This new technology could help cool people down—without electricity
As climate change brings more extreme heat, air conditioning use is going to skyrocket, baking the planet even more. What if there were a way to cool without making warming worse?
When Rebecca Sunenshine moved to Phoenix, Arizona, her first electric bill shocked her. “I called the utility and said, ‘You must have made a mistake.’ Because I think it was a $400 or $500 bill,” says Sunenshine, who is the medical director for Disease Control with the Maricopa County Health Department. “And they said, ‘Did you just move here?’”
The utility hadn’t erred. Air-conditioning accounts for about a quarter of Arizonans’ energy use, more than four times the national average. And it’s not a luxury. Without air conditioning, summer heat in Phoenix can be fatal. Last year, Maricopa County recorded 323 heat-related deaths—a record for the county. “We've had the highest number we've ever seen several years in a row,” says Sunenshine. The county is currently on track to exceed last year’s toll.
Extreme temperatures haven’t been confined to the Southwest. June was the hottest month ever recorded in North America. Early in July, an unprecedented heat wave claimed nearly 200 lives in Oregon and Washington, and another 600 people or more are thought to have died in British Columbia from the heat.
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