only cooling element in the kids’ bedrooms was an open window.

Living on a tight budget for the first half of our marriage meant using the AC as little as possible. It was even, I’m ashamed to say, a point of pride. We were tough. I didn’t bake until sunset and we ran the attic fan at night and shut down the house in the morning and suffered through those late afternoon hours with misting fans. Two factors changed that pattern: one, we got computers and two, we got old.

Willis Carrier got rich by applying the simple principle of condensation to air cooling and de-humidifying. In 1910 he installed his first practical cooling unit at a printing company where summer dampness was wreaking havoc with paper saturation and color values. His bulky apparatus reduced humidity to 55%. Hospitals, factories and theaters were the next to benefit from cool dry air, and from there American productivity boomed. Human comfort was secondary, after insuring the meat didn’t spoil and the machinery didn’t clog and the film didn’t curl; home air-conditioning was relatively scarce until the 1950s. Now, of course, at least 80% of American homes are so comfortable we only leave them from June through August to dart to our air-conditioned cars. AC changed America in ways hard to fathom now: Would Florida be Florida without it?

Climate concerns about air conditioning will probably never be taken seriously here, but it’s become a life-or-death issue in Europe. Literally: in the last four years, the continent has reported over 61,000 heat-related deaths. Europe is the fastest-warming landmass in the world; every summer since 2021 has been the hottest on record. Even Norway is steaming.

The solution is not as simple as a $400 window unit from Walmart. Energy costs are higher in Europe than in the U.S., and average incomes lower. More homes and public buildings were designed to conserve heat, not lose it, and converting to central air could be prohibitively expensive. Also, whatever their virtues, window units are not attractive, and they spoil the old-world ambience that charms tourists. Finally, the Paris Agreement of 2016 binds the European Union to limit its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 - not likely with a million compressors pumping heat into the atmosphere.

Every technology gives and takes away, and it can take decades, if not centuries, to determine the balance. The small-town America of covered front porches and neighborhood get-togethers and kids running through sprinklers is largely gone. But air conditioning boosts our productivity during sweltering seasons. More importantly, it saves our lives. Some Europeans say they would sacrifice lives to save the planet, but which lives? The ones who will invent cheap, clean energy that won’t raise the temperature? Humans are often the problem, but they are also the solution. So thank you, Willis Carrier. And thank your Creator.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

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