In the summer of 1965, the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles went up in flames: six days of riots, deaths, ravaged neighborhoods. Alvin Weinberg, director of research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, then wrote to President Johnson’s science advisor. He noted, with supporting statistics, that riots break out “at the hottest and most uncomfortable time of the year.” His proposal: reallocate anti-poverty funds to air-condition slums. “Air conditioning plus television,” he writes, “is almost a winning bet. »
It was from this idea that Weinberg coined the term technological fix—the belief that an engineering device can short-circuit social, political and racial problems. Rather than dealing with segregation, police violence or poverty, we cool the air and turn on the TV.
Artificial cold has become a question of survival
The technological fix of 1965 ended up becoming vital. For the majority of residents of megacities, mainly in Asia, prisoners of concrete heat islands that are further aggravated by air conditioner vents, artificial cold has become a question of survival. Remember that heat waves are the deadliest environmental risks, ahead of floods and fires; and the cold obviously conditions food or vaccines.
The technofix of 1965 has also backfired on a global scale: to make the heat bearable, we make more of it. The remedy that has become indispensable produces the illness it claimed to cure. And he does it in three ways.
The more we use air conditioning, the more we need it
First, sociologist Elizabeth Shove has shown that comfort is not a natural given: it is a constructed norm, which has tightened over the course of the 20th century. As air conditioning becomes more widespread, expectations converge on a narrow comfort zone – around 22°C, codified by American industry standards (ASHRAE) and then exported around the world. Shove speaks of a “monoculture of comfort”: the same fresh, dry air everywhere, in offices, hotels and shopping centers.
What should we cool first, artificial intelligences or those of schoolchildren?
We adjust our clothes, our sleep, our expectations to this standard. Each degree gained redefines the threshold of discomfort, so that the need for cold continues to grow — this explains the discomfort that Europeans experience in the freezing shopping centers of the United States.
The slope is even physiological: work on “adaptive comfort” has established that occupants of naturally ventilated buildings tolerate a wider range of temperatures than those in air-conditioned spaces. Benefiting from a constant temperature blunts the thermoregulatory response. In short, the more we use air conditioning, the more we need it.
Reconciling transition and adaptation: wishful thinking
Second, air conditioning has profoundly transformed our built environment. In 1969, historian Reyner Banham observed that it had “abolished almost all environmental constraints on design”.
Enthusiastic, he nevertheless underlined the price: the building envelope having ceased to regulate the climate, the architects had lost vernacular knowledge: verandas, high ceilings, through ventilation, patios.
Third, the cold warms the planet. We would like everything to fit together harmoniously, for “green” refrigerants (propane), nuclear power and renewables to reconcile transition and adaptation. In 2026, this remains wishful thinking.
Air conditioning: 3 to 4% of greenhouse gas emissions
Air conditioning alone accounts for around 3 to 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions; but we approach 10% by adding the entire cold sector – including refrigeration – and refrigerant leaks.
Forecasts from the International Energy Agency are alarming: demand for electricity for air conditioning is expected to triple by 2050 – with the global fleet increasing from 1.8 to 5.6 billion devices, or ten air conditioners sold every second for thirty years.
Adaptation and decarbonization are therefore clearly contradictory: adapting to a hotter world means cooling ever more bodies, housing, warehouses. This is the limit of any technofix.
No machine will exempt us from the questions that Weinberg rightly believed he could get around – political questions: what should we cool first, artificial intelligences or those of schoolchildren? Are we refreshing the present at the cost of a hotter future? And who stands behind the air-conditioned window, while others stay outside?
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