this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2026
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I was going to make snark remarks on the fact that a lot of people live in hostile environments and it's not super sustainable because we need climate control year round in every building and cars, but I live in Canada and it would be pretty hypocritical given the fact that I need climate control most of the year too. In fact, sometimes in winter when I watch the endless ballet of machinery burning oil to plow and move the snow, I wonder why we go through such trouble to live here.
I guess we get used to a lot of things. However 42C is too much for my taste. I go vacationing in the Caribbean where it's usually around 30C, and it's pretty much my limit.
What's funny is that I used to live in Phoenix for a year. I would happily take the higher dry heat over the almost as high wet heat. When I lived there it was like walking into an oven and you could feel your sweat pours opening. But the sweating evaporated quickly and provided cooling as long as you stayed hydrated. Shade works and you can see how the natives protected themselves from the sun and had passive cooling that worked. In the wet heat it is more like Satan is pissing on you and you have no hope. Your body is dumping sweat and it does nothing because the humidity is too high to evaporate. Shade? Worthless beyond the immediate sun protection. A few degrees at most. Without AC you will only cool with high winds or a fan.
Fun fact I never knew until living there: when it hits 112 (and it does) the airport has to partially shut down and divert all non-high-temp aircraft. The tarmac is so hot it will pop normal tires at a high rate. So unless you have the expensive higher temp rated tires for planes based out of high temp areas, then you can't land there when it is too hot.
I mean, we don't need it. People survived for hundreds of thousands of years without AC in harsh climates. Our adaptability is one of the reasons we're the dominant species.
Those temps are not abnormal for that part of Texas in the summer. We did have a few years of relatively cool summers, though.
I grew up in Texas. I am peak millennial (dead center of the generation). I remember growing up in Houston and seeing dallas would get light snow most winters and "artic blasts" were never a thing. Heat waves never got above 104. It was a record just hitting it, and was unheard to go above it before that.
Now? Ever year it is all but guaranteed it will get above 104. Normal snow in dallas? Nope. Ice storms from polar vortex collapse only.
This is what climate change looks like. These temps are absolutely abnormal when you look at the hundred plus years of recorded climate data. Our adaption as a species is our technology. AC.
Less our dynamic adaptability, and more due to our evolutionary adaptations. We have several super-powers when it comes to working hard in the heat. They mainly don't work in high humidity, however.
As a species, we don't need it, but as individuals we do.