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Before the air conditioner was invented, human beings were at a loss for how to cool themselves. Some of the ideas were arguably doomed from the start: In the 19th century, as Derek Thompson noted in a 2017 article, New England companies shipped huge ice cubes insulated with sawdust around the country. “There were even shortages during mild winters—‘ice famines,’” he wrote.

The air conditioner was not only a brilliant innovation; it changed the course of human life. In the U.S., it allowed people to migrate to the Sun Belt, to Atlanta and Phoenix, altering the country’s demographics and poli

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