Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and we're back with part three of our
Speaker 1: exploration of air conditioning. And what do we talk about
Speaker 1: in the last couple of parts. Uh, Well, we we
Speaker 1: took a journey. We first of all, we we started
Speaker 1: in uh, in the ancient world, and we talked about
Speaker 1: just how people have approached living in hot environments, in
Speaker 1: in hot cities, especially uh, you know, since the dawn
Speaker 1: of human civilization. Yeah, And some of these solutions for
Speaker 1: dealing with the heat before the invention of air conditioning
Speaker 1: were cultural. They were like about you know where life
Speaker 1: takes place, and you know where you do certain things
Speaker 1: and under what conditions. And other solutions would be more architectural,
Speaker 1: Like we talked about that ingenious solution from ancient Persia
Speaker 1: involving the wind catchers and the underground channels of water
Speaker 1: called the connots that would cool the air that flowed
Speaker 1: through buildings that way. And of course, millions of people
Speaker 1: in hot climates around the world still don't have air
Speaker 1: conditioning today, and they use older techniques and strategies to
Speaker 1: deal with the heat. So a lot of these things
Speaker 1: we're talking about are not things of the past. They're just, uh,
Speaker 1: they're less a part of culture in places where air
Speaker 1: conditioning is now prevalent. But then, of course we got
Speaker 1: into the invention of the true air conditioning system, right.
Speaker 1: We talked about John Gory, the doctor from Appalachical of
Speaker 1: Florida who developed a chemical process for manufacturing ice for
Speaker 1: the purpose of cooling hospital rooms. Also we talked about
Speaker 1: the ice King, Frederick Tutor in the ice trade, which
Speaker 1: was a fun diversion. And we also talked about Willis Carrier,
Speaker 1: the American inventor who created a dehumidification process for industrial
Speaker 1: printing spaces. But then of course quickly realized that this
Speaker 1: technology could be used to cool and dry the air
Speaker 1: for human comfort in homes and businesses. And that's sort
Speaker 1: of that that's the money in site, right that, you know,
Speaker 1: the rubbing the fingers together moment. And so of course
Speaker 1: this luxury had massive appeal when it was new. Having
Speaker 1: a cool building during the sweltering days of August. Imagine
Speaker 1: when that was a near total novelty. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: this episode is going to to look at how this
Speaker 1: novelty unfolded, particularly in the United States, but also looking
Speaker 1: at some examples from elsewhere in the world, UH, to
Speaker 1: show how it ends up transforming UH society to a
Speaker 1: certain extent, certainly, and also transforming a number of other
Speaker 1: aspects of our modern life. I think you could argue
Speaker 1: that the legacy of air conditioning is one of the
Speaker 1: most underappreciated technological influences shaping the last hundred years of
Speaker 1: especially American culture, but culture probably all over the world.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly for those of us who grew up
Speaker 1: with it. You know, if you if you grew up
Speaker 1: in a time during which air conditioning was readily available,
Speaker 1: if you grew up uh, you know, but privileged enough
Speaker 1: to to have access to air conditioning all the time,
Speaker 1: and of course if you lived in an environment where
Speaker 1: it was a practical necessity. Because certainly, as was well discussed,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of places in the world where you
Speaker 1: don't need an air conditioning system even a window unit,
Speaker 1: or if you do, you rarely need to employ it,
Speaker 1: So maybe you have less of an appreciation for it
Speaker 1: in those places. Yeah, I was actually to talk. I
Speaker 1: was just out of town for a little while. I
Speaker 1: went on a vacation to England and France, and they're
Speaker 1: pretty much all the places we stayed in did not
Speaker 1: have air conditioning. And it was you know, this was
Speaker 1: during September, still pretty warm outside while we were there,
Speaker 1: but we just opened the windows up and nice cool
Speaker 1: air flows in all all the time. And like, it's
Speaker 1: amazing the difference between the difference of opening a window
Speaker 1: in Paris versus opening a window in Atlanta on a
Speaker 1: summer evening, which is just like, you know, it just
Speaker 1: lets the swamp air right in. It doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: cool enough. Yeah. Yeah, um places also come to mind, Hawaii,
Speaker 1: or at least parts of why you'll you'll find in
Speaker 1: a lot of people living happily without an air conditioning
Speaker 1: system just because you have a regular, you know, dependable
Speaker 1: temperature more you know, year round. But also you get
Speaker 1: a nice specific breeze, which is less the case in
Speaker 1: a lot of places around the world where you know,
Speaker 1: you open a window and it just doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: relieve very much, especially if you live in one of
Speaker 1: these houses that has not been designed to create cross
Speaker 1: breezes and all that, right, houses that have been designed
Speaker 1: to depend upon air conditioning. Yeah, so Uh, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna pick up more or less where we left out
Speaker 1: off then. And so this new invention was impressing people.
Speaker 1: People were thinking a lot about how to roll it out.
Speaker 1: Industrial buildings and hospitals were some of the first to
Speaker 1: jump in their hospitals, not surprising since the hospital plays
Speaker 1: into the origin story itself. And then, of course, uh,
Speaker 1: you're you're probably wondering, well, who is the first person
Speaker 1: to put one of these puppies in their home, because
Speaker 1: obviously that's the reality most of us, or a lot
Speaker 1: of us anyway, live in Well, Charles Gates, son of
Speaker 1: industrialists and uh and gambler John Gates, was the first
Speaker 1: to set one up in their home in nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 1: And get this, Minneapolis, Minapolis, what not in Florida, not
Speaker 1: in Texas or that's strange? Well, hey, I mean because
Speaker 1: basically we're looking at a time during which to have
Speaker 1: a home air conditioning system was a manner matter of
Speaker 1: just pure privilege and in luxury and uh, and that's
Speaker 1: not going to be confined by you know, geographic constraints.
Speaker 1: But man, in Minneapolis, I mean, how many years, how
Speaker 1: many months of the year would that even be useful? Well,
Speaker 1: it also makes me wonder how many months the year
Speaker 1: could you depend on this thing to work, because because
Speaker 1: one of the point, one of the things we're going
Speaker 1: to touch on here is how some of these systems
Speaker 1: were were a little problematic, so innovations in the nineteen
Speaker 1: twenties would make them smaller and more more affordable and
Speaker 1: allowed the tech to spread. But as Marcia E. Ackerman
Speaker 1: points out in her book Cool Comfort, which is an
Speaker 1: excellent book about the UH the History of of air
Speaker 1: conditioning UH in the United States, she points out that
Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century especially, there were not many
Speaker 1: places where an investment in a costly a C system
Speaker 1: would give you a return on your investment, except for quote,
Speaker 1: huge halls in which multitudes assembled for entertainment. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean otherwise it is just a matter you've
Speaker 1: got to be this this super rich individual who can
Speaker 1: just blow a whole bunch of money on an air
Speaker 1: conditioning system. You need something where you're actually going to
Speaker 1: be able to make the money back on it. And
Speaker 1: of course this leads us inevitably to theaters, and she
Speaker 1: points out that there were some early success stories even
Speaker 1: before this point, with just traditional theaters such as uh
Speaker 1: an eight eight performance by Edwin Booth and yes, uh
Speaker 1: related to the other Booth actor really yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: were brothers, I believe, um, but rather different individuals. And
Speaker 1: Edwin Booth, you know, and a famous individual within uh
Speaker 1: you know, the acting scenes, certainly of New York City.
Speaker 1: So but anyway, there was an eighteen eighty performance by
Speaker 1: Edwin Booth on a hundred degree day in New York
Speaker 1: City's Madison Square Theater and it was described at the
Speaker 1: time by English novelist Mary Duff's hardy um and it's
Speaker 1: you know, because she was really impressed with it, and
Speaker 1: it's like here you go into this theater and it's
Speaker 1: it's sweltering outside and it's cool inside. Because generally, if
Speaker 1: you within a time before air conditioning, what happens when
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people gathering in inclosed space to
Speaker 1: watch performance. Okay, so that's a teen eighty and that's
Speaker 1: before Willis carriers, So they must have been using some
Speaker 1: more primitive method to cool the theater there. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: there were there were also a lot of failures during
Speaker 1: this time and and certainly in the decades to follow.
Speaker 1: Getting the early twentieth century, you know, despite the realization
Speaker 1: that a C could really turn things around for sweaty
Speaker 1: spectator events. Also in the early twentieth century, they were
Speaker 1: public health and initiatives to legislate ventilation in places like
Speaker 1: this in order to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses
Speaker 1: like tuberculosis. So this brings us, of course to the
Speaker 1: movie theaters, because it's the movie theater of where we're
Speaker 1: going to see the real rollout of air conditioning. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of this was during the Great Depression as well,
Speaker 1: you know, a time of of of great economic hardship.
Speaker 1: So there would there would have been new a C technology,
Speaker 1: but people wouldn't have had a lot of excess income
Speaker 1: to spend on installing them in their houses exactly like,
Speaker 1: so that the technology is really coming on board, but
Speaker 1: there's a very little market for for home use. But
Speaker 1: theaters saw a return on their investment by deploying them.
Speaker 1: And some think that the air conditioning helped usher in
Speaker 1: the golden age of Hollywood. That's really interesting. Now not
Speaker 1: to discount all those B movies of the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: or the newsreels or the shorts, because you know, what
Speaker 1: better time than the Great depression to escape into the
Speaker 1: realm of cinema while also staying abreast of current events.
Speaker 1: But on top of that, it was actually cool inside.
Speaker 1: It was dry inside even better right. Uh And this
Speaker 1: has also been presented as part of the origin of
Speaker 1: the summer movie blockbuster. Okay also makes sense. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: if you go on to YouTube or you know related side,
Speaker 1: and you look around, you can find some wonderful promos
Speaker 1: from this era that heavily advertised the air conditioning. I
Speaker 1: found one from nineteen forty nineties advertising the theater as
Speaker 1: the coolest place in town. Yeah. I checked out these
Speaker 1: links you sent. Oh one of them. It starts with
Speaker 1: the line if nature is wonderful, then our air conditioning
Speaker 1: system is out of this world hyphenated. Somebody hyphens in
Speaker 1: English texts at the time, especially in ads, but also
Speaker 1: I in a different article I was reading, I found
Speaker 1: a reference to a nineteen twenty six ad for a
Speaker 1: movie theater in St. Petersburg, Florida, which said the proud
Speaker 1: management had the temperature down so low that ladies in
Speaker 1: evening dresses almost froze. Another thing that I noticed about
Speaker 1: these ads is uh, some implicating that cool air conditioned
Speaker 1: air is somehow clean as opposed to what I guess
Speaker 1: like dirty warm air. We talked to the previous part
Speaker 1: of the series about why cold water psychologically seems cleaner
Speaker 1: than tepid water. Is something similar going on here, like
Speaker 1: does it feel like cold air coming out of the
Speaker 1: air conditioner? Is is sterile? Is clean somehow? I mean
Speaker 1: you can still catch you know, TV being circulated through it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure, yeah, yeah, I think. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: it comes down to just the feeling that it is refreshing,
Speaker 1: and refreshment is good refreshment, and then we equate that
Speaker 1: with health, and you know, we probably buy into some
Speaker 1: of these old concepts like the asthma theory to some extent,
Speaker 1: even if we're not familiar with the term, Like, there's
Speaker 1: a legacy of the kind of of that kind of belief,
Speaker 1: and I'm a guilty of it as anyone like I
Speaker 1: remember as a kid, like like I would I would
Speaker 1: love to just stick my face against the air conditioning though,
Speaker 1: and just take in the cold air. I wouldn't do
Speaker 1: that with the with the heat, but with the cold air,
Speaker 1: it was just this feeling that this was pure, you know,
Speaker 1: even though obviously wasn't This is a funny memory. I
Speaker 1: remember when I was much younger, during times when I
Speaker 1: was having anxiety, Like you know, I was freaking out
Speaker 1: about whatever my little mind was freaking out about back then.
Speaker 1: But I remember leaning over an air conditioner and breathing
Speaker 1: the cold air coming out of the vent somehow was
Speaker 1: anxiety relieving to me with a little mask. I did
Speaker 1: not have a mask, but yeah, I don't know why
Speaker 1: that was, but at any right, this became just part
Speaker 1: of the theater offering. And, as Ackerman points out in
Speaker 1: her book quote, by promising to do more for comfort
Speaker 1: and health than simply move air around, air conditioning reinforce
Speaker 1: the novelty, modernity, and luxury of the movie going experience.
Speaker 1: This is so interesting because it could be another one
Speaker 1: of the many ways that we don't often consider brute
Speaker 1: force technological realities influencing media throughout history. You know, we
Speaker 1: like to think of movies and books and recorded music
Speaker 1: and all that solely as products of the creative process
Speaker 1: by the artist. You know, they're just they're creative output.
Speaker 1: But these works of art and forms of entertainment are
Speaker 1: they're highly influenced by brute facts about the physical conditions
Speaker 1: under which they were produced or under which they are
Speaker 1: experienced by the audience. And we talked about this in
Speaker 1: our Motion Picture episode, Yeah You Want You want to.
Speaker 1: You probably prefer the idea that people were just enraptured
Speaker 1: by these these cinematic marvels taking place, and not so
Speaker 1: much that well, they they're they're groin was just super
Speaker 1: sweaty and they're just tired of walking around and swamp pants.
Speaker 1: But that's sort of coming at it from the opposite perspective.
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked a lot about physical realities influencing
Speaker 1: the early days of film from the production side, right,
Speaker 1: you know, like about the the standard lengths and you know,
Speaker 1: whether they had sound with them and all that, and
Speaker 1: that influenced conventions of the genres early on, or the
Speaker 1: fact that there was no film editing early on. But
Speaker 1: then this is coming at it from the other side,
Speaker 1: just like the conditions under which films are shown had
Speaker 1: something to do with the business of film in those days,
Speaker 1: which ultimately dictated something about what kinds of films were
Speaker 1: successful and what kinds of films were made. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about how if I was just going into
Speaker 1: a theater to get out of the heat, and that's
Speaker 1: all it was. What would I what? What kind of
Speaker 1: movie would I want to see? I might just want
Speaker 1: to see whatever movies longest or or indeed, like just
Speaker 1: give me a block of stuff. It can be films
Speaker 1: that can be sure, it's it gonna be the newsreel.
Speaker 1: I'll just set for whatever. Uh just just just show
Speaker 1: it to me and let me cool down a little.
Speaker 1: So according to the U. S Department of Energy, uh
Speaker 1: A C units started making their way into theaters in
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, and the earliest systems, though, were simply
Speaker 1: heating systems that were modified with refrigeration equipment, which managed
Speaker 1: to cool the lower seats but left the balcony muggy
Speaker 1: and sweltering, and there are even accounts of people on
Speaker 1: the lower levels having to wrap their feet in newspaper
Speaker 1: paper to stay warm again while people in the balcony
Speaker 1: sweated it out. And it wasn't until nineteen two that
Speaker 1: Carrier installed the first true theater A C system in
Speaker 1: the Metropolitan Theater in Los Angeles, and then the Rivoli
Speaker 1: Theater in New York got an updated version in nine
Speaker 1: and UH they revol he proudly advertised at the time
Speaker 1: that they kept their theater cooled to a constant sixty
Speaker 1: nine degrees fahrenheit or twenty six degrees celsius. That is,
Speaker 1: I mean, to each their own, But that is too cold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think once you get lower if you're talking about fahrenheit,
Speaker 1: once you get lower than the low seventies, what the
Speaker 1: heck are you doing? Yeah, Like, I'm not one to
Speaker 1: turn the thermostat in my own house down anywhere near
Speaker 1: that low. And and if I go into a place
Speaker 1: that is that. I mean. The other thing is like,
Speaker 1: you're not going to be dressed for it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm I think we all have experienced a cold theater before,
Speaker 1: so imagined A lot of us know that if you're
Speaker 1: going to a movie theater, you bring a hoodie, you
Speaker 1: bring a jacket, etcetera. But but I'm imagining these like
Speaker 1: people hot on the street looking to get out of
Speaker 1: the heat and set down for a couple of hours
Speaker 1: and watch the cinema and then uh, and then they
Speaker 1: get in there and they're just gonna be like chilled
Speaker 1: to the bone right because they're not dressed for it.
Speaker 1: They didn't bring blankets with them. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: three dog theater experience. Yeah, other theaters would boast that
Speaker 1: it was quote twenty degrees cooler inside, which in some
Speaker 1: cases was apparently arguable. Though that there were theaters where
Speaker 1: people complained about the cold or said they actually became
Speaker 1: ill because of the cold. There were even charges of
Speaker 1: a c abuse. What does that mean that they were
Speaker 1: just just chilling people out too much? Okay, yeah, this
Speaker 1: apparently didn't I've been assaulted with an air conditioning unit. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean. And also the whole time they're using icicles
Speaker 1: and egg luede decorations and the promotion of it. I
Speaker 1: saw some wonderful pictures where it is they're just really
Speaker 1: driving at home, like come into the winter wonderland off
Speaker 1: this theater. And there was apparently a lot of back
Speaker 1: and forth, and this Acraman goes into more detail about
Speaker 1: it with you know, certain crusaders for warmer theaters, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, really getting some pressed. But then but but
Speaker 1: the thing is it didn't apparently hurt ticket sales in
Speaker 1: any like real meaningful way, and Ackerman points out that
Speaker 1: the first drive in movie theater opened in June three
Speaker 1: in Camden, New Jersey, and became a major force. Of course,
Speaker 1: you know, in the nineteen fifties a major cultural force,
Speaker 1: very popular. But their popularity challenges the notion that people
Speaker 1: only wanted a chilly movie going experience, uh, which most
Speaker 1: cars of the time, or maybe all cars at the time,
Speaker 1: we're not air conditioned, right, Yeah, and the generally you're
Speaker 1: turning your car off, turning the engine off. You're not
Speaker 1: running the a C the whole time, right, It's it's
Speaker 1: about watching a film more or less outdoors. And then
Speaker 1: it wasn't just movie theaters during the Great Depression. Apparently restaurants, bakeries, libraries,
Speaker 1: and museums eventually began uh experimenting with you know, enhanced
Speaker 1: air conditioned environments and saw enhanced traffic because of it.
Speaker 1: Department stores came into their own as well, and Ackerman
Speaker 1: she hilariously describes uh department stores as basically being quote
Speaker 1: theaters of things like that. But of course you can't
Speaker 1: really charge admission to a department store, so you get
Speaker 1: less of a return on an investment that way, and
Speaker 1: she mentions like accounts of people who went to the
Speaker 1: department store to stay cool and just like went around
Speaker 1: trying on dresses they couldn't afford in order to just
Speaker 1: to get out of the heat, but not really you know,
Speaker 1: you know, spending that much money there. Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I can see you get more people into
Speaker 1: the store exposed to the merchandise. Would I would find
Speaker 1: it hard to believe you don't end up selling more
Speaker 1: somehow that way. Yeah, And then I think most I
Speaker 1: imagine that, you know, stores are going to to realize that,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they're not going to sell a big,
Speaker 1: expensive dress to somebody on their first visit, but then
Speaker 1: they're smaller things they can sell. There's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: food and drink, et cetera. Maybe what you gotta do
Speaker 1: is you gotta pair air can to and interior with
Speaker 1: really pushy salespeople. Now, It's also important to note that
Speaker 1: while ticket prices and locations made a c movie theaters
Speaker 1: especially a great distraction for a lot of people during
Speaker 1: these these decades that were discussing here, this was certainly
Speaker 1: a part of American life. It was affected by segregation definitely.
Speaker 1: Ackerman points out that until the nineteen sixties, overt policies
Speaker 1: and local customs made movie theaters far less accessible to
Speaker 1: black audiences, especially in the South. We're talking poor seats
Speaker 1: alternative viewing times and also just alternative theaters altogether, and
Speaker 1: quote movie theaters and ethnically or racially segregated neighborhoods generally
Speaker 1: lacked the palatial appertinences, including air conditioning of the big
Speaker 1: downtown movie houses. This is another one of those areas
Speaker 1: that people might not even think about the legacy of
Speaker 1: segregation and racial disparity and access to to you know,
Speaker 1: technology is basic access to climate control comfort. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, on that note, we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick break, but when we come back, we're going to
Speaker 1: continue to look at the impact of air conditioning technology. Alright,
Speaker 1: we're back. So the impact of air conditioning technology is huge,
Speaker 1: and we can see it in various ways. So on
Speaker 1: the individual level, certainly it made it easier and or
Speaker 1: more comfortable to live in hotter regions of the earth,
Speaker 1: and you know, and on the other hand, it also
Speaker 1: meant that the climates that once forced us out socializing
Speaker 1: amongst each other, be it at a pond step well
Speaker 1: or just from porch to porch in the neighborhood, now
Speaker 1: forced us inside either into communal a c environments such
Speaker 1: as some of the ones we've discussed uh, you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully like a museum or something, or or perhaps a library.
Speaker 1: But but it also might just put us in there
Speaker 1: in our own individual a c caves cut off from
Speaker 1: everyone else, perhaps with that television or that radio. Not
Speaker 1: to keep this company, this media socialization, which you know,
Speaker 1: remains I think a detrimental aspect of our society to
Speaker 1: this day. That's a depressing thought. Yeah, but of course
Speaker 1: now our stuff are our technologies mobile, so it's not
Speaker 1: even confined via by air conditioning. I do want to
Speaker 1: make a quick health note. We mentioned U tuberculosis earlier. Uh,
Speaker 1: there are a few different health problems that are associated
Speaker 1: with air conditioning, most notably Legionaire's disease caused by the
Speaker 1: Legionella bacteria or a few by you know, all varieties
Speaker 1: of Legionella bacteria. Uh. And uh, you know it also
Speaker 1: can contaminate hot water tanks, hot tubs, and cooling towers.
Speaker 1: But contaminating the water in an air conditioning system is
Speaker 1: certainly one of the factors. So not to not to
Speaker 1: scare everyone about air conditioning, but again it is not
Speaker 1: properly maintained. Yes, it is susceptible to this sort of thing. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the ways that we already sort of hinted
Speaker 1: that there was a legacy to air conditionings in the
Speaker 1: way that it made many former adaptive techniques of our cultures,
Speaker 1: in our architecture obsolete in some cases, right, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: enabled architectural designs that wouldn't have worked as well or
Speaker 1: at all in a pre air conditioning world, and this
Speaker 1: includes a suburban tract housing. One of the greatest examples, though,
Speaker 1: is the advent of steel and glass skyscrapers a C
Speaker 1: cool towers of the modern age that without that a
Speaker 1: C would not make as much sense. Yeah. There have
Speaker 1: even been opinions from architects about the the impact of
Speaker 1: air conditioning on sort of the the aesthetic design of
Speaker 1: large buildings. I was reading a Chronicle of Higher Education
Speaker 1: article that decided a quote from the architect Eli Jacque
Speaker 1: Khan in nineteen sixty where con said quote, the period
Speaker 1: of individualistic, imaginatively decorated skyscraper towers has ended. All of
Speaker 1: this Modern equipment, including the cooling towers for air conditioning systems,
Speaker 1: takes space and the logistical area was at the top
Speaker 1: of the structure, resulting in a bulky and not too
Speaker 1: handsome mass. So he's totally grossed out by the architecture
Speaker 1: that results from having to put large air conditioning units
Speaker 1: on the roofs of large buildings, which just results in
Speaker 1: sort of boxy buildings instead of the beautiful skyscrapers that
Speaker 1: he liked and designed. Yeah, you wanted to be like
Speaker 1: the sky temple, uh to gozer at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: otherwise you're I mean really it really. I think that
Speaker 1: does come back to the to the point like what
Speaker 1: is the legacy of of of human uh constructed monoliths.
Speaker 1: The top of it needs to be the peak of
Speaker 1: a mountain. It needs to be a holy place for
Speaker 1: the world of of humans meets the world of the gods,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't. It just ruins it if you put
Speaker 1: an air conditioning system on top of a zigaratte, right right.
Speaker 1: But even if you're not a priest of the urban zigaratte,
Speaker 1: if you're not obsessed with the design of sky, you know,
Speaker 1: skyscrapers like khan Is, I mean, you can definitely see
Speaker 1: the way that it affected architecture at a smaller scale. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you come down to materials, certainly, even you don't
Speaker 1: even have to talk about the giant skyscrapers. There's a
Speaker 1: point brought up in a really cool Mental Floss article
Speaker 1: Life Before air Conditioning by one miss Selania. I. Somehow
Speaker 1: I think that's a moniker. I have to ask to
Speaker 1: ask Will about that one. Uh. But this article points
Speaker 1: out the caves and underground housings are a natural means
Speaker 1: of controlling temperature. But that means that thick brick and
Speaker 1: stone construction is a good way to duplicate the same
Speaker 1: principle in our constructions. But air conditioning meant that you
Speaker 1: didn't have to depend on thick materials like this as much.
Speaker 1: Housing could be far cheaper. High ceilings were no longer
Speaker 1: as essential to keep things cool. Upper floors were not
Speaker 1: just for the evening. You could live in the attic
Speaker 1: if you wanted to, because you could. You could just
Speaker 1: plug in a superpowered a C and you're good to go.
Speaker 1: You could sleep inside during the summer, you know, with
Speaker 1: your television burning right next to you right well. I mean,
Speaker 1: another way to think about it is that air conditioning
Speaker 1: also affected the planning of cities because air conditioning makes
Speaker 1: it more feasible for hot climate areas to have high
Speaker 1: density housing. You know, so like you can you can
Speaker 1: have tall rise apartment buildings in Florida or something, whereas previously,
Speaker 1: I mean, trying to imagine that without air conditioning sounds
Speaker 1: pretty hot. Yeah. So you're changing the house, you're changing neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: you're changing cities, and and just on the level of
Speaker 1: an individual house, it's important to note that houses are
Speaker 1: not just physical structures. They are social structures. And you
Speaker 1: cannot alter the physical domicile without also altering the shape
Speaker 1: of life within it. Change the shape of the house,
Speaker 1: and you might, you know, think everything's gonna be just
Speaker 1: like it was before, but it's it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: little different. I think that's a really good point. I mean,
Speaker 1: our architecture shapes our lives. Yeah, the rooms were in
Speaker 1: determine what kind of things we do in them. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's this classic thing like why does everybody end up
Speaker 1: in the kitchen at a party. There is some reason
Speaker 1: for that, and there's something about kitchens that you know,
Speaker 1: people filter in that way. Yeah, they all. Yeah, hopefully
Speaker 1: you have some sort of like an island situation in
Speaker 1: the kitchen for people to gather around. Uh. Yeah, otherwise
Speaker 1: they're just gonna be sitting on the stove or something
Speaker 1: that does make me wonder though, And I didn't see
Speaker 1: this reflected in any of the sources we're looking at.
Speaker 1: But obviously one of the strategies to keep your home
Speaker 1: cooler was that you would have the kitchen in another building,
Speaker 1: so where would people gather there? Is that that was
Speaker 1: more of the age of the sitting room. I guess, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so. Or I mean, again, we've talked about
Speaker 1: outdoor cooking is one way of dealing with the heat. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, like the idea of the barbecue tradition or
Speaker 1: grilling out that seems to be a thing that people
Speaker 1: like to do in the summer. I mean, on one hand,
Speaker 1: it's like it's a nice, you know, warm weather outside,
Speaker 1: so people hang out outside. But then on the other hand,
Speaker 1: it's like you're not having to do your heating up
Speaker 1: of the food inside the house, which is great. And furthermore,
Speaker 1: you can think about, you know, the the association of
Speaker 1: outdoor cooking techniques specifically with hotter climates, like you know,
Speaker 1: the barbecue and the grill out. These are common in
Speaker 1: the US South, and I think they come from those
Speaker 1: hot weather traditions. I wonder how air conditioning has affected
Speaker 1: the prevalence or the prominence of the cook out. Well,
Speaker 1: it certainly means you can you can duck in and
Speaker 1: out right now, speaking of city planning, another aspect of
Speaker 1: of all of this is you have all this air
Speaker 1: conditioning running in the buildings, It suddenly gives you a
Speaker 1: little more license to neglect the maintenance of green spaces
Speaker 1: and trees, which, of course they're providing shade finding more
Speaker 1: than shade though, I mean, they're they're they're part of
Speaker 1: your natural environment. That's why you've seen in many cities,
Speaker 1: including our own city there there have been initiatives over
Speaker 1: the years to like to make sure that the areas
Speaker 1: that have been that have lost their green spaces. Uh there,
Speaker 1: you know, you can plant some trees there again and
Speaker 1: actually bring these places back to life once more. But
Speaker 1: from like a purely air conditioning standpoint, you don't really
Speaker 1: need those trees out front. Really they're there, the trees
Speaker 1: that are, you know, lining the sidewalk around the skyscraper,
Speaker 1: what what purpose are they They're playing here? Just something
Speaker 1: you have to clean up after, right. I love that
Speaker 1: mentality that sees anything alive as a nuisance. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: and people say, well, you know, it's it's help, it's creating,
Speaker 1: helping to create the air you breathe, and like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: the air I breathe comes out of event in the wall, right,
Speaker 1: those could be parking spaces, parking spaces for God's sake.
Speaker 1: So so you know, we haven't gotten into you know,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to get into all the details
Speaker 1: of air conditionings impact. But hopefully, like so far, we're
Speaker 1: able to drive home sort of the ripple effects here
Speaker 1: that that really touched on just about every aspect of society. Now,
Speaker 1: another one of these ripple effects we've already alluded to,
Speaker 1: and that is going to become more and more salient
Speaker 1: as time goes on, I believe, is the energy consumption.
Speaker 1: And so the energy consumption and the concurrent carbon outputs
Speaker 1: created by air conditioning demands. Yeah, absolutely, air conditioning depends
Speaker 1: on electricity. And as Lucas Davis of UC Berkeley pointed
Speaker 1: out in in the Global Impact of air Conditioning Big
Speaker 1: and Getting Bigger, we've seen hot regions of the world
Speaker 1: grow hotter, uh and hot regions of the world grow richer.
Speaker 1: And as these trends continue, it just adds to the
Speaker 1: energy demands of keeping cool. For instance, Uh, they wrote
Speaker 1: that more than sixty million air conditioners are sold each
Speaker 1: year in China, and again this was when this was
Speaker 1: written as as as in a typical window unit uses
Speaker 1: ten to twenty times as much electricity as a ceiling fan.
Speaker 1: On top of that, they depend on refrigerants that are
Speaker 1: potent greenhouse gases. Uh. Davis argues that carbon legislation and
Speaker 1: carbon taxing are probably the best way to avoid falling
Speaker 1: off the carbon cliff here, even as the technology grows
Speaker 1: more energy efficient and you know, better energy sources come
Speaker 1: online to aid. But yeah, this is but we often
Speaker 1: don't think about just the I mean you probably about
Speaker 1: your own energy, uh, you know, costs road concerning air conditioning.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's hard not to when you look
Speaker 1: at the power bill for a particularly hot summer month.
Speaker 1: But you know, you have to realize that that's happening
Speaker 1: in every house, you know, in the in you know,
Speaker 1: throughout this city and his other parts of the world
Speaker 1: get more of the air conditioning bug themselves, You're just
Speaker 1: going to see more of that. Yeah, and uh, and
Speaker 1: it's also not just in the houses, but these large
Speaker 1: industrial or commercial spaces which I think are a huge
Speaker 1: part of the footprint. But yeah, I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: one of these binds you're in. I mean, like it's
Speaker 1: hard not to to love and appreciate the comfort provided
Speaker 1: by air conditioning if you live in a hot climate,
Speaker 1: especially in the summer. But another thing that should be
Speaker 1: pointed out here when you said a typical window a
Speaker 1: C unit, which is probably gonna be using less energy
Speaker 1: than like your big central A C unit um uses
Speaker 1: ten to twenty times as much electricity as a ceiling fan.
Speaker 1: The other side of that is that ceiling fans are
Speaker 1: incredibly energy efficient. I mean, you get a really good
Speaker 1: bang for your buck in terms of how much cooler
Speaker 1: they make you feel compared to how much energy they use.
Speaker 1: So another way to think about this is, you know,
Speaker 1: if you've got your A C unit, you're trying to
Speaker 1: be energy conscious, but also you're like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I can beat the heat in the hottest days
Speaker 1: without it. I mean, you know, think about at what
Speaker 1: point you can deal with just having the ceiling fan on,
Speaker 1: and then at whatever point where you can't hack it anymore, well,
Speaker 1: then you know, you go to your A C god.
Speaker 1: But if you're a c is like mine. Like sometimes
Speaker 1: you reach that point and you're like, I don't think
Speaker 1: you can catch up. It's too late. Yeah, I should
Speaker 1: have been fighting this battle all day, despite you know,
Speaker 1: the problems involved with that. Uh yeah. So, and then
Speaker 1: of course you just grow accustomed to air conditioning. I
Speaker 1: guess that's the other side of it as well. Well.
Speaker 1: I just meant to emphasize ceiling fans. Very good, big
Speaker 1: thumbs up to ceiling fans in my opinion. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: And then of course you can flip the switch during
Speaker 1: the during the winter and use them to know more
Speaker 1: to you know, quite a push warm air back down. Alright,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take one more break, but when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to continue to look at the way air
Speaker 1: conditioning changed the world. Alright, we're back. So I guess
Speaker 1: we were just going to talk about a couple more
Speaker 1: things here about the legacy of air conditioning. We know
Speaker 1: that the legacy of air conditioning has been huge, But
Speaker 1: I was reading a paper by the American historian Raymond
Speaker 1: Arsenal about the impact of air conditioning on the culture
Speaker 1: of the American South. Uh. And this paper was originally
Speaker 1: published in the Journal of Southern history in nineteen four
Speaker 1: it's called the End of the Long Hot Summer. The
Speaker 1: air Conditioner and Southern Culture, and Arsenal talks in this
Speaker 1: paper about how the air conditioner should be thought of
Speaker 1: as one of the biggest factors shaping the evolution of
Speaker 1: the American South in the twentieth century. So, on one hand,
Speaker 1: he says, well, it created a lot of Uh. It
Speaker 1: basically created a lot of economic opportunity where it wasn't before.
Speaker 1: Like it drew in immigrants from other places in the
Speaker 1: United States to come to the South and work there,
Speaker 1: a lot of different kinds of buildings and businesses to
Speaker 1: take up route there because buildings could now be air conditioned.
Speaker 1: But over this time, the way people viewed air conditioning
Speaker 1: transition from quote from a luxury to an amenity to
Speaker 1: a necessity where you know, people more and more all
Speaker 1: the time think of it as something that's not like
Speaker 1: nice to have, but something you've got to have. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean if today, especially in the United States, you
Speaker 1: travel somewhere perhaps abroad, uh and you you find out
Speaker 1: that it's it's something that a room is not air conditioned,
Speaker 1: or a vehicle it's not air conditioned. Uh. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it feels a bit like like like hearing that there's
Speaker 1: gonna be no running water or no, you know, no
Speaker 1: toilets or something along along those lines. Yeah, totally. That's
Speaker 1: kind of a self fulfilling prophecy, as we've been alluding
Speaker 1: to before, because the more are the more we come
Speaker 1: to take air conditioning for granted, the more we build
Speaker 1: our lives around it and make it harder and harder
Speaker 1: to live without it. Yeah, and indeed build out into
Speaker 1: places where it would not make sense to live without it.
Speaker 1: I mean, for instance, you think like some of these
Speaker 1: really hot days we had this summer, uh, and how
Speaker 1: they impacted say, say, people living in Phoenix, Arizona. You know.
Speaker 1: And it's certainly especially if you're dealing with older individuals.
Speaker 1: I mean, there were and are people that are having
Speaker 1: to live out on the streets. You know, there becomes
Speaker 1: a real concern, a health concern of the high temperatures.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they like hot days can kill people, they
Speaker 1: do all the time. And so air conditioning one of
Speaker 1: the things says that you know, air conditioning did in
Speaker 1: many ways measurably improved life, Like it cut down on
Speaker 1: deaths related to hot weather um. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: he's talking about how a lot of the cultural differences
Speaker 1: and traditions that are associated with communities that live in
Speaker 1: hot climates, including the American South, are a result of
Speaker 1: the hot climate. You know, they're not it's not just incidental.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, like the cookout tradition. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a result of the fact that there's hot weather.
Speaker 1: And with the introduction of air conditioning, many of the
Speaker 1: distinct cultural features that define cultures in hot climates diminish
Speaker 1: over time. And so he sort of argues that climate
Speaker 1: control has to some extent homogenized the United States as
Speaker 1: a culture and reduced to sort of reduced some regional
Speaker 1: variations that were derived from differences in temperatures throughout the year. UM.
Speaker 1: And if Arsenal is correct in his thesis about the
Speaker 1: American South, obviously this effect would not just be an
Speaker 1: American phenomenon. Is similar thing could be happening anywhere that
Speaker 1: air conditioning pervades hot climates, changing cultural practices and ways
Speaker 1: of life along with it. Yeah, it just it basically
Speaker 1: changes the equation for from modern living. Yeah. Now we've
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about the commercial growth that results
Speaker 1: due to air condition technology, especially in hotter regions, say
Speaker 1: at the United States in the post war period. But
Speaker 1: another thing to think about is that a c ends up,
Speaker 1: you know, proving essential in the computer age is a
Speaker 1: way to keep these machines from overheating. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean we're filling our living spaces also with these machines
Speaker 1: that are dumping a lot of heat constantly. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wonder how much how much a computer heats up
Speaker 1: a non air conditioned room or a bunch of computers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some stats on that left of to
Speaker 1: look and certainly how how into what extent has changed
Speaker 1: over the years. Yeah. Now, there are other strange ways
Speaker 1: the legacy of air conditioning could be even more powerful
Speaker 1: than it first seems. For example, there are a bunch
Speaker 1: of uh, there are a bunch of little threads of
Speaker 1: social science research about heat and climate control and various
Speaker 1: social outcomes at the broad level that are correlated with
Speaker 1: heat and access to air conditioning. For example, I was
Speaker 1: reading a September article by Jeff Asher in The New
Speaker 1: or Times that examines a bunch of existing data on
Speaker 1: the possible or supposed links between weather and crime. Now
Speaker 1: when looking at stuff like this, I do want to
Speaker 1: avoid something that that that actually Raymond arson Oh talks
Speaker 1: about in his article, which is he calls it mono
Speaker 1: causal climate, a logical determinism, you know, basically like looking
Speaker 1: at the climate or the weather as like the one
Speaker 1: cause it causal factor in you know, broad social trends. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you see this from time to time where it's like
Speaker 1: hot cultures are like this, old cultures are like this,
Speaker 1: U and sometimes there is you know, in specific areas,
Speaker 1: there's I think there's more of a case to be made,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, when you start talking about spices
Speaker 1: and food and some of that comes into you know,
Speaker 1: availability of spices as well. Oh. Absolutely, it's it's certainly
Speaker 1: got to be the case that there are influences of
Speaker 1: climate and temperature on culture. I think that's undeniable. It's
Speaker 1: just that you want to avoid what he calls the
Speaker 1: mono causal you know, climate alogical determinism where the temperature
Speaker 1: or is the cause of social outcomes. Uh So we
Speaker 1: would be careful not to do that, but look at
Speaker 1: like possible links where where the temperature could be a
Speaker 1: factor on broad social outcomes. And one example is the
Speaker 1: long running documented link between hot weather and crime, hot
Speaker 1: weather and murder rates, for example. Uh So, it seems
Speaker 1: to be the case that if you just chart an
Speaker 1: American city across a year, you're very likely to see
Speaker 1: a pattern where the hotter it is, the more people
Speaker 1: get murdered. Asher writes. Quote in Philadelphia, for example, there
Speaker 1: were two point six shooting victims per day on average
Speaker 1: when it was cold, three point four on pleasant days,
Speaker 1: and four point four on hot days. And that's for
Speaker 1: a period I think of the mid teens um And
Speaker 1: so this really does seem to be related to temperature,
Speaker 1: because while the rates of indoor shootings stay mostly the
Speaker 1: same throughout the year, the rates of outdoor shootings increase
Speaker 1: noticeably the hotter it is interesting. Well, one of the
Speaker 1: things that you know about crime, that is, people have
Speaker 1: a negativity bias about trends and crime. People always think
Speaker 1: things are worse than they've ever been. There's more crime,
Speaker 1: there's more violent today in the United States. That that
Speaker 1: is not true at all. Violent crime has been dropping
Speaker 1: for decades in the United States. Murder rates are at
Speaker 1: a you know, multi decade low. Uh So. Uh but
Speaker 1: also there's something interesting going on there. You don't want
Speaker 1: you certainly don't want to overstate potential causality, But I
Speaker 1: wonder if could increased access to air conditioned homes in
Speaker 1: the summer partially contribute to decreases in crime over time,
Speaker 1: to decreases in violent crime over time, because you know,
Speaker 1: if if you're seeing that there is some impact of
Speaker 1: like people being outside in hot weather on hot days
Speaker 1: with rates of violence, could access to air conditioned interior
Speaker 1: interior spaces actually play some role there for some inside
Speaker 1: with the television, so then they're they're safer, but then
Speaker 1: they feel less safe because they're watching, uh, the murders
Speaker 1: that are occurring exaggerated and just chewed upon on the television. Well,
Speaker 1: I do think TV TV coverage definitely contributes to that
Speaker 1: negativity bias and people's beliefs about crime and things like that,
Speaker 1: whatever the actual reasons, you know, whether air conditioning or
Speaker 1: climate control or anything has anything to do with it
Speaker 1: at all. Uh, it is certainly the case that you know,
Speaker 1: violent crime is is at uh, you know, an exceedingly
Speaker 1: low point compared to historical trends in the United States.
Speaker 1: So don't buy into that it's always worse, you know,
Speaker 1: it's worse than it's ever been idea, right of course,
Speaker 1: And the other day they're into the spectrums the air
Speaker 1: conditioning is is not going to solve all the world's problems. Um,
Speaker 1: though there were I did. I did read a few
Speaker 1: little snippets here about some granted, I think they were
Speaker 1: into all individuals that were part of like the carrier
Speaker 1: corporation or other refrigerator companies, refrigerator or air conditioning companies.
Speaker 1: They were making like a case that like that we
Speaker 1: can do it, this can this about world peace. And
Speaker 1: I think the particular argument was not like social but
Speaker 1: it was more like, hey, we're arguing we're getting in
Speaker 1: all these scuffles over resources, but if we have enough
Speaker 1: air conditioning, then we can get all the resources from
Speaker 1: all the places and then we won't fight anymore, which
Speaker 1: you know has not turned out to be the case. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't buy into that. Another interesting bit of social science
Speaker 1: data that I was looking at about air conditioning is
Speaker 1: the same article by Jeff Asher points it out. By
Speaker 1: the way, an interesting piece of research by Harvard Kennedy
Speaker 1: School Associate professor Joshua Goodman, who found a correlation between
Speaker 1: cooler temperatures and increased academic performance. Quote, students scored lower
Speaker 1: when they just experienced a hot school year than when
Speaker 1: they just experienced a cool school year. But that air
Speaker 1: conditioning in schools mostly eliminated the influence of heat on
Speaker 1: academic performance. So you have an unusually hot school year
Speaker 1: that tends to hurt academic performance if your school is
Speaker 1: not air conditioned. Uh. And this sort of just intuitively
Speaker 1: makes sense to me. It's like, you know, it's hot weather,
Speaker 1: it seems like it's harder to focus on mental tasks
Speaker 1: and things like that. Um, but that air conditioning inside
Speaker 1: the schools mitigated this effect. Interesting. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: every time I pick up my son from school from
Speaker 1: his elementary school, Uh, he'll come out and you know
Speaker 1: often like hold his hand when walking away from school
Speaker 1: doors and his hand will be so cold from the
Speaker 1: air conditioning inside. But but yeah, I'm all for it
Speaker 1: being there if it you know, it gives them in
Speaker 1: the environment they need to learn. And with all these
Speaker 1: social science findings, I think we should always be careful
Speaker 1: not to read too much into single findings until there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of replication and analysis or findings by
Speaker 1: others in the field. So I think it's best to
Speaker 1: sort of treat these as interesting preliminary findings. I will
Speaker 1: I will say this, like, if you're in a cool
Speaker 1: environment and you're prepared, you have a greater ability to
Speaker 1: regulate your own temperature. You know, you can always put
Speaker 1: on a jacket or a hoodie right in a in
Speaker 1: an overly air conditioned space, no matter what the you know,
Speaker 1: the realities of the energy consumption are there. Likewise, in
Speaker 1: a hot space, there's generally only so much you can
Speaker 1: take off, and there is an absolute limit to what
Speaker 1: you can take off. Uh, you know, the social decorum aside. Right.
Speaker 1: But but if either of these findings are on the
Speaker 1: right track about like academic performance or crime, I mean,
Speaker 1: you wonder in what other ways could temperature and climate
Speaker 1: control be changing our society and our culture that you know,
Speaker 1: we're not appreciating or haven't been studied numerically in these ways. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another thing to keep in mind is just a different
Speaker 1: cultures are also going to have a different relationship with
Speaker 1: being cool and being hot, things that have evolved due
Speaker 1: to their you know, just their cultural exposure to different
Speaker 1: temperatures or sometimes even ideas. I didn't get too far
Speaker 1: into this because there's I wasn't encountering a lot of
Speaker 1: scholarship about it. But for instance, and we've talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about, you know, the rollout of air conditioning
Speaker 1: in uh in in in China, and you know, there
Speaker 1: are some interesting ideas about like what cold and hot
Speaker 1: mean within traditional Chinese medicine, etcetera, and uh, and so
Speaker 1: you know that that's one possibility to look at, like
Speaker 1: how does how does that play out in the culture
Speaker 1: that has certain values historically attached to say warm and
Speaker 1: cold air. Oh, I want to know more about what
Speaker 1: what are the values? I mean some of it gets
Speaker 1: into two to yin and yang and you know and
Speaker 1: so forth. UM. But some of the papers I was
Speaker 1: finding where I was hesitant really include them because they
Speaker 1: were like from the mostly from the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: and they were dealing with like very rare cases of
Speaker 1: people with UM they were experiencing frigi phobia, like a
Speaker 1: fear of cold air and an aversion to air conditioned
Speaker 1: spaces and uh. And so these papers were tying like
Speaker 1: these rare cases in with potentially looking at potentially how
Speaker 1: some of these ideas within Chinese culture affected these individuals
Speaker 1: and I believe. I believe it was like in China
Speaker 1: and Taiwan, and perhaps there was a case in Singapore
Speaker 1: they were looking at um. But in in any way,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that I wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: certainly wouldn't want to blow it out of proportion because
Speaker 1: I think we're talking about very rare cases of people
Speaker 1: with with with a with a with a mental illness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but to what extent that is exasperated by ideas
Speaker 1: that are present in a given culture. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess it's open for debate, but I would want to
Speaker 1: I would want to read more about that before I
Speaker 1: said anything more definitive. But it does serve as it
Speaker 1: like an interesting just side example of like, well, here's
Speaker 1: an idea of what cold and heat mean. Here's the
Speaker 1: way it could, uh, in extreme cases present itself. But
Speaker 1: then how does it end up presenting itself in more
Speaker 1: in milder cases, you know, and and and more just
Speaker 1: sort of uh, you know, ambiently throughout a culture. Another
Speaker 1: thing I would think would probably be hugely significant that
Speaker 1: we haven't really examined at all is how air conditioning
Speaker 1: affects fashion. Yeah, like what what people wear in what
Speaker 1: kinds of spaces, what's acceptable to wear? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I certainly wouldn't think think of it as much as fashion,
Speaker 1: but like I generally prefer to wear a hoodie. Uh
Speaker 1: and air conditioning allows me to do that year round,
Speaker 1: you know. Climate control allows me to do it year round.
Speaker 1: But then artificial climate tends to demand that you do it,
Speaker 1: you know, so you generally, you know, if you especially
Speaker 1: if you have an office job, you're having to dress
Speaker 1: for an artificial environment and then also perhaps for the
Speaker 1: environment that exists between the artificial environments that you spend
Speaker 1: your time. Our office environment is very strange because you
Speaker 1: get um so it's like artificially cold of course in
Speaker 1: the summer because it's air condition but then at certain
Speaker 1: times of day, if you're by the window, you become
Speaker 1: an ant under the magnifying glass and that totally throws
Speaker 1: everything off too. Yeah, yeah, this is I don't think
Speaker 1: there's any like passive solar design employed here. And then
Speaker 1: of course the studios themselves get really hot. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: studios here are that sweaty growing you mentioned earlier. Well,
Speaker 1: there you have an air conditioning A three partner here. Again,
Speaker 1: we weren't able to cover everything in the history of
Speaker 1: air conditioning, or certainly with refrigeration, which is at times
Speaker 1: intertwined with with the history of air conditioning. But hopefully
Speaker 1: we touched on some of the key ideas and perhaps
Speaker 1: we've we've presented enough information that will that will, you know,
Speaker 1: make you stop and think about the air conditioning that
Speaker 1: you use in your life, maybe value it a little
Speaker 1: bit more and realize that in many cases you know
Speaker 1: it is it is more of a luxury. Um. But
Speaker 1: we would love to hear from everyone out there, like
Speaker 1: what is your relationship with air conditioning? Have you ever
Speaker 1: lived without it? Uh? Particularly have you ever lived without
Speaker 1: it in a hot climate? And how you know, what
Speaker 1: did you do to manage it. We have already heard
Speaker 1: back from some listeners on this, and I'm hopefully we'll
Speaker 1: get to roll these out on a listener mail in
Speaker 1: the future. Uh yeah. We heard from at least one
Speaker 1: listener who grew up in India and who talked about
Speaker 1: their experience not even thinking of sweat as a bad
Speaker 1: thing the way most Americans do. Yeah, yeah, there's this
Speaker 1: kind of American thing to think of, like any any
Speaker 1: sweat that is occurring without your consent, is is a travesty,
Speaker 1: you know, like like sweat is the thing that that
Speaker 1: happens on my terms. Yeah, I admit I I fall
Speaker 1: totally into that gid. Like I am cool with being
Speaker 1: sweaty if I'm like hanging out outside, you know, or
Speaker 1: I'm working outside or something like that. Can't stand being
Speaker 1: sweaty if it's like what's the word. It's like if
Speaker 1: you're sweaty on your way to work or something, that's
Speaker 1: just the worst. Yeah. Well, we've also had lots of
Speaker 1: media to really drive this home, right, lots of deodorant
Speaker 1: commercials that really just drive home how gross it is
Speaker 1: to be sweaty. There's something wrong with your body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I used to buy into that more. Now
Speaker 1: I'm more of the mind that like like like feeling
Speaker 1: sweaty like feels good. Like I think part of that
Speaker 1: was from like sweating on my own terms, But then
Speaker 1: I did enough of that where I'm like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: not even like really exerting myself, but it's hot out,
Speaker 1: I'm sweating. It feels good to sweat. Um So, and
Speaker 1: then of course it's you know, you're not going to
Speaker 1: you're generally not going to smell bad until later anyway,
Speaker 1: like that fresh sweat is not the problem. But I
Speaker 1: would also love to hear from anyone about movie theaters.
Speaker 1: How cold do you like your movie theater? Um? Are
Speaker 1: you one of these people that would prefer to have
Speaker 1: to wear a winter coat? Uh? And then Uh, I
Speaker 1: know we've heard from some folk. When we talked about
Speaker 1: the Tingler on our other show, stuff to Bow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: we heard from some people who went to the theater
Speaker 1: back in the day. So I would love to hear
Speaker 1: from any you know, older members of the listening audience
Speaker 1: out there that might be able to chime in about
Speaker 1: theaters of old. What was it like going back then
Speaker 1: and in the war between the Chili movie theater and
Speaker 1: the the outdoor Um? Uh, drive in cinema? Which do
Speaker 1: you prefer? Oh, it's got to depend on what you're seeing, right,
Speaker 1: that's there. Yeah, there's some films that are more suitable
Speaker 1: for the drive in, right. Yeah, let's be movie territory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw I think I saw the mcgruber movie at
Speaker 1: the drive in. Oh, I guess that. I guess that's
Speaker 1: a good one. I've I've only seen I think I've
Speaker 1: only seen like classic horror films at the drive in.
Speaker 1: Um No. I also saw the Grindhouse Movies at the
Speaker 1: drive in. That was fun, the double feature. We are
Speaker 1: fortunate enough in Atlanta that we do have we still
Speaker 1: have a drive in theater that that folks can go
Speaker 1: to all right. In the meantime, if you want to
Speaker 1: check out other episodes of Invention, head on over to
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Speaker 1: Bring all the stars, Bring all the love please uh
Speaker 1: huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
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Speaker 1: suggest topic for the future, just to say hello, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at invention pod dot com.
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