Just saw this article and while I have though of air conditioning as a nice to have luxury it is now becoming a must have life safety appliance.
Millions in US face extreme-heat threat as experts urge better protections
The implications are much broader than personal comfort. Extreme heat has a devastating effect on the economy and everyone’s standard of living will be impacted. Many companies lack air conditioning for the manual and manufacturing operations. I recently visited a manufacturing site, which had refrigerators stocked with cooling vests that the employees were required to wear and exchange often.
Here is a startling statistic from the article: “According to a report by Public Citizen, as many as 2,000 workers die of heatstroke, kidney failure and heat-induced cardiac arrest annually, and 170,000 workers are injured from laboring in extreme heat.”
But since life saving air conditioning runs on electricity, all of our lives are at risk in a power outage. The truly frightening fact is the convergence of many factors that are putting the grid at increased risk. At this point, there is really nothing we can do, but get backup generators and ride out the climate change (which will take decades).