When was air conditioning invented?
Andy Lund for APM Studios
We’re back with a hot new episode on staying cool! We’re talking about the history of air conditioning, our favorite frosty invention.
Joy and co-host Maeve meet a sassy talking ice unicorn who is trying to find a place to chill out (and not melt!). Find out what chocolate, chewing gum and macaroni have to do with the invention of air conditioning. Plus, hear about some eco-friendly ways to beat the heat (splash pads, anyone?).
First Things First is back, too! Find out which was invented first: frozen yogurt, slushies or snow cones. Find all this frozen goodness, and a peek into why school buses are yellow, in this episode of Forever Ago!
Audio Transcript
Download transcript (PDF)
JOY DOLO: Ah, this is officially the hottest I've ever been in my life. I think my brain is melting.
MAEVE: I know. Me, too. Remind me again why we thought it was a good idea to go for a walk when it's 100 degrees outside?
JOY DOLO: Because sitting inside is so boring. And besides, where else can you see something like that?
VENDOR: Omelettes. We got omelettes here. Get your omelettes.
MAEVE: Wait, is that guy making eggs on the sidewalk?
JOY DOLO: Yeah, it's a restaurant called Omelettes Eat. He does a really good bacon and cheese.
[HONKS]
Whoa, whoa! Watch out for that truck.
[SCREECHES]
[CLANGS]
BROWN: That's it. You think you can sneak into my truck and use my air conditioning for free? Get out and stay out.
[ENGINE STARTS]
WILBUR: Easy, Brown. [SHIVERS]
MAEVE: Are you seeing what I'm seeing?
JOY DOLO: You mean that giant ice sculpture of a unicorn laying on the street?
[GASPING]
WILBUR: Help me. Is there an ice doctor in the house? [COUGHING]
MAEVE: We have to do something. He's melting away.
WILBUR: I'm too young to die and too beautiful to melt. I still have so much I need to do, so many fancy corporate events and weddings I was scheduled to attend. [GASPS]
JOY DOLO: OK, OK, OK. We can handle this. We just have to think of somewhere really cold to take him.
WILBUR: Hurry. My heart is almost completely melted. How about it? I'm just an incredibly good-looking horse. [GASPS]
[FUNKY MUSIC]
JOY DOLO: Welcome to Forever Ago from APM Studios. I'm Joy Dolo.
MAEVE: And I'm Maeve. Today, we're talking about--
WILBUR: No, we don't have time for introductions.
MAEVE: Today, we're talking about air conditioning.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, we've got a little problem here. Actually, it's kind of a big problem. We have to save this massive ice sculpture of a unicorn from melting into a puddle on the hottest day of the year. Maeve, we can figure this out. How do you usually stay cool when it's really hot? Do you eat ice cream, go to the pool, lay in front of a fan?
MAEVE: Usually, I like to sit around in my house with air conditioning.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, where is your favorite place to be in air conditioning?
MAEVE: Air conditioning?
JOY DOLO: Yeah.
MAEVE: Like any place?
JOY DOLO: Any place.
MAEVE: Aquariums are fun.
JOY DOLO: Ooh, aquariums, yeah, because you can walk around and see the fish, and all that?
MAEVE: I like zoos, like places where you could see animals, but there's this air conditioning.
JOY DOLO: Do you ever feel like you're too air conditioned, like you're too cold?
MAEVE: Well, that's why you could just put on more layers.
[LAUGHS]
JOY DOLO: So even though it's hot outside, I can go inside of the cool aquarium.
MAEVE: Although when I'm at my house, the air conditioning usually doesn't get too cold because my dad's a freeze baby, so--
JOY DOLO: Oh, really? It does give a temperature that--
MAEVE: Yeah, it's usually, like, at a nice neutral, warm, but not too warm.
JOY DOLO: I like movie theaters because they're always really cold any time of the year. And so, like, I always bring a coat or a jacket. Like in the summer, I'll bring a jacket and just throw it on because it's like this is too cold. How can I enjoy this movie if my teeth are chattering? It's going to bother everyone. You know what I mean?
MAEVE: I've never been that cold in movie theaters.
JOY DOLO: Mhm.
MAEVE: Like maybe I'll have a hoodie, but I've never been, like, freezing.
JOY DOLO: Sometimes I'll go to a museum because they really crank up the air conditioning in there. It's so cold it gives you goosebumps. [SHIVERING] Wait. Maeve, a museum.
MAEVE: Yeah, let's take the ice unicorn there.
WILBUR: I have a name, you know? It's "Wil-brr."
MAEVE: OK, Wilbur.
WILBUR: No, no, "Wil-brr." Brr. Like ice. Anyone?
PA ANNOUNCER: Arriving at very hot downtown area.
MAEVE: Joy, this is our chance. The next bus isn't for a half hour. We've got to get on this one.
JOY DOLO: All right, if you just grab that end and I'll lift this side. [GRUNTS] He's just so heavy and slippery. Ah, OK, made it.
DRIVER: That'll be $2 each and $3 for the unicorn.
JOY DOLO: Sorry, this is Wilbur. We found him in the middle of the street because someone kicked him out of a truck. And pretty soon, he's just going to be a gorgeous-talking horse. And so we're taking him to the museum because they have great air conditioning there and--
DRIVER: Air conditioning? [COUGHS] Who needs it? Humans have been staying cool for thousands of years without [RETCHES] air conditioning.
MAEVE: Now that you mention it, I think I read something about how people living in really hot places like the Middle East kept cool.
DRIVER: Glad you asked. And take a seat. The ancient Persians started building these huge structures on top of their palaces about 3,000 years ago to stay cool. They were called baudgir or windcatcher. And they kind of look like chimney but with holes all around the outside instead of on top. They basically scooped up cool breezes and funneled them down into buildings and over underground pools of water.
WILBUR: And you get no roughhousing on the box, OK?
JOY DOLO: Oh, yeah, windcatchers. I've heard of these. There was this one study where scientists found that windcatchers can cut indoor temperatures by about 10 degrees.
DRIVER: And that's just one example. In the 1800s in India, they had all these different devices that they use to keep cool. Some buildings had a big, single-bladed fan attached to the ceiling that a servant would swing back and forth like a pendulum to kick up a breeze. And they also had this new fangled invention called the thermantidote. Got it?
WILBUR: Let me guess, an antidote to the heat.
DRIVER: An antidote to the heat. It was just a barrel with a fan inside of it and a wet mat attached to the outside. A servant would crank the fan to pull breezes in from the outside. Simple and elegant, much like my demeanor.
[HONKS]
MAEVE: Sure, these are all really impressive. But one of the problems with these early strategies is that they were just moving the air around. They weren't cooling it down or controlling the humidity.
WILBUR: Humidity?
JOY DOLO: Yeah, humidity. It's how wet to the air feels. Like you know when you walk outside in the summer and it feels like being wrapped up in a warm, wet blanket?
MAEVE: Yeah, I know that feeling. Humidity makes warm air feel even hotter. It's because humans cool themselves by sweating. The sweat draws the heat off our skin and then evaporates into the air, taking the heat with it. So the more moisture there is in the air, the harder it is for our sweat to evaporate. And that makes it harder for us to cool down.
DRIVER: Next stop-- the science museum. Take your ice horse and skedaddle.
WILBUR: Excuse me. I am a unicorn.
JOY DOLO: Thank you. Wilbur, let's get you inside. It's hotter than an armadillo's armpit out here.
MAEVE: Hello, anyone here?
[THUDS]
Oh, it's so nice and cool in here. Hey, Joy, check this out, a whole exhibit all about air conditioning.
JOY DOLO: Ooh, push the button.
[BEEPS]
CURATOR: Hello. As you wander the perfectly air-conditioned museum halls, I'm sure you're wondering how did this lifesaving and world-changing technology come to be?
WILBUR: I was wondering that.
[CHUCKLES]
CURATOR: We thought so. Around the mid-1700s, new advances in science and technology meant that people could start producing goods like cloth and iron in huge quantities inside factories. It was the beginning of a period called the Industrial Revolution.
MAEVE: Yeah, the Industrial Revolution totally changed everything. Suddenly, people can manufacture products really quickly instead of making them at home by hand. These factories were crammed with steam-powered machinery. And usually, they didn't have windows that open or really any ventilation at all. So they were hot, really hot.
And the heat wasn't just bad for the workers. It was bad for business. Chocolate melted into puddles. Chewing gum got all gooey and sticky. And macaroni wouldn't dry. Factory owners realized they needed a solution, a way to control the heat and humidity.
JOY DOLO: Mhm, I could really go for a macaroni sundae with extra hot fudge right now. Is that a thing? Did I just invent it?
MAEVE: Ahem, as I was saying, factory owners were desperately looking for ways to cool their buildings, so they could keep making goods like chocolate and chewing gum in the summertime. And that's where your favorite American engineer comes in, the incomparable Willis Haviland Carrier.
[DISCO MUSIC]
WILLIS CARRIER: Oh, hello, back here behind you.
ALL: Aah!
WILBUR: Ghost.
ALL: Where'd you come from? Who is that?
WILBUR: Wait a second. It's a hologram.
WILLIS CARRIER: Hi, I'm Willis Carrier. Some of you might know me as the father of air conditioning, but I was really building on a ton of inventions and scientific advances that people came up with decades before me. I was born in 1876 to a farming family, but I was fascinated with machinery and how things are built.
So I went to college. After I graduated, I started working for an engineering company in New York. And in 1902, the owner of a printing factory called us up with a big problem.
[RINGING]
FACTORY OWNER: Hello?
WILLIS CARRIER: Hi.
FACTORY OWNER: Hello. We've got a big problem here. The factory has been very humid this summer. And it's making our paper swell.
WILLIS CARRIER: Oh, my god.
FACTORY OWNER: No, no, not swell like good swell up. It's getting all wet and bloated. Whenever we try to print on it, the images are all blurry. If we don't find some way to control the humidity, it will be ruined.
JOY DOLO: Willis had to figure out a way to make the air drier and cooler. First, he tried using some chemicals called desiccants, but that just filled the air with tiny salt droplets. And he later wrote, "ruined two perfectly good pairs of shoes."
[SNIFFS]
WILLIS CARRIER: I loved those loafers. Anyway, I was waiting for a train in Pittsburgh on a very foggy night when suddenly it hit me. Fog is really just a cloud of wet air. But air can only hold so much water before it condenses or turns back from a gas into water droplets, just like what you see on the outside of your window in the morning.
And here is the kicker-- the colder the air, the less water it can hold. So I hurried back to my workshop and designed a machine that created a cold fog, which forced the water in the air to condense. So all that wetness left the air and became just a little bit of water. Ta-da, drier and colder air. At first, people were a little skeptical.
FACTORY OWNER: Adding water to lower the humidity of the air? Why I've never heard of a more ridiculous thing in my life?
WILLIS CARRIER: But pretty soon, factories everywhere started installing my machine. I called it the Apparatus for Treating Air.
[JEERS]
CROWD: Boo! Boo!
WILLIS CARRIER: Yeah, OK, not the catchiest name. Later, it would become known as air conditioning, a technology that would change the world.
JOY DOLO: I know a lot of people didn't grow up with air conditioning in their houses. And some people still don't have it. Has your air conditioner ever broken down?
MAEVE: I know my mom has, like, a really old ancient air conditioner that doesn't work.
JOY DOLO: Yeah.
MAEVE: Like it's ancient, like older than her.
JOY DOLO: Ooh, shots fired.
[LAUGHTER]
MAEVE: Shots fired out of the air conditioner.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, if you could come up with a new name for an air conditioner, what would you name it?
MAEVE: If I were to name it, I'd name it the Airy Coolie 3000 Purifier.
JOY DOLO: Airy Coolie 3000 Purifier.
MAEVE: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: If it had a jingle, how would it go?
MAEVE: (SINGING) The Airy Coolie 3000 Purifier.
JOY DOLO: (SINGING) The Airy Coolie 3000 Purifier. Oh, yes, we got to get a jingle in a beat under that. [CHUCKLES]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) The Airy Coolie 3000 Purifier.
[FUNKY MUSIC]
OK, time to take a little break for--
(SINGING) First Things First.
It's the game where we try to put things in order from oldest to newest. And today's items are froyo, slushies, and snow cones. Do you know froyo?
MAEVE: It's frozen yogurt. Yeah, I know what it is.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, dope, dope. So now we have to guess which one came first, which came second, and which came most recently in history-- froyo, slushies, and snow cones.
MAEVE: I think it's snow cones--
JOY DOLO: OK.
MAEVE: --froyo, and slushies.
JOY DOLO: In that order? Why would you say in that order?
MAEVE: Well, snow cones is snow in coloring or taste. So it's just someone accidentally left out, like, their smoothie or something in the snow or dropped it, and was like, I'm going to eat out the snow, anyways.
[CHUCKLES]
JOY DOLO: And they had snow back in like forever.
MAEVE: Yeah, I mean, it's always at the ice age.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, hello, ice age. Yeah, yeah.
MAEVE: And then froyo because yogurt-- I feel like yogurt has been here for a while. It's just like aged milk in a certain way. And then they would freeze it and eat it.
JOY DOLO: Oh, yeah, that's smart. Yeah, it looks like it's been around, too.
MAEVE: Isn't it slushy like syrup and cold?
JOY DOLO: Yes.
MAEVE: It's syrup. And I feel like syrup has been invented for a long while after.
JOY DOLO: Probably the most recent history. That makes sense.
MAEVE: What do you think?
JOY DOLO: OK, so here's the thing. So I'll do snow cones, slushies, froyo.
MAEVE: All right.
JOY DOLO: That's the order.
MAEVE: Yeah, and who wins.
JOY DOLO: Yeah.
MAEVE: Imagine we're both wrong about snow cones being first.
JOY DOLO: I know.
MAEVE: And it's like the opposite. And we're like, oh, well, dang.
JOY DOLO: Well, dang. Well, I guess we're fired. [CHUCKLES]
MAEVE: Oh, no. Well, we'll hear the answers in just a bit.
JOY DOLO: We'll be right back.
[FUNKY MUSIC]
One of our absolute favorite things is when you send us your ideas for the show, because it turns out there's cool history everywhere you look. So we're going to explore some topics picked by you, our listeners. It's time for Did You Know?
IRISH: My name is Irish. And my question is, why are school buses yellow?
MAN: Did you know school buses weren't always yellow? In the late 1800s and early 1900s, kids would walk to school or ride in horse-drawn wagons. In the 1930s, as more cars and buses showed up on the roads, kids would ride in buses of all different colors.
But some folks in New York City thought it would be best for all buses to be the same color, so drivers knew to be extra careful around them. At first, they were like, well, let's paint them red, white, and blue like the American flag.
But it turns out those colors are pretty hard to see on the road. So instead, they picked up bright yellow, which became known as national school bus glossy yellow. That color stands out like a sore thumb even now.
[HONKS]
Hey, wait! That was my bus. Oh, man, I'm going to be late again. Do you have a topic you want to know more about? Send it to us at foreverago.org/contact.
[FUNKY MUSIC]
JOY DOLO: Thanks again for sending in all your great suggestions. And keep them coming.
MAEVE: We'll be right back.
[FUNKY MUSIC]
JOY DOLO: All right, Maeve, let's reveal which of our first things first is actually the oldest. OK, I have all the answers.
MAEVE: Uh-oh.
JOY DOLO: Are you ready?
MAEVE: I'm not.
JOY DOLO: First, it's snow cones.
MAEVE: Yeah, we were right.
JOY DOLO: We were totally right.
MAEVE: 1920s.
JOY DOLO: Just flavors. [CHUCKLES]
MAEVE: Oh, in history class, I love learning about the 1920s. It was favorite era.
JOY DOLO: Eating shavings of ice as a cool summer treat dates back to the mid-1800s when ice houses in New York would ship big blocks of ice south on a wagon. Historians think kids in Baltimore started following around the people moving these huge blocks of ice and asking for small shavings to keep them cool.
Pretty soon, people started flavoring these ice scraps, and a new treat was born. But it wasn't until the 1920s that someone perfected a machine for shaving ice. Samuel Bert patented one of the first machines for making snow cones and sold them at the Texas State Fair. And so next up is slushy.
MAEVE: No.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, I was right.
[LAUGHTER]
MAEVE: Curse you.
JOY DOLO: These were invented by the owner of a Dairy Queen in Kansas City. His soda fountain broke, so he improvised by putting bottles in the freezer to keep them cool. When he took them out of the freezer, he found that they were frozen and kind of slushy.
His customers love them, so he built a machine that used an old car air conditioner to create a slushy soda and mixed it with carbon dioxide to make it fizzy. First called icees, they're also called slush puppies or slurpees, depending on who you ask.
MAEVE: Slush puppies.
JOY DOLO: Have you heard of slush puppies before?
MAEVE: I recognize it, but I don't feel like I've heard it before.
JOY DOLO: I haven't either. I used to call them icees. Have you heard--
MAEVE: I heard of icees before.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, the icees. And they had them on the side of the car.
MAEVE: Not slush puppies. I mean, slush puppies sound like adorable, though.
JOY DOLO: Oh, it's cute. And then last or most recent in history is frozen yogurt. And that came out in the late 1970s. So froyo was first created in the late 1970s by an entrepreneur in New England. It was called Frogurt, and it was marketed as a healthy alternative to ice cream.
MAEVE: I think of frogs when I hear Frogurt.
JOY DOLO: Frogurt frog legs.
MAEVE: Frogurt. Frogurt. Frogurt.
JOY DOLO: It had a soft serve texture, kind of like how it does now. It really took off in popularity in the early 1980s when different manufacturers started experimenting with new flavors. So there we go. Frozen yogurt was the most recent.
MAEVE: How dare you be right.
JOY DOLO: I know. I'm rarely right, so we must rejoice in this moment. But it's interesting when they started experimenting with new flavors, when it took off, which is-- I think that's why I could never think of frozen yogurt as a plain thing. I just know it as like--
MAEVE: People were like, oh, this is working really well. Let's add taste to it.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, let's add more sugar. Make it better. Maeve, what is your favorite frozen yogurt flavor?
MAEVE: I don't think I've really had very much frozen yogurt, actually. I mostly like ice cream.
JOY DOLO: What's your favorite ice cream flavor?
MAEVE: I'd say cookies and cream.
JOY DOLO: Listen, air five, air five. One of my favorites is cookies and cream. I could eat that all day every day.
We're back with Forever Ago. I'm Joy.
MAEVE: I'm Maeve.
JOY DOLO: And we're hanging out at the science museum, learning all about the history of air conditioning.
[THUDDING]
WILBUR: Hey, who turned out the lights? Is this the glow in the dark part of the exhibit?
[DINGS]
CURATOR: Thank you for visiting the science museum. The museum is now closing. Please collect your belongings and make your way to the nearest exit. Don't even think about trying to sneak past our security guards. We're looking at you and you and you.
WILBUR: Closed? What now? I can't go back outside in this heat. You said you'd help me. Some help. [SHIVERS]
JOY DOLO: Hey, isn't there a movie theater next door? Those places are always really cold.
[SHIVERS]
WILBUR: I love the movies. I'm going to need an extra large popcorn with extra butter, blue raspberry Radler, and the biggest cherry icee they have. Speaking of which, can I borrow a few bucks?
MAEVE: Sure.
[SLURPING]
WILBUR: Aah, it's so cool in here. It's like kissing a snowman.
JOY DOLO: Ssh, it's starting.
WILBUR: Ssh yourself. I'm just here for the AC.
NARRATOR: Over the millennia, humans have faced many foes-- lions.
[ROARS]
WOMAN: Run!
NARRATOR: Volcanoes.
[ERUPTS]
[SCREAMS]
WOMAN: Run.
NARRATOR: Floods.
[SCREAMS]
WOMAN: Run!
NARRATOR: But one foe returns year after year to torment all humankind, the heat.
WOMAN: Run! Actually, that's just made it worse. How about I sit. So hot.
NARRATOR: Yeah, heat, a terrible enemy that drains humans of energy, ruins perfectly good summer days, causes dehydration, heat stroke, and even sweaty underwear syndrome, an enemy that seemed unbeatable until a little over 100 years ago, a time before TVs, when phones were new, and the first airplanes were starting to fly.
TRADE PRESENTER: Welcome, my peeps to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.
[APPLAUSE]
This gigantic fair is all about showing you the latest, the greatest tech and innovations from around the world. So hold on to your bowler hat and bonnet because I'm about to blow your mind. All right, you know how we always have to walk around or catch a ride in a horse-drawn carriage? Well, what if there were carriages that moved with no horse?
CUSTOMER: What?
TRADE PRESENTER: Yeah, it's called an automobile, I think. And it's real. Check it out.
[APPLAUSE]
Or imagine you and your homies are out at night, and it's too dark to play cards. Fun's over, right? Now, there's new technology called outdoor electric light. Oh, yeah. But the coolest innovation of all literally is about to change your world. And it's right in this room. Get ready for something called air conditioning! Hit it!
[KNOCKS]
[WHIRRING]
JOY DOLO: Ooh, so chilly. I love this. It's like kissing a snowman.
WILBUR: Hey, that's what I said.
JOY DOLO: Ssh.
NARRATOR: This was the first time many Americans felt the frosty hug of air conditioning. And they wanted more. In the 1920s, movie theaters all over the country installed air conditioning. And people packed the house to cool off.
[HAPPY MUSIC]
MAN: Sweating through your knickerbockers? Come see a movie. Which one? Who cares? It's so cool in here. We could literally show snails racing, and you'd still come because we've got air conditioning. Hazzuh!
NARRATOR: The march of air conditioning continued year after year across the nation. And by the 1960s, you could find our frosty friend in many a home.
[ROCK MUSIC]
More Americans moved to hot places like Florida and Arizona because they could, at last, keep cool wherever, whenever. Yes, humans had finally beat the heat. Or so they thought. In reality-- [TURNS OFF].
[CROWD PROTESTING]
WILBUR: What happened? It was just getting good.
ATTENDANT: Sorry, folks. The air conditioning was using too much power. Looks like we've blown a circuit.
CROWD: Boo!
MAEVE: So much for this plan. Come on, let's beat it.
WILBUR: But I have to know what happens next. Why didn't AC beat the heat? Did he learn karate [SHIVERS] or get one of those giant robot suits? [SHIVERS] Is he going to team up with tornadoes to make "heat-nadoes." [SHIVERS]
JOY DOLO: I think I know the answer. Follow me.
[ROCK MUSIC]
It's right over here, that big metal box next to the house.
MAEVE: Oh, is it not that central air conditioning unit, the kind that pumps cooler air into every room all at once?
WILBUR: Yep, let me at it. Cool me apple great and chilly savior. I'm going to hug it. Hey, what gives? This box isn't cold. [GASPS] It's actually pretty hot. This thing is broken.
JOY DOLO: Nope, it's working just fine. The rooms inside are cool. It's just that to make cold air, air conditioners release hot air outside.
WILBUR: Wait, really?
JOY DOLO: Yeah, so our cool air inside comes at a cost to the air outside. It's a small amount, but still--
WILBUR: Small price to pay.
JOY DOLO: There's more. Air conditioners run on electricity. And most of that comes from burning fossil fuels like oil and gas.
MAEVE: All right, burning fossil fuels leads to more climate change, which also leads to more heat.
JOY DOLO: And even though we're staying cool inside, what about the animals that live outside or the plants that wilt from all that extra heat? It's not really fair.
WILBUR: So heat is winning. Even when we try to keep cool at all times, heat is out there, getting stronger day after day. Oh, what do we do?
JOY DOLO: Oh, don't cry "Wil-brr."
WILBUR: I'm not crying. I am melting.
JOY DOLO: Well, there are things we can do that don't involve AC. Some cities are painting roofs white, which reflects sunlight and can cut the temperature inside by a few degrees. If you get rid of concrete and plant more trees, that also cools things down.
WILBUR: Perfect. Let's plant a bunch of trees. How long could they take to grow, 5, 10 minutes? That's nothing.
JOY DOLO: Well, trees can take years to grow. But there are things homeowners can do now. Some people are installing heat pumps, a different kind of cooling system that uses less energy. And indigenous cultures have known for a long time that building your home in hillsides helps, because being surrounded by dirt can keep things cool. So people even build homes underground like in Australia.
MAEVE: Yeah, and honestly, most of us could stand to let things get a little warmer inside. Maybe use AC less often. Instead, close all the blinds on hot days, so things don't heat up as much. And get newer windows and insulation to keep the hot air out. Personally, in summer, I like wearing tank tops and putting a wet bandanna around my head, oh, and eating ice pops.
JOY DOLO: Those are essential for summer survival. So we may never really beat the heat. It's part of life on Earth. But if we change how we think about it, we can stay cool and save the serious air conditioning for when it's really crucial, like at hospitals, grocery stores, or during heat waves.
MAEVE: Or when an ice sculpture friend is melting. Wilbur? Wilbur? Where'd you go?
WILBUR: Down here.
MAEVE: You're on puddle.
WILBUR: Yeah, I gave in and melted. Maybe we're not supposed to be super chilly all the time. Maybe ice sculptures aren't supposed to last forever, especially in summer. So I figured why not vacation as a puddle for a while? I can always freeze back to my beautiful self in the winter.
JOY DOLO: "Wil-brr," that's so enlightened of you.
WILBUR: Yeah, I may be melted, but I'm not all washed up. I've got lots of new adventures planned. Now, somebody scoop me up and take me to the water park. I have got to be part of that.
[FUNKY MUSIC]
JOY DOLO: Summer is always going to be hot. But it's amazing all the ways we've tried to keep cool over the centuries.
MAEVE: Yeah, from designing buildings that brought in cool air, to people powered fans, to eventually, air conditioning.
JOY DOLO: And as amazing as AC is, we can't rely on that alone. It's a powerful thing, but we have to look for other more eco-friendly ways to chill out too.
MAEVE: Like this splash pool at the water park. Oh, hey, here comes Wilbur down the slide.
[NEIGHS]
WILBUR: I am a water slide. Now, I'm part of the pool. I love being water. This part of the pool is really warm and kind of yellow. Brr, I like it.
JOY DOLO: You might want to float away from there. Just saying.
[FUNKY MUSIC]
This episode is written by Shahla Farzan and Sanden Totten, with additional production support from Molly Bloom, Nico Gonzalez Wisler, Anna Goldfield, Rose Dupont, Ruby Guthrie, and Anna Weggel. Sound design and theme music by Marc Sanchez.
Beth Perlman is our executive producer. We had engineering help from Jess Berg. The executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavati, Joanne Griffith, and Alex Schaffert. Thanks also to Peter Ecklund, Eric Ringham, Mickey Bloom, and Lulu.
If you have an idea for a topic that we should explore on Forever Ago, send it to us at foreverago.org/contact. It might even be featured in our Did You Know segment. We'll be back next week with a super cool episode on the Bone Wars, a ruthless rivalry over discovering and naming dinosaur fossils. See you next time. And thanks for listening.
MAEVE: I know. Me, too. Remind me again why we thought it was a good idea to go for a walk when it's 100 degrees outside?
JOY DOLO: Because sitting inside is so boring. And besides, where else can you see something like that?
VENDOR: Omelettes. We got omelettes here. Get your omelettes.
MAEVE: Wait, is that guy making eggs on the sidewalk?
JOY DOLO: Yeah, it's a restaurant called Omelettes Eat. He does a really good bacon and cheese.
[HONKS]
Whoa, whoa! Watch out for that truck.
[SCREECHES]
[CLANGS]
BROWN: That's it. You think you can sneak into my truck and use my air conditioning for free? Get out and stay out.
[ENGINE STARTS]
WILBUR: Easy, Brown. [SHIVERS]
MAEVE: Are you seeing what I'm seeing?
JOY DOLO: You mean that giant ice sculpture of a unicorn laying on the street?
[GASPING]
WILBUR: Help me. Is there an ice doctor in the house? [COUGHING]
MAEVE: We have to do something. He's melting away.
WILBUR: I'm too young to die and too beautiful to melt. I still have so much I need to do, so many fancy corporate events and weddings I was scheduled to attend. [GASPS]
JOY DOLO: OK, OK, OK. We can handle this. We just have to think of somewhere really cold to take him.
WILBUR: Hurry. My heart is almost completely melted. How about it? I'm just an incredibly good-looking horse. [GASPS]
[FUNKY MUSIC]
JOY DOLO: Welcome to Forever Ago from APM Studios. I'm Joy Dolo.
MAEVE: And I'm Maeve. Today, we're talking about--
WILBUR: No, we don't have time for introductions.
MAEVE: Today, we're talking about air conditioning.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, we've got a little problem here. Actually, it's kind of a big problem. We have to save this massive ice sculpture of a unicorn from melting into a puddle on the hottest day of the year. Maeve, we can figure this out. How do you usually stay cool when it's really hot? Do you eat ice cream, go to the pool, lay in front of a fan?
MAEVE: Usually, I like to sit around in my house with air conditioning.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, where is your favorite place to be in air conditioning?
MAEVE: Air conditioning?
JOY DOLO: Yeah.
MAEVE: Like any place?
JOY DOLO: Any place.
MAEVE: Aquariums are fun.
JOY DOLO: Ooh, aquariums, yeah, because you can walk around and see the fish, and all that?
MAEVE: I like zoos, like places where you could see animals, but there's this air conditioning.
JOY DOLO: Do you ever feel like you're too air conditioned, like you're too cold?
MAEVE: Well, that's why you could just put on more layers.
[LAUGHS]
JOY DOLO: So even though it's hot outside, I can go inside of the cool aquarium.
MAEVE: Although when I'm at my house, the air conditioning usually doesn't get too cold because my dad's a freeze baby, so--
JOY DOLO: Oh, really? It does give a temperature that--
MAEVE: Yeah, it's usually, like, at a nice neutral, warm, but not too warm.
JOY DOLO: I like movie theaters because they're always really cold any time of the year. And so, like, I always bring a coat or a jacket. Like in the summer, I'll bring a jacket and just throw it on because it's like this is too cold. How can I enjoy this movie if my teeth are chattering? It's going to bother everyone. You know what I mean?
MAEVE: I've never been that cold in movie theaters.
JOY DOLO: Mhm.
MAEVE: Like maybe I'll have a hoodie, but I've never been, like, freezing.
JOY DOLO: Sometimes I'll go to a museum because they really crank up the air conditioning in there. It's so cold it gives you goosebumps. [SHIVERING] Wait. Maeve, a museum.
MAEVE: Yeah, let's take the ice unicorn there.
WILBUR: I have a name, you know? It's "Wil-brr."
MAEVE: OK, Wilbur.
WILBUR: No, no, "Wil-brr." Brr. Like ice. Anyone?
PA ANNOUNCER: Arriving at very hot downtown area.
MAEVE: Joy, this is our chance. The next bus isn't for a half hour. We've got to get on this one.
JOY DOLO: All right, if you just grab that end and I'll lift this side. [GRUNTS] He's just so heavy and slippery. Ah, OK, made it.
DRIVER: That'll be $2 each and $3 for the unicorn.
JOY DOLO: Sorry, this is Wilbur. We found him in the middle of the street because someone kicked him out of a truck. And pretty soon, he's just going to be a gorgeous-talking horse. And so we're taking him to the museum because they have great air conditioning there and--
DRIVER: Air conditioning? [COUGHS] Who needs it? Humans have been staying cool for thousands of years without [RETCHES] air conditioning.
MAEVE: Now that you mention it, I think I read something about how people living in really hot places like the Middle East kept cool.
DRIVER: Glad you asked. And take a seat. The ancient Persians started building these huge structures on top of their palaces about 3,000 years ago to stay cool. They were called baudgir or windcatcher. And they kind of look like chimney but with holes all around the outside instead of on top. They basically scooped up cool breezes and funneled them down into buildings and over underground pools of water.
WILBUR: And you get no roughhousing on the box, OK?
JOY DOLO: Oh, yeah, windcatchers. I've heard of these. There was this one study where scientists found that windcatchers can cut indoor temperatures by about 10 degrees.
DRIVER: And that's just one example. In the 1800s in India, they had all these different devices that they use to keep cool. Some buildings had a big, single-bladed fan attached to the ceiling that a servant would swing back and forth like a pendulum to kick up a breeze. And they also had this new fangled invention called the thermantidote. Got it?
WILBUR: Let me guess, an antidote to the heat.
DRIVER: An antidote to the heat. It was just a barrel with a fan inside of it and a wet mat attached to the outside. A servant would crank the fan to pull breezes in from the outside. Simple and elegant, much like my demeanor.
[HONKS]
MAEVE: Sure, these are all really impressive. But one of the problems with these early strategies is that they were just moving the air around. They weren't cooling it down or controlling the humidity.
WILBUR: Humidity?
JOY DOLO: Yeah, humidity. It's how wet to the air feels. Like you know when you walk outside in the summer and it feels like being wrapped up in a warm, wet blanket?
MAEVE: Yeah, I know that feeling. Humidity makes warm air feel even hotter. It's because humans cool themselves by sweating. The sweat draws the heat off our skin and then evaporates into the air, taking the heat with it. So the more moisture there is in the air, the harder it is for our sweat to evaporate. And that makes it harder for us to cool down.
DRIVER: Next stop-- the science museum. Take your ice horse and skedaddle.
WILBUR: Excuse me. I am a unicorn.
JOY DOLO: Thank you. Wilbur, let's get you inside. It's hotter than an armadillo's armpit out here.
MAEVE: Hello, anyone here?
[THUDS]
Oh, it's so nice and cool in here. Hey, Joy, check this out, a whole exhibit all about air conditioning.
JOY DOLO: Ooh, push the button.
[BEEPS]
CURATOR: Hello. As you wander the perfectly air-conditioned museum halls, I'm sure you're wondering how did this lifesaving and world-changing technology come to be?
WILBUR: I was wondering that.
[CHUCKLES]
CURATOR: We thought so. Around the mid-1700s, new advances in science and technology meant that people could start producing goods like cloth and iron in huge quantities inside factories. It was the beginning of a period called the Industrial Revolution.
MAEVE: Yeah, the Industrial Revolution totally changed everything. Suddenly, people can manufacture products really quickly instead of making them at home by hand. These factories were crammed with steam-powered machinery. And usually, they didn't have windows that open or really any ventilation at all. So they were hot, really hot.
And the heat wasn't just bad for the workers. It was bad for business. Chocolate melted into puddles. Chewing gum got all gooey and sticky. And macaroni wouldn't dry. Factory owners realized they needed a solution, a way to control the heat and humidity.
JOY DOLO: Mhm, I could really go for a macaroni sundae with extra hot fudge right now. Is that a thing? Did I just invent it?
MAEVE: Ahem, as I was saying, factory owners were desperately looking for ways to cool their buildings, so they could keep making goods like chocolate and chewing gum in the summertime. And that's where your favorite American engineer comes in, the incomparable Willis Haviland Carrier.
[DISCO MUSIC]
WILLIS CARRIER: Oh, hello, back here behind you.
ALL: Aah!
WILBUR: Ghost.
ALL: Where'd you come from? Who is that?
WILBUR: Wait a second. It's a hologram.
WILLIS CARRIER: Hi, I'm Willis Carrier. Some of you might know me as the father of air conditioning, but I was really building on a ton of inventions and scientific advances that people came up with decades before me. I was born in 1876 to a farming family, but I was fascinated with machinery and how things are built.
So I went to college. After I graduated, I started working for an engineering company in New York. And in 1902, the owner of a printing factory called us up with a big problem.
[RINGING]
FACTORY OWNER: Hello?
WILLIS CARRIER: Hi.
FACTORY OWNER: Hello. We've got a big problem here. The factory has been very humid this summer. And it's making our paper swell.
WILLIS CARRIER: Oh, my god.
FACTORY OWNER: No, no, not swell like good swell up. It's getting all wet and bloated. Whenever we try to print on it, the images are all blurry. If we don't find some way to control the humidity, it will be ruined.
JOY DOLO: Willis had to figure out a way to make the air drier and cooler. First, he tried using some chemicals called desiccants, but that just filled the air with tiny salt droplets. And he later wrote, "ruined two perfectly good pairs of shoes."
[SNIFFS]
WILLIS CARRIER: I loved those loafers. Anyway, I was waiting for a train in Pittsburgh on a very foggy night when suddenly it hit me. Fog is really just a cloud of wet air. But air can only hold so much water before it condenses or turns back from a gas into water droplets, just like what you see on the outside of your window in the morning.
And here is the kicker-- the colder the air, the less water it can hold. So I hurried back to my workshop and designed a machine that created a cold fog, which forced the water in the air to condense. So all that wetness left the air and became just a little bit of water. Ta-da, drier and colder air. At first, people were a little skeptical.
FACTORY OWNER: Adding water to lower the humidity of the air? Why I've never heard of a more ridiculous thing in my life?
WILLIS CARRIER: But pretty soon, factories everywhere started installing my machine. I called it the Apparatus for Treating Air.
[JEERS]
CROWD: Boo! Boo!
WILLIS CARRIER: Yeah, OK, not the catchiest name. Later, it would become known as air conditioning, a technology that would change the world.
JOY DOLO: I know a lot of people didn't grow up with air conditioning in their houses. And some people still don't have it. Has your air conditioner ever broken down?
MAEVE: I know my mom has, like, a really old ancient air conditioner that doesn't work.
JOY DOLO: Yeah.
MAEVE: Like it's ancient, like older than her.
JOY DOLO: Ooh, shots fired.
[LAUGHTER]
MAEVE: Shots fired out of the air conditioner.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, if you could come up with a new name for an air conditioner, what would you name it?
MAEVE: If I were to name it, I'd name it the Airy Coolie 3000 Purifier.
JOY DOLO: Airy Coolie 3000 Purifier.
MAEVE: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: If it had a jingle, how would it go?
MAEVE: (SINGING) The Airy Coolie 3000 Purifier.
JOY DOLO: (SINGING) The Airy Coolie 3000 Purifier. Oh, yes, we got to get a jingle in a beat under that. [CHUCKLES]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) The Airy Coolie 3000 Purifier.
[FUNKY MUSIC]
OK, time to take a little break for--
(SINGING) First Things First.
It's the game where we try to put things in order from oldest to newest. And today's items are froyo, slushies, and snow cones. Do you know froyo?
MAEVE: It's frozen yogurt. Yeah, I know what it is.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, dope, dope. So now we have to guess which one came first, which came second, and which came most recently in history-- froyo, slushies, and snow cones.
MAEVE: I think it's snow cones--
JOY DOLO: OK.
MAEVE: --froyo, and slushies.
JOY DOLO: In that order? Why would you say in that order?
MAEVE: Well, snow cones is snow in coloring or taste. So it's just someone accidentally left out, like, their smoothie or something in the snow or dropped it, and was like, I'm going to eat out the snow, anyways.
[CHUCKLES]
JOY DOLO: And they had snow back in like forever.
MAEVE: Yeah, I mean, it's always at the ice age.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, hello, ice age. Yeah, yeah.
MAEVE: And then froyo because yogurt-- I feel like yogurt has been here for a while. It's just like aged milk in a certain way. And then they would freeze it and eat it.
JOY DOLO: Oh, yeah, that's smart. Yeah, it looks like it's been around, too.
MAEVE: Isn't it slushy like syrup and cold?
JOY DOLO: Yes.
MAEVE: It's syrup. And I feel like syrup has been invented for a long while after.
JOY DOLO: Probably the most recent history. That makes sense.
MAEVE: What do you think?
JOY DOLO: OK, so here's the thing. So I'll do snow cones, slushies, froyo.
MAEVE: All right.
JOY DOLO: That's the order.
MAEVE: Yeah, and who wins.
JOY DOLO: Yeah.
MAEVE: Imagine we're both wrong about snow cones being first.
JOY DOLO: I know.
MAEVE: And it's like the opposite. And we're like, oh, well, dang.
JOY DOLO: Well, dang. Well, I guess we're fired. [CHUCKLES]
MAEVE: Oh, no. Well, we'll hear the answers in just a bit.
JOY DOLO: We'll be right back.
[FUNKY MUSIC]
One of our absolute favorite things is when you send us your ideas for the show, because it turns out there's cool history everywhere you look. So we're going to explore some topics picked by you, our listeners. It's time for Did You Know?
IRISH: My name is Irish. And my question is, why are school buses yellow?
MAN: Did you know school buses weren't always yellow? In the late 1800s and early 1900s, kids would walk to school or ride in horse-drawn wagons. In the 1930s, as more cars and buses showed up on the roads, kids would ride in buses of all different colors.
But some folks in New York City thought it would be best for all buses to be the same color, so drivers knew to be extra careful around them. At first, they were like, well, let's paint them red, white, and blue like the American flag.
But it turns out those colors are pretty hard to see on the road. So instead, they picked up bright yellow, which became known as national school bus glossy yellow. That color stands out like a sore thumb even now.
[HONKS]
Hey, wait! That was my bus. Oh, man, I'm going to be late again. Do you have a topic you want to know more about? Send it to us at foreverago.org/contact.
[FUNKY MUSIC]
JOY DOLO: Thanks again for sending in all your great suggestions. And keep them coming.
MAEVE: We'll be right back.
[FUNKY MUSIC]
JOY DOLO: All right, Maeve, let's reveal which of our first things first is actually the oldest. OK, I have all the answers.
MAEVE: Uh-oh.
JOY DOLO: Are you ready?
MAEVE: I'm not.
JOY DOLO: First, it's snow cones.
MAEVE: Yeah, we were right.
JOY DOLO: We were totally right.
MAEVE: 1920s.
JOY DOLO: Just flavors. [CHUCKLES]
MAEVE: Oh, in history class, I love learning about the 1920s. It was favorite era.
JOY DOLO: Eating shavings of ice as a cool summer treat dates back to the mid-1800s when ice houses in New York would ship big blocks of ice south on a wagon. Historians think kids in Baltimore started following around the people moving these huge blocks of ice and asking for small shavings to keep them cool.
Pretty soon, people started flavoring these ice scraps, and a new treat was born. But it wasn't until the 1920s that someone perfected a machine for shaving ice. Samuel Bert patented one of the first machines for making snow cones and sold them at the Texas State Fair. And so next up is slushy.
MAEVE: No.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, I was right.
[LAUGHTER]
MAEVE: Curse you.
JOY DOLO: These were invented by the owner of a Dairy Queen in Kansas City. His soda fountain broke, so he improvised by putting bottles in the freezer to keep them cool. When he took them out of the freezer, he found that they were frozen and kind of slushy.
His customers love them, so he built a machine that used an old car air conditioner to create a slushy soda and mixed it with carbon dioxide to make it fizzy. First called icees, they're also called slush puppies or slurpees, depending on who you ask.
MAEVE: Slush puppies.
JOY DOLO: Have you heard of slush puppies before?
MAEVE: I recognize it, but I don't feel like I've heard it before.
JOY DOLO: I haven't either. I used to call them icees. Have you heard--
MAEVE: I heard of icees before.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, the icees. And they had them on the side of the car.
MAEVE: Not slush puppies. I mean, slush puppies sound like adorable, though.
JOY DOLO: Oh, it's cute. And then last or most recent in history is frozen yogurt. And that came out in the late 1970s. So froyo was first created in the late 1970s by an entrepreneur in New England. It was called Frogurt, and it was marketed as a healthy alternative to ice cream.
MAEVE: I think of frogs when I hear Frogurt.
JOY DOLO: Frogurt frog legs.
MAEVE: Frogurt. Frogurt. Frogurt.
JOY DOLO: It had a soft serve texture, kind of like how it does now. It really took off in popularity in the early 1980s when different manufacturers started experimenting with new flavors. So there we go. Frozen yogurt was the most recent.
MAEVE: How dare you be right.
JOY DOLO: I know. I'm rarely right, so we must rejoice in this moment. But it's interesting when they started experimenting with new flavors, when it took off, which is-- I think that's why I could never think of frozen yogurt as a plain thing. I just know it as like--
MAEVE: People were like, oh, this is working really well. Let's add taste to it.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, let's add more sugar. Make it better. Maeve, what is your favorite frozen yogurt flavor?
MAEVE: I don't think I've really had very much frozen yogurt, actually. I mostly like ice cream.
JOY DOLO: What's your favorite ice cream flavor?
MAEVE: I'd say cookies and cream.
JOY DOLO: Listen, air five, air five. One of my favorites is cookies and cream. I could eat that all day every day.
We're back with Forever Ago. I'm Joy.
MAEVE: I'm Maeve.
JOY DOLO: And we're hanging out at the science museum, learning all about the history of air conditioning.
[THUDDING]
WILBUR: Hey, who turned out the lights? Is this the glow in the dark part of the exhibit?
[DINGS]
CURATOR: Thank you for visiting the science museum. The museum is now closing. Please collect your belongings and make your way to the nearest exit. Don't even think about trying to sneak past our security guards. We're looking at you and you and you.
WILBUR: Closed? What now? I can't go back outside in this heat. You said you'd help me. Some help. [SHIVERS]
JOY DOLO: Hey, isn't there a movie theater next door? Those places are always really cold.
[SHIVERS]
WILBUR: I love the movies. I'm going to need an extra large popcorn with extra butter, blue raspberry Radler, and the biggest cherry icee they have. Speaking of which, can I borrow a few bucks?
MAEVE: Sure.
[SLURPING]
WILBUR: Aah, it's so cool in here. It's like kissing a snowman.
JOY DOLO: Ssh, it's starting.
WILBUR: Ssh yourself. I'm just here for the AC.
NARRATOR: Over the millennia, humans have faced many foes-- lions.
[ROARS]
WOMAN: Run!
NARRATOR: Volcanoes.
[ERUPTS]
[SCREAMS]
WOMAN: Run.
NARRATOR: Floods.
[SCREAMS]
WOMAN: Run!
NARRATOR: But one foe returns year after year to torment all humankind, the heat.
WOMAN: Run! Actually, that's just made it worse. How about I sit. So hot.
NARRATOR: Yeah, heat, a terrible enemy that drains humans of energy, ruins perfectly good summer days, causes dehydration, heat stroke, and even sweaty underwear syndrome, an enemy that seemed unbeatable until a little over 100 years ago, a time before TVs, when phones were new, and the first airplanes were starting to fly.
TRADE PRESENTER: Welcome, my peeps to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.
[APPLAUSE]
This gigantic fair is all about showing you the latest, the greatest tech and innovations from around the world. So hold on to your bowler hat and bonnet because I'm about to blow your mind. All right, you know how we always have to walk around or catch a ride in a horse-drawn carriage? Well, what if there were carriages that moved with no horse?
CUSTOMER: What?
TRADE PRESENTER: Yeah, it's called an automobile, I think. And it's real. Check it out.
[APPLAUSE]
Or imagine you and your homies are out at night, and it's too dark to play cards. Fun's over, right? Now, there's new technology called outdoor electric light. Oh, yeah. But the coolest innovation of all literally is about to change your world. And it's right in this room. Get ready for something called air conditioning! Hit it!
[KNOCKS]
[WHIRRING]
JOY DOLO: Ooh, so chilly. I love this. It's like kissing a snowman.
WILBUR: Hey, that's what I said.
JOY DOLO: Ssh.
NARRATOR: This was the first time many Americans felt the frosty hug of air conditioning. And they wanted more. In the 1920s, movie theaters all over the country installed air conditioning. And people packed the house to cool off.
[HAPPY MUSIC]
MAN: Sweating through your knickerbockers? Come see a movie. Which one? Who cares? It's so cool in here. We could literally show snails racing, and you'd still come because we've got air conditioning. Hazzuh!
NARRATOR: The march of air conditioning continued year after year across the nation. And by the 1960s, you could find our frosty friend in many a home.
[ROCK MUSIC]
More Americans moved to hot places like Florida and Arizona because they could, at last, keep cool wherever, whenever. Yes, humans had finally beat the heat. Or so they thought. In reality-- [TURNS OFF].
[CROWD PROTESTING]
WILBUR: What happened? It was just getting good.
ATTENDANT: Sorry, folks. The air conditioning was using too much power. Looks like we've blown a circuit.
CROWD: Boo!
MAEVE: So much for this plan. Come on, let's beat it.
WILBUR: But I have to know what happens next. Why didn't AC beat the heat? Did he learn karate [SHIVERS] or get one of those giant robot suits? [SHIVERS] Is he going to team up with tornadoes to make "heat-nadoes." [SHIVERS]
JOY DOLO: I think I know the answer. Follow me.
[ROCK MUSIC]
It's right over here, that big metal box next to the house.
MAEVE: Oh, is it not that central air conditioning unit, the kind that pumps cooler air into every room all at once?
WILBUR: Yep, let me at it. Cool me apple great and chilly savior. I'm going to hug it. Hey, what gives? This box isn't cold. [GASPS] It's actually pretty hot. This thing is broken.
JOY DOLO: Nope, it's working just fine. The rooms inside are cool. It's just that to make cold air, air conditioners release hot air outside.
WILBUR: Wait, really?
JOY DOLO: Yeah, so our cool air inside comes at a cost to the air outside. It's a small amount, but still--
WILBUR: Small price to pay.
JOY DOLO: There's more. Air conditioners run on electricity. And most of that comes from burning fossil fuels like oil and gas.
MAEVE: All right, burning fossil fuels leads to more climate change, which also leads to more heat.
JOY DOLO: And even though we're staying cool inside, what about the animals that live outside or the plants that wilt from all that extra heat? It's not really fair.
WILBUR: So heat is winning. Even when we try to keep cool at all times, heat is out there, getting stronger day after day. Oh, what do we do?
JOY DOLO: Oh, don't cry "Wil-brr."
WILBUR: I'm not crying. I am melting.
JOY DOLO: Well, there are things we can do that don't involve AC. Some cities are painting roofs white, which reflects sunlight and can cut the temperature inside by a few degrees. If you get rid of concrete and plant more trees, that also cools things down.
WILBUR: Perfect. Let's plant a bunch of trees. How long could they take to grow, 5, 10 minutes? That's nothing.
JOY DOLO: Well, trees can take years to grow. But there are things homeowners can do now. Some people are installing heat pumps, a different kind of cooling system that uses less energy. And indigenous cultures have known for a long time that building your home in hillsides helps, because being surrounded by dirt can keep things cool. So people even build homes underground like in Australia.
MAEVE: Yeah, and honestly, most of us could stand to let things get a little warmer inside. Maybe use AC less often. Instead, close all the blinds on hot days, so things don't heat up as much. And get newer windows and insulation to keep the hot air out. Personally, in summer, I like wearing tank tops and putting a wet bandanna around my head, oh, and eating ice pops.
JOY DOLO: Those are essential for summer survival. So we may never really beat the heat. It's part of life on Earth. But if we change how we think about it, we can stay cool and save the serious air conditioning for when it's really crucial, like at hospitals, grocery stores, or during heat waves.
MAEVE: Or when an ice sculpture friend is melting. Wilbur? Wilbur? Where'd you go?
WILBUR: Down here.
MAEVE: You're on puddle.
WILBUR: Yeah, I gave in and melted. Maybe we're not supposed to be super chilly all the time. Maybe ice sculptures aren't supposed to last forever, especially in summer. So I figured why not vacation as a puddle for a while? I can always freeze back to my beautiful self in the winter.
JOY DOLO: "Wil-brr," that's so enlightened of you.
WILBUR: Yeah, I may be melted, but I'm not all washed up. I've got lots of new adventures planned. Now, somebody scoop me up and take me to the water park. I have got to be part of that.
[FUNKY MUSIC]
JOY DOLO: Summer is always going to be hot. But it's amazing all the ways we've tried to keep cool over the centuries.
MAEVE: Yeah, from designing buildings that brought in cool air, to people powered fans, to eventually, air conditioning.
JOY DOLO: And as amazing as AC is, we can't rely on that alone. It's a powerful thing, but we have to look for other more eco-friendly ways to chill out too.
MAEVE: Like this splash pool at the water park. Oh, hey, here comes Wilbur down the slide.
[NEIGHS]
WILBUR: I am a water slide. Now, I'm part of the pool. I love being water. This part of the pool is really warm and kind of yellow. Brr, I like it.
JOY DOLO: You might want to float away from there. Just saying.
[FUNKY MUSIC]
This episode is written by Shahla Farzan and Sanden Totten, with additional production support from Molly Bloom, Nico Gonzalez Wisler, Anna Goldfield, Rose Dupont, Ruby Guthrie, and Anna Weggel. Sound design and theme music by Marc Sanchez.
Beth Perlman is our executive producer. We had engineering help from Jess Berg. The executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavati, Joanne Griffith, and Alex Schaffert. Thanks also to Peter Ecklund, Eric Ringham, Mickey Bloom, and Lulu.
If you have an idea for a topic that we should explore on Forever Ago, send it to us at foreverago.org/contact. It might even be featured in our Did You Know segment. We'll be back next week with a super cool episode on the Bone Wars, a ruthless rivalry over discovering and naming dinosaur fossils. See you next time. And thanks for listening.
Transcription services provided by 3Play Media.
