You really need to broaden your horizons while you still have the chance. This is like believing that boats don't exist because you live inland and have never seen a boat. Hundreds of millions of people are dependent on air conditioning in their homes.
I never said that boats or AC don't exist. Both exist, and I did saw and experimented many of them in commercial context. But not everyone can afford them plus the cost to operate them.
Sure I should broaden my horizon and even consider to look people enjoying their private jets and some helicopters. But a mere wage slave like myself will never have the chance to afford one, that's for sure.
Now let's consider back in initial context: mere mortals around me are definitely all using internet as soon as there parents will let them do so, and even a homeless person can afford a first price mobile access (2€/months) with a phone they can receive for nothing in some charity organizations like Emmaus. So affordability of access to online search is definitely several order below AC.
Dependent means it would not be physically possible to live in an area if it did not have air conditioning. For example, you would die very quickly in Phoenix, Arizona if you did not have air conditioning. It is not physically possible to live in 50°C heat for any extended period. Most of the southern portion of the USA was only sparsely settled until the invention and deployment of air conditioning. Krugman is on it.
The reason the city is called Phoenix in the first place is that it’s built on top of a much older community. People have lived (and kept cool!) in that area for thousands of years, although never with the current level of population density, of course.
Air conditioning is not an extravagant luxury, although I know many people who live in cold countries believe so. That's why I'm asking you to broaden your horizons. You don't consider indoor heating or plumbing a luxury to be comparable to a private jet?
In hot and humid places, having AC was always a priority a hundred steps above having internet access, until cheap smart phones arrived.
And they use a lot of energy, just like heating uses a lot of energy in colder climates.
Well, indoor heating is clearly more and more becoming a luxury on the affordability side, enough so that putting a jacket inside is my first go to option when I'm alone at home as I work remotely. But not yet so excited expensive as to private my children from its been benefits when they come back home. And of course nothing like a jet, indeed.
Plumbing is generally not also considered a luxury over here. But at mankind level, I do feel particularly privileged on this regard. I remain amazed we have water flowing at will, and even possibility to take hot shower every day. This is not a jet level kind of privilege, but I try to keep myself aware of how incredibly lucky I am to be able to benefit of such a technology and infrastructure.
I doubt humans waited AC to come alive for settling hot and humid areas. There are other ways to have cooled down residences which don't require so much sophistication in physic models before you can even dream to build a prototype.
All that said, I got your hint to document more on how/why AC is so much more used in some area, and I'm just starting my journey on learning about it.
I still doubt that local climate alone explain the difference in term of how common it is in different region of the world. For example USA have a very large set of different local climate, but from what I understand most homes have AC.
In Croatia more than 55% of households have AC installed, and only 10 years ago it was less than 25% of households. It got more popular as our summers are getting increasingly more hot and humid. Average salaries in France are probably double compared to Croatia. It definitely can't be classified as luxury if more than half of the country can afford it, in one of the poorer EU member states. I assume in the next 10 years it's probably gonna be 70+% of all households.
Regarding technical sophistication, AC is more or less using the same technology as a fridge, just scaled and adapted for room cooling instead of food storage.
I would say that there are no other way besides AC to cool down residences. Only building something akin to a palace with thick stone walls. But naturally, everybody cannot live in a palace. What people did before AC was invented, is to go to the river for a bath to cool down. And if you are unfortunate to not have AC in a place were you'd need it, you'll have to take a lot of showers, and drink a lot of cold water (but fridges are AC technology).
But I don't think anybody should consider themselves lucky to have AC or heating or plumbing. We're in the 21st century, these should be granted. We've moved beyond the phase of bare survival.
If you consider Northern European countries, human survival would have been near impossible there without artificial heating in the form of fire. You could say that thick fur clothes and a protein and fat heavy diet is enough, but you still need to dry your clothes somehow if it's been pouring 0 degree rain for a month straight. On the other hand, eskimos seem to have found a better technique, but I think their advantage is that they live so far North that they don't have to worry about cold rain: https://time.com/archive/6798620/science-the-cozy-eskimo/
The cool thing (hehe) with AC that few people think about is that it actually conditions the air. It's not just an air cooler, but more importantly it removes air humidity. Humidity is much more important than temperature. For example, a day with 32℃ temperature and 45% humidity will not feel too hot. You can sit in the shadow and be comfortable. But a day with 27℃ temperature and 80% humidity will be suffocatingly hot. I'm not sure why, I think it has to do with how we sweat. Or maybe that heat is conducted from the air to our bodies more efficiently in higher humidity.
If you have any suggestion for a cheaper solution than AC for keeping cool at home, I would be happy to hear. The noise of the machine can be annoying at night.
I'd like to give you a tip for reducing your heating bill there in France: Electric bed sheet/blanket. I have been using these for a decade now (where I live it gets both hot and cold). They keep you warm and comfortable all night and they use almost no electricity. I even believe they are beneficial for your health, but I cannot prove that. Been telling my European friends for years to get them, but there is great resistance. From HowStuffWorks:
"The consumption of energy depends on its wattage, typically between 15 to 115 watts. If you're based in the U.S., you might be charged around 13 cents per kWh. So, if your electric blanket consumes 100 watts and you use it for 10 hours a day, that will cost about 13 cents."
>But I don't think anybody should consider themselves lucky to have AC or heating or plumbing. We're in the 21st century, these should be granted. We've moved beyond the phase of bare survival.
I don't know what you mean with "must feel lucky" here, but on my side I do feel very privileged to live with access to these technologies. Yes, there are accessible at large scale without much people needing to struggle to obtain it, but this is not really a reason to not feel deeply grateful each time we are given the opportunity to enjoy them.
This week in Spain terrible floods ruined life of many people. While there is no doubt that many other things are coming to them as awful consequences, there is little doubt that not being able to enjoy these commodities makes it even harder.
If humanity could achieve worldwide dynamics for a few centuries without starvation at scale, genocide, large scale catastrophe significantly induced by insane urbanistic choices through careless or corrupted decision processes, and of course war, then maybe could take factually say that we "moved beyond the phase of bare survival" is a general baseline that can be taken for granted, rather than the brittle situation in which the most lucky people live in.
Regarding electric blanket, I don't see the point. During night, I generally sleep nude, and without heating the bedroom. As pointed by the reference you gave on Eskimos, keeping the body generated heat is generally more than enough to be confortable. Heating a room is only something that provides the sweet pleasure of being confortable without a jacket while moving around within the house.
Do some research on the American south. It's hot and humid half a year+. The only reason it's so populated is AC. I'd bet there are more houses with central AC in France than there are without AC in the southern US states.
