Based on my own anecdotal experience, it does seem warmer now than 40 years ago. Summers are hotter and longer. Fall and Spring are warmer and shorter. Winters are less freezing.
Every summer, during the hottest months, there are news reports about the “climate crisis” and the “deadly heat waves”. I doubt these news accounts are accurate when they predict and//or report on the number of deaths. My guess is the news writers make these numbers up.
However, I have heard of Cooling Centers. These are buildings with air-conditioning that are temporarily opened during heat waves so that people can get relief from the heat.
The news talks about people living without A/C as if they are homeless people on the street in winter.
I grew up without A/C. The first place I lived with A/C was in my (future) wife’s house where she had window units in the living room and master bedroom.
It was nice to have.
On a few brutally hot and humid nights in the summer, we’d run the A/C units. They were extremely loud and made our electricity bill skyrocket, so we only ran them a times a year.
Otherwise, we opened the windows, pulled down the blinds to block the sun, and used fans.
Somehow we survived.
Before I met my wife, neither I, nor many of my friends had A/C. So we ran fans and opened windows. On those really hot and humid summer nights when I couldn’t sleep, I would lay naked on top of a seat soaked sheet with a fan blowing on me while I tossed and turned. Sometimes I’d put a cool wet rag on forehead in an attempt to cool off.
But nobody died.
I never even knew anyone who got heatstroke.
That includes everyone from the babies in our family to our most ancient senior citizens.
We just acclimated to the heat and got used to it.
It turns out that I’ve worked in some pretty hot environments too.
I worked in a commercial laundry facility that disinfected hospital linens. Our dryers were large enough that you could park an SUV in them. We didn’t have A/C so when the dryers ran, it was well over 100 degrees.
I worked in a tiny pizza shop with no A/C. Our oven was on from midmorning to midnight. In the summers, as our pizzas and hoagies cooked, so did our staff.
I worked in 2 different unheated warehouses that had no A/C. Winter absolutely sucked because it was freezing except when we stood next to a space heater. In summers, we sweat as temps ranged from 75 – 100 inside.
As a lifeguard, I worked outside baking in the sun for hours every summer. When my shift in the chair was over, I’d head into our little office which was far cooler because it offered shade from the sun. We had no fan and no A/C, but that break every hour made a huge difference. Plus we could always jump in the pool to cool down.
My schools never had A/C. We were lucky if the radiators provided heat in the winter. In the summers, many teachers refused to open the windows because we’d be “distracted”. Few had fans.
We all survived.
None of my family’s cars had A/C. In fact, most didn’t have power windows. When it was hot, we cranked the windows open. The best cars had those little triangle windows so you could direct the air to blast right on you.
The first car I drove with A/C was my wife’s when I was 21.
For most of the past 15 years, I’ve had central A/C in my homes and A/C in my cars.
In South Florida, it made life bearable. When we had power outages with no A/C, it was brutally hot. In Raleigh, I use my A/C much less, but it still provides relief on the hottest summer nights.
In my car, I use A/C much less – except for the hottest summer days.
I am certain I could survive without A/C.
So when the news reports record deadly heatwaves, I have to wonder how accurate these reports are. I’m sure in places like filled with infirm people (ICUs, nursing homes) a lack of A/C is a serious problem.
But for the general public – eh, maybe not so much.