The former Sackett & Wilhelm printers’ building in Brooklyn, the place where Willis Carrier first put air-conditioning into practice in 1902. Image Credit: Stan Cox.
This summer, we’re teaming up with our friends at The Museum of the City of New York to offer “Fast, Cool & Convenient: Meeting New Yorkers’ High Demands,” our free three-part talk series supported by a grant from The New York Council for the Humanities.
Tomorrow night (Thursday the 11th) the Academy will host the second of these three events, entitled COOL: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned City. The speaker will be Stan Cox, Ph.D., research coordinator and climate change expert at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. The event will begin at 6:30pm; please register in advance here.
This week, Dr. Cox has guest-authored “Is Air-Conditioning Heating Up Our Environment?” for the Academy’s Urban Health Matters blog. You’ll find a link to the post here. Enjoy, and we hope to see you tomorrow evening!
Books, Health and History 
Yes it is. Must be. So does the operation of all our refrigerators (quite apart from the freon and other coolants released into the atmosphere). But I’ve never seen any data about how much all that contributes to local (or global) warming. Just like leaving a fan on in a room when no one’s there actually heats the room unnecessarily.
Most folks have no idea about basic science underlying all our comforts and conveniences.