Editor’s Note: All Images were provided by the author.
Ellen Hu (University of Pennsylvania)
I will always remember the exact moment when the AC broke in my suburban home. It was around pi time, 3:14 p.m., on a Saturday, and everyone else in my family was taking naps in the comfortable summer sun. I had nearly finished my calculus homework and was poised to tackle the last problem when I jolted up. It wasn’t that I heard a pop or a bang from the condensing unit; rather, it was the lack of any noise. The machine had ceased its clunky, whirring sound of churning air in and out.
The silence was deafening.
In those first few minutes without AC, I didn’t think much of it; I had integrals waiting to be evaluated. But pretty soon, within 10 minutes, I couldn’t focus. Not on calculus, not on history, not on anything—heat had settled in my brain and refused to leave. Everything only went downhill from there.
Within an hour, my parents had woken up with perspiration on their faces and clothing stuck to their backs. They called a handyman, but he wouldn’t be able to come until Monday—that meant an entire weekend without AC.
My parents had grown up without AC in their homes and assured my sister and me that we would be fine. We closed all the blinds to block sunlight from heating up the rooms, dug out fans from the garage, and pulled out ice packs from the freezer to cool our electronics. But we quickly realized that our meager efforts were not enough; it was still hot, humid, and increasingly agonizing.
We thought the setting sun would signal a drop in temperature, but night was no escape.
Heat doesn’t leave Florida homes easily; it lingers, trapped in walls and furniture, radiating back long after the sun disappears.
Even sleeping on the ground, where cooler air settles, brought only minimal and temporary relief. The air stayed muggy, sticky, almost viscous. Humans need a cooler environment to fall asleep, and not only was the temperature high and the air humid, but the heat had also seeped into my hair, clothes, and very being. I’d lie still and sweat, doing nothing, because doing anything made it worse. No surprise that I slept maybe four hours that night.
The morning air was slightly better, but the rising sun brought an even greater onslaught of torment. By then, I had assembled a small army of fans. They whirred and oscillated, pushing hot air from one corner of the room to another, offering the illusion of relief. Standing directly in front of one felt momentarily better, but stepping away meant the heat reclaimed you instantly.
The fans weren’t solutions; they were coping mechanisms.
Needless to say, I never finished that last calculus problem.
When the AC came back on Monday morning, I immediately walked over to a vent and let the cool air wash over me. I could feel myself reviving, but I could also hear the familiar whirring sound of the condensing unit. It felt alive, like a parasitic monster I depended on but willingly fed.
AC isn’t an easy fix for a hot day, like a convenience store snack after a bad day—it’s more similar to a drug. In places like Florida, air conditioning defines daily life so completely that we forget it’s there—until it’s gone. A prime example of taking something for granted. With global temperatures rising, more and more communities will need to rely on AC and thus become dependent on temperature regulation systems. In today’s world, we are accustomed to a narrow band of comfort, engineered and maintained at all times. We are addicted.
And like many addictions, constantly turning the thermostat down comes with consequences we’d rather ignore. Air conditioning consumes enormous amounts of energy, much of it still generated by fossil fuels, and accounts for one of my family’s highest utility bills.
It’s a feedback loop: hotter days demand more cooling, more cooling drives higher emissions, and higher emissions lead to even hotter days.
Those few days of living without AC made me realize how completely unprepared we are to face a warming world and how important it is to build more efficient cooling systems to replace outdated infrastructure. The disgusting feeling of being drenched in sweat while lying in the dark doing nothing will be experienced by many more people in the future if we don’t act now.