Jack Butler starts out his article alerting readers of “Free Expresions” that he owes Willis Carrier a thank you, adding pointedly that readers probably do also.
Carrier invented modern air conditioning. It debuted at the Sackett & Wilhelms printing plant in Brooklyn, in 1902. High internal humidity was damaging its final product. Carrier took care of that, and more. Today 90% of U.S. residences have AC.
Butler was part of his own experiment. A single cell in a petri dish when he moved into an AC-free apartment last October, as the city cooled down. As Butler explains, a brutal winter and a pleasant spring, along with early spring, didn’t require much indoor cooling.
When Europeans began suffering through summer heat and defending their non-AC ways, Americans were forced to defend themselves. So, Butler thought this was a good time for him to continue without AC as an experiment.
The Fourth of July “heat dome” over New York was the perfect opportunity to see whether things really could get that bad.
The Warmth of Collectivism
Did things get bad? Yes, indeedy, they did. Brutal, in fact. Could Jack tell readers the measures he took to ward off the heat?
A fan; cold showers; ice cubes on the back, forehead and wrists; closing the blinds—availed me little.
At least Mayor Zohran Mamdani would have been pleased with my Stakhanovite cilice. (Mandmi) merely urged New Yorkers to keep their AC systems at 78 degrees during that torrid interval, not to forego it entirely. The “warmth of collectivism,” indeed.
Butler is proud to have stuck through this experiment. Along the way, Butler, who seems to lack AC quilt, gained some insight into the Continent’s AC hesitation. Enfeebled Europeans must be disappointed that nature can throw things at us we can’t withstand with our own power. “Before 1902, everyone had to sweat it out.”
Jack also (weirdly) respects the honesty of someone like French leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose contempt for America is so thorough that he rejects not only air conditioning but even Coca-Cola as expressions of the nation he despises.
Mélenchon is wrong, but in a clarifying way, explains Butler. Our nation, founded in rejection of “a long train of abuses,” would engineer a rebellion against one of the most despotic tyrants of all: nature itself.
How else to describe a bloodthirsty force that, in a Europe with spotty AC coverage, exacted a toll of 10,000 lives this past June alone, most of them elderly?
In Japan, AC use roughly matches ours. Recently the WSJ reprinted remarks by Singaporean leader Lee Kwan Yew, who pointed out that AC made “civilization in the tropical zones” possible. That it also enables politicians and bureaucrats to misbehave comfortably in Washington, D.C., during summer months is an unfortunate but acceptable trade-off, confirms Jack Butler.
Our predecessors deserve admiration for having endured all manner of hardship. But I’ve no doubt they’d have gladly adopted AC if they had it, smugly adds Jack.
Butler finally joined the 90% of Americans this past weekend. He promises not to use AC wantonly. He also promises not to run the AC until his residence feels like the inside of a hotel in Florida, another place made possible by AC.
But when he finished installation, writes Butler, “he didn’t only feel cool, pleasant air wash over me. I also felt gratitude. Thank you, Willis Carrier.”
