Should Air Conditioning be a Human Right?

 

'Sweltering temperatures continue to sweep nearly every continent this summer, with millions of people experiencing temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Billions of people need air conditioning to combat the deadly heat, which raises the question: Should access to it be a human right? One critique of supplying more air conditioning units is the environmental harm it would cause. Dr. Morgan Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines, has been searching for cooling technology that’s both efficient and sustainable. “If you look at an issue where you're going to want to increase the energy demand in developing countries, then we have to go back to the fundamentals of how we design energy systems and how we focus,” he says.'