TECHNICAL Stats show air-conditioning saves lives

The Air-Conditioning, Heating, & Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) took advantage of the recent heat wave across North America to point out that “Air Conditioning Saves Lives.”

On July 17 AHRI celebrated the 100th anniversary of Willis Carrier’s invention of modern air-conditioning and wrote: “While some in recent years have tried to make the case that air conditioning is an unnecessary luxury, a 2012 study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that there were 80 per cent fewer heat-related deaths in the United States between 1960 and 2004 than there were between 1900 and 1959 – a drop they directly attributed to the rise in the use of air conditioning. Air conditioning saves lives.”

“On a day like today, you would be hard-pressed to find a person in America who would not be thankful for air conditioning,” said Stephen Yurek, President & CEO of the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, the industry’s trade association. “But even as we are grateful for the comfort air conditioning provides, we should remember that it is also very much a life-saving technology.”