Jul 2, 2022 3 min read

Last week, we reported on how the demand for air conditioning is skyrocketing and customers are having to cool their heels – pardon the pun – for weeks at a time for service or installation.

With the dangers of COVID-19 ebbing, it could be that some folks are much more comfortable with letting strangers into their homes, they have some extra money in their wallets or they have endured too many days of blistering heat and soaking humidity that they have surrendered and are getting air conditioning, or fixing what they already have.

We largely take air conditioning for granted now, but it’s only been for a relatively short span of time that humanity has been able to take advantage of it. It first arrived in the 1930s, and was an extraordinarily pricey commodity – a unit that we would now view as hopelessly primitive would cost more than $8,000 in today’s dollars. It was only in the 1970s that air conditioning became fairly common in homes and businesses. It’s hard to imagine now how people endured those wilting 95-degree July afternoons decades ago.

Air conditioning is a luxury, to be sure, but it’s also increasingly a necessity. Thanks to climate change, heat waves are forecast to be more intense and longer-lasting. Last week, Tehran, Iran, reached 126 degrees one day. Last summer, the usually mild Pacific Northwest endured a horrific heat wave. How horrific? In one community in British Columbia, the temperature reached 121 degrees, the hottest ever recorded in Canada.

This summer and for many summers to come, heat is set to not only cause discomfort, but be a serious public health threat. According to the National Weather Service, heat kills more people every year than tornadoes, floods, hurricanes and all the other weather events that wreak havoc much more visibly. Many of those deaths happen silently, as people die in oven-hot dwellings where temperatures reach 100 degrees or more. When their bodies are found, functioning air conditioning or even fans are absent. A large number of the victims are elderly, poor or people of color. Frequently, they live in older structures that do not have air conditioning, or they live in neighborhoods that lack parks or trees.

Planting more trees and creating more parks is one way to make heat waves easier for the most vulnerable. Friends, family and local officials need to reach out to isolated individuals who might be suffering and direct them to cooling centers. Assistance programs are available in Pennsylvania and elsewhere for weatherizing homes.

In some states, landlords are required to provide both heating and cooling in their units. In Pennsylvania, they are mandated to provide heat but not air conditioning. The warmer summers we have had in recent years make it clear this needs to change.

Keeping everyone cool in the heat isn’t just a matter of comfort and convenience. It’s a matter of life and death.