This Congressional Majority Is Brought To You By Air Conditioning

 

This time of year when — after a blizzard or two — I inevitably receive a phone call from my desert-dwelling relatives inquiring about the weather. Once I inform them of the local temperature or how much snow is on the ground, their reaction generally implies that I must travel with a team of sled dogs equipped with emergency brandy barrels and live in an igloo. I respond that – thanks to our pre-human ancestors – we have learned to harness the awesome power of fire; however freezing it may be outside, the water is still liquid in my home and the temperature quite comfortable. With the awkwardness of the conversation having reached its peak, we generally move on to how the kids are doing.

After a recent such conversation, I began thinking more about modern civilization’s ability to keep the inside at around seventy degrees no matter the conditions outside. When I say seventy degrees I’m referring to Fahrenheit, of course. With Celsius I find it’s easy to remember freezing at zero and boiling at one-hundred, but what thinking person can make sense out of anything in between? Yes, not the first time I have bashed the metric system.

Anyway, mastering climate control during cold weather has been a specialty of mankind ever since Trog learned to knock flint and make fire at 123 Cave Lane, but making it cooler during hot weather is a relatively recent phenomenon. For instance, my house was built in 1940, originally with two screen porches for eating, visiting, and sleeping during warm weather since operating outside a stuffy house was the best option at the time. Since then, my home has been outfitted with central air and those porches — no longer needed — were converted into an extra bedroom and a bathroom (please contact me if you want any advice on the wrong way to turn screen porches into rooms).

population2This transformation of taming the indoors during hot weather has all occurred within living memory. The advent of air conditioning a few decades ago made what were once intolerably hot areas more livable and contributed to one of the greatest mass migrations of human populations since the Visigoths moved into Roman territory. To make this point, here is the population by decade in America’s hottest Viagra party, also known as the state of Arizona (sorry, I can’t help myself, it’s my relatives who live there and give me a hard time during winter).

I don’t think that it is a coincidence that Arizona reached a population of one million at the same time that home air conditioning became widely available. Arizona is not alone among Southern states with major population gains over the last few decades and with these increases in people comes additional House representation. Looking at states that gained and lost House seats in the 2010 election, a clear pattern emerges of conservative-leaning states in the South adding congressional seats and liberal leaning states in the North losing congressional seats. This shift is not limited to the recent census and has occurred for decades.

So, a question: is the makeup of the 114th Congress largely the product of people obtaining the ability to keep the thermostat at seventy no matter what the heat index reaches outside? Who would be Speaker if those in desert and semi-tropical areas still had to sweat their way though summer?

2010map

States gaining House seats in blue; states losing House seats in green.

Graphic from Census Bureau.

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  1. user_428379 Coolidge
    user_428379
    @AlSparks

    Air conditioning is one of the most under-rated technological changes of the mid-twentieth century.  It’s had a large effect.

    As for the migration of people from the Northeast to the Southeast and Southwest, or from California to the Southwest, that’s been a mixed bag.  It’s changed the politics of Nevada from red to purple.  New Mexico has always tended blue.

    And Washington DC itself changed.  Prior to the 1960’s, Congress didn’t remain in session as long, especially in the summer.  And prior to herbicides like DDT, it was mosquito infested, and unhealthy during the summer.  Congressmen and Senators went back home to their constituents, and not just to fund raise.  It was before campaign finance rules that now require them to spend so much time at it.

    I read an article in the Washington Post (over ten years old; can’t easily find it) on how air conditioning changed social patterns in the South.  During the summer, people used to spend time on their open air porches during hot sweltering evenings.  In neighborhoods, where everyone was outside due to the hotter temperatures inside, neighbors used to talk to each other more.  They were more social.

    I’m not sure the migration of people within a country really changes the politics, overall.  The out migration of California has to do more with the economy within that state than it does air conditioning.

    • #1
  2. Ricochet Inactive
    Ricochet
    @PleatedPantsForever

    Al Sparks:And Washington DC itself changed. Prior to the 1960′s, Congress didn’t remain in session as long, especially in the summer.

    I think you found one of the downsides of air conditioning.

    • #2
  3. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Pleated Pants Forever: their reaction generally implies that I must travel with a team of sled dogs equipped with emergency brandy barrels and live in an igloo.

    The correct reply being, “oh it’s not for emergencies.”

    • #3
  4. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    I often claim only three things make Houston, TX and its environs truly habitable:  modern medicine, pesticides, and air conditioning.

    Absent the first two malaria, yellow fever, and other insect-borne diseases would be endemic.

    Absent the second, you would spend seven months a year walking around in a heat and humidity-imposed stupor.

    I say, thank you God, for placing me in the late 2oth and early 21st centuries where I can enjoy these bounties. And enjoy avoiding the Michigan winters of my childhood without undue suffering.

    Seawriter

    • #4
  5. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    One of my great fascinations is the near constant discussion of weather at a time when weather has almost no impact on daily life.  Sitting in a 70 degree office and complaining about how hot or cold it is on the other side of the window is truly odd behavior.

    But I suppose weather is the only thing one can talk about without getting called to HR these days.

    • #5
  6. Vectorman Inactive
    Vectorman
    @Vectorman

    If we subtracted illegals, California would probably be (-2) green.

    • #6
  7. user_86050 Inactive
    user_86050
    @KCMulville

    Of course, I will make the obligatory comment about how they nailed the windows shut in Independence Hall, during the hot and humid days in Philadelphia, so that the Founders would be motivated to get their business done as soon as possible. They couldn’t legislate fast enough.

    I’m telling you, this country would benefit if Washington DC had an electrical power failure that lasted several months.

    • #7
  8. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    As for politics, I think air conditioning stoked the desire for a world without discomfort.  In other words, air conditioning put us on square 87.

    chutes-and-ladders-old-1979-board

    • #8
  9. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Pleated Pants Forever: Is the makeup of the 114th Congress largely the product of people obtaining the ability to keep the thermostat at seventy no matter what the heat index reaches outside? Who would be Speaker if those in desert and semi-tropical areas still had to sweat their way though summer?

    On the other hand, air conditioning also makes Washington, DC – that muggy, malarial swamp – a more comfortable place to be. That can’t be good.

    Who would want to move to Washington, DC, without air conditioning? Fewer people, is my guess.

    Anyone up for sponsoring a green energy bill that would ban air conditioning from Washington, DC?

    • #9
  10. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Casey:As for politics, I think air conditioning stoked the desire for a world without discomfort. In other words, air conditioning put us on square 87.

    Well, what are we supposed to do, desire a world with discomfort?

    Forgive me, but the only reason for bearing avoidable discomfort now is the hopes that it’ll pay off in greater rewards sometime in the future. Fetishizing discomfort for its own sake is sick, and I wonder whether the conservatives who do it fully realize how counterproductive discomfort can be.

    • #10
  11. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    Fetishizing discomfort

    Let me break this down:

    It is life.  There will be discomfort.  We can’t legislate it out of existence.  That people think they can is the fault of air conditioning.  This can best be illustrated by a 1970s Chutes and Ladders board.

    It’s perfectly logical!

    • #11
  12. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Casey:

    It is life. There will be discomfort. We can’t legislate it out of existence.

    To quote George Bernard Shaw:

    A reasonable man adapts to his environment.  An unreasonable man forces his environment to adapt to him. Therefore, all progress is due to unreasonable men.

    Seawriter

    • #12
  13. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Seawriter:

    all progress is due to unreasonable men.

    • #13
  14. Devereaux Inactive
    Devereaux
    @Devereaux

    Interestingly, the degree of discomfort we experience is directly related to how much of it we are exposed to.

    So, if you live in 70 degrees all the time, exposure to any other temperature becomes “uncomfortable”. But if you live in OTHER temperatures, they become “normal” so they don’t bother you nearly as much. So, eg, when I came home from the jungle, I had been regualrly experiencing days over 100 degrees. When I got home I was sitting with my dad in out houe talking and I had goose bumps and was shivering. The temperature was 72, but it was a good 30+ degrees colder than I was accustomed to. And while there the 100+ degree days didn’t seem bad.

    • #14
  15. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Devereaux:Interestingly, the degree of discomfort we experience is directly related to how much of it we are exposed to.

    Depends on the kind of discomfort we’re experiencing.

    Humans can, over time, acclimate to hot or cold conditions. But generalizing temperature acclimation to any and all discomforts may not hold. Some discomforts are eminently bearable in small amounts, but become disproportionately more unbearable when they occur frequently, rather than infrequently.

    • #15
  16. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    Fetishizing discomfort for its own sake…

    “An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.” – George Bernard Shaw

    • #16
  17. Illiniguy Member
    Illiniguy
    @Illiniguy

    Pleated Pants Forever:

    Al Sparks:And Washington DC itself changed. Prior to the 1960′s, Congress didn’t remain in session as long, especially in the summer.

    I think you found one of the downsides of air conditioning.

    I believe it was the immortal Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen who is credited with saying that the greatest threat to ever befall our Republic came on the day they installed air conditioning in the Capitol building.

    • #17
  18. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    anonymous:

    Pleated Pants Forever: When I say seventy degrees I’m referring to Fahrenheit, of course. With Celsius I find it’s easy to remember freezing at zero and boiling at one-hundred, but what thinking person can make sense out of anything in between?

    Thirty is hot. Twenty is nice. Ten is chilly, and zero is ice.

    And 90’s a watched pot
    100 makes rice?

    • #18
  19. user_82762 Inactive
    user_82762
    @JamesGawron

    PPF,

    An astoundingly interesting hypothesis. Now we might add to Washington DC’s description as the city with Northern Charm and Southern Efficiency. Washington DC is the city of Northern insulation and Southern compressors. The compressors are expanding rapidly and the insulators are leaking heat.

    Lord Kelvin would love it.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #19
  20. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    anonymous:

    Pleated Pants Forever: When I say seventy degrees I’m referring to Fahrenheit, of course. With Celsius I find it’s easy to remember freezing at zero and boiling at one-hundred, but what thinking person can make sense out of anything in between?

    Thirty is hot. Twenty is nice. Ten is chilly, and zero is ice.

    Sixteen will get you twenty.

    Oh wait, you were referring to temperature.

    My mistake.

    • #20
  21. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    James Gawron:Lord Kelvin would love it.

    Forget the Metric System. I really want societies to embrace Kelvin! It makes so much more sense in so many ways than Celsius or Fahrenheit.

    • #21
  22. Vectorman Inactive
    Vectorman
    @Vectorman

    Misthiocracy:

    James Gawron:Lord Kelvin would love it.

    Forget the Metric System. I really want societies to embrace Kelvin! It makes so much more sense in so many ways than Celsius or Fahrenheit.

    I remember when Celsius was called Centigrade.  If you want to forget the Metric system, you need to hold out for Rankine instead of Kelvin. ;)

    • #22
  23. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Misthiocracy: I really want societies to embrace Kelvin! It makes so much more sense in so many ways than Celsius or Fahrenheit.

    There you go again.  Embracing absolutes.

    Seawriter

    • #23
  24. user_581526 Inactive
    user_581526
    @BrianSkinn

    Seawriter:

    There you go again. Embracing absolutes.

    Loving the science jokes!!

    I think air conditioning has been a major factor in technological advancement, as well as having sociological influence.  For example, modern computing would be impossible without central cooling. Server farms generate a tremendous amount of heat, and simple indoor/outdoor air circulation probably wouldn’t keep them sufficiently cool, especially in hot/humid climes in summer.

    Also, I wouldn’t be nearly as productive in summer without A/C. If I get too warm, my brain mushifies and writing becomes a thinky too hard not wanty do I sleep now.

    • #24
  25. user_129539 Inactive
    user_129539
    @BrianClendinen

    I have said it before and so has many in my family, if it were not for pest control and air condition no one would actually want to come to Florida except for the winter.  I actually think air condition and pest control might almost have as much to do with the population growth of warmer areas as politics.

    • #25
  26. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Brian Clendinen:I actually think air condition and pest control might almost have as much to do with the population growth of warmer areas as politics.

    I think air conditioning and pest control have more to do with population growth than politics.  I did not move to Texas because of its politics.  I moved here because it is warm in the winter and there were jobs here.

    But . . . if you move for jobs, you tend to have an ethic which makes you more conservative. If you move somewhere based on their great welfare bennies and safety net, you are bound to be more liberal.

    So, working types define whether a state is red or blue.  The more workers, the redder, the more loafers, the bluer.

    Seawriter

    • #26
  27. Rocket Surgeon Inactive
    Rocket Surgeon
    @RocketSurgeon

    Al Sparks:Air conditioning is one of the most under-rated technological changes of the mid-twentieth century. It’s had a large effect.

    As for the migration of people from the Northeast to the Southeast and Southwest, or from California to the Southwest, that’s been a mixed bag. It’s changed the politics of Nevada from red to purple. New Mexico has always tended blue.

    And Washington DC itself changed. Prior to the 1960′s, Congress didn’t remain in session as long, especially in the summer. And prior to herbicides like DDT, it was mosquito infested, and unhealthy during the summer. Congressmen and Senators went back home to their constituents, and not just to fund raise. It was before campaign finance rules that now require them to spend so much time at it.

    I read an article in the Washington Post (over ten years old; can’t easily find it) on how air conditioning changed social patterns in the South. During the summer, people used to spend time on their open air porches during hot sweltering evenings. In neighborhoods, where everyone was outside due to the hotter temperatures inside, neighbors used to talk to each other more. They were more social.

    I’m not sure the migration of people within a country really changes the politics, overall. The out migration of California has to do more with the economy within that state than it does air conditioning.

    • #27
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