[JimSEA]

"air conditioning" is for sissies -- The "swamp cooler" and screen sleeping porches surrounded by tamarack, cottonwood or oleander predated AC. When we had to leave Arizona in 1984 we never had AC. However, now in Oregon, of all places, we "need" it. LOL

[HungarianGypsy]

We have both a swamp cooler and and a heat pump. LOL!

[southernnorthcarolina]

I've long felt that air conditioning was one of the most underrated innovations in terms of effects on settlement patterns, economic development, and even the political lay of the land. Where would the "Red States" (most of them in warm-weather states) be without air conditioning?

It is possible, with deep overhangs, shade trees, screens, attention to orientation with regard to the Sun, fans, and cross ventilation, to have a somewhat habitable single family house even in desert climes. But a factory or a large office building? The problems are almost insurmountable. I have an interest in a medium-sized office building in Charlotte. Air conditioning is required for some parts of the interior even when the outside temperature is in the 40s. How hot would a crowded elevator in an un-air conditioned office building on a 105º day in Tucson be?