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Can you live without airconditioning?


About James

I have lived a lot of years and the more years I have lived, the fewer answers i have found. I hope that by engaging here we can discover some answers together.


Up until the 1970s and later, we lived without any form of airconditioning - let alone reverse-cycle.

There is a lot of talk these days about energy prices, specially on the east coast of Australia. There is no doubt that the cost of energy has increased over the years and that this is contributing to the financial stress of some families and older people.

Could you live without airconditioning? Many don't remember life without it.

Could you live without airconditioning? Many don't remember life without it. Picture: Shutterstock

On a unit to unit basis, the increases have not been as substantial as many people think. When tracked against income growth, energy prices per unit of power have increased far less than people think.

What has increased more sharply is the size of our mortgages, putting more pressure on our capacity to pay for energy, no matter the cost. Our overall consumption has also risen sharply.

It is the last of these points that I will comment on here. In the 1950s, the average Australian home had one fridge, one television, a small number of appliances and no airconditioner. In 2017, the average  house has two fridges and a freezer, four televisions, any number of appliances – including a number of computers and airconditioning.

For most people, airconditioning is the most significant use of energy, followed by fridges and heaters. Temperature control, which was unusual in 1960, is ubiquitous in 2017. Almost every house has it and every one of those houses is paying for it. Kill the temperature control - especially the airconditioning -and your power bills will plummet.

But if you are like most people, your response will be, ‘but we cannot live without air-conditioning!’

Quite clearly, that is not so. Up until the 1970s and for some, the 1990s or later, you WERE living without any form of airconditioning, let alone reverse-cycle.

Do you remember life before airconditioning in the home? What about in your car? Do you remember waiting for the sea breeze and sleeping with the windows open? Do you remember having the side vents in your car open, or the windows down with the breeze blowing in your face?

I do!!

I remember this so vividly, that I know I can live well without reverse-cycle airconditioning.

I like air conditioning, at least during the waking hours, but i know I can live without it, because I remember doing so, as do many of you.

Sometimes I think we have got soft. Sure, climate change is on the way and our environments are warming, but this does not mean it is any hotter overall, or that (at this stage) the maximums are significantly higher or lower overall. What it means is that there are more hot days now and there will be even more in the future.

I recall watching Rocky III, that dreadful but entertaining movie, and Rocky asking his trainer why he could not beat Clubber Lang (Mr T). The trainer responded with: ‘Rock, you did the worse thing any fighter can do; you got civilised!’.

I am not suggesting that any of us should be fighters, but we certainly have become civilised, or as I would put it, soft.

The question is, can we afford all of this civilisation?

Either way, I do remember life without airconditioning. Do You?

Do you remember life when you only had one fridge at home? Do you remember having no computers at home? Do you remember having just one phone at home that drew no power at all and worked even when the electricity was out? Do you remember life before you had a dryer, a washing machine, and microwave as well as the oven? Do you remember life before dishwashers?

Many will not remember these times.

Some, if not most, will.

Progress is grand, but it comes at a cost, which includes more pollution, a warming climate and ever-increasing power bills.

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