The Earth is More Hospitable Due to Air Conditioning

Shrouded in technological cocoons, people forget how hostile the earth can be. With rivers dammed, hurricanes plotted, and rain shed, nature's powerful forces are reduced to curiosities and tourist attractions. No invention has spurred this domestication of the environment more than the air conditioner. It allows humans to comfortably reside in areas once feared. With the turn of a thermostat, placation flows from a central duct, and humanity reigns supreme.

Tragic? Who knows. We shall leave such philosophizing to the poets. For the rest, air conditioner is a god-send, a life-savior. But how did it come to be? Did it come, like fire, from a wayward Grecian god? Or, like pain and anger, from an opened Pandora's box? There we go philosophizing again.

Air conditioning, of sorts, originated in the depths of ancient Mesopotamia and Eastern Asia. The Chinese used water-powered fan wheels, the Persians used wind towers, the Muslims used cistern wind catchers, and the Egyptians used ventilators. AC was mostly relegated to temporary snatches of cooling wind and fresh water.

Several thousand years later, thing hadn't changed much. Basically air conditioners still blew air over cold ice. However, men such as Benjamin Franklin, Michael Faraday and John Gorrie pioneered the development of the modern air conditioner, one that depended upon chemical refrigeration and evaporative cooling. Gorrie, in fact, used his air conditioner, one that compressed and liquefied ammonia, in his Florida hospital. But something was missing, a breakthrough was lacking.

In stepped Willis Haviland Carrier, graduate of Cornell University with an M.D. in Engineering. In 1902, Carrier created an evaporative cooling air conditioner used to stabilize the temperature and humidity of a room to control the lithographing process of the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Co. Enthused with his innovation, Carrier began spreading his air conditioners like flying daisy seeds and formed the Carrier Engineering Corporation in 1915, becoming the first proverbial HVAC contractor.

However, with rudimentary air conditioning, repair was still required. Carrier, and inventors Stuart Cramer and I. H. Hardeman, crafted new and more efficient air conditioners. Carrier switched to a centrifugal compressor, which used fan blades as opposed to reciprocating compressors to supply power. Thomas J. Midgley, Jr., added the finishing touches in 1928 when he introduced his chlorofluorocarbon creation, Freon, beating more toxic refrigerants such as ammonia and propane.

Built upon the shoulders of such giants, air conditioners and refrigerants cooled brows, froze food, and made life generally more bearable. For the first time in years, people began flocking to the South, rather than running away. Air conditioning changed the architectural, engineering, foods, transportation, social welfare and chemical industries, along with many others. Countries in Central America, in Indonesia, in Northern Africa, in the Middle East and other areas now sustain massive populations, due in a large part to air conditioning and refrigeration.