S/O. Is air conditioning a necessity that should be paid with public funds?

air-conditioned school buses?? seriously??
wow..we're raising a bunch of pansies.

Well gosh, how did generations survive without electricty? And we now consider that worthy enough to be paid with public funds.

how did earlier generations keep from all dying off every summer? Comment by Mom2Just1Kiddo

I wondered that very thing when we lost power for several days after a hurricane when we were living in St. Augustine, FL.  I would have rather swam with the sharks.  

Hum, I can't remember, to be honest.

To me though it seems like letting someone go without A/C in the deep south or desert western areas like Arizona, is the equivilent of letting someone go without heat in a place like Minn or Wisconsin. You just shouldn't do it.

On the flip side, I barely used my heat last winter & honestly, I probably could've gone without it & just worn layered outfits indoors. Just like those up north can go without A/C.

I grew up on the border of Texas and Mexico and I remember sleeping outside much of the summer, in the back yard. I don't think we had AC until we moved when I was in the 5th grade.

I think it may be important for the elderly or very young during peak temp days but, otherwise, we managed to live without it. Besides, it was something fun to complain about. LOL

To me though it seems like letting someone go without A/C in the deep south or desert western areas like Arizona, is the equivilent of letting someone go without heat in a place like Minn or Wisconsin. You just shouldn't do it.

^^I agree, 3libras. I lived in Wisconsin for a long time, and there's no way people can do without heat there. Here in the desert, I could go without heat, but not A/C. I can understand why A/C wouldn't be important in lots of other parts of the country, but here it is. When you look up how many people die from heat related causes, it's really surprising.

In some cases I think there should be...like if you are elderly, or if the person has asthma. My nephew has real asthma, and when it gets really bad when its humid and he lives in FL. After hurricane Charlie, he had to go to the ER cause he haad a hard time breathing, and the landlord wouldn't fix the A/C, and he knew about it for weeks prior and knew my nephew had issues. Well, my sis got an atty and sued the landlord and got the medical bills paid. My nephew'[s ped actually wrote some kinda form saying it was a medical necessity for AC. He has since moved further north and the humidity isn't as bad.

I'm iffy on this one. I'm well aware that the entire world lived without air conditioning at one point ~ and not really all that long ago.

I'm also well aware of how the housing codes have changed our construction methods, how HOA's screw up natural heating/cooling abilities of homes, and how cities and large towns create buildings that can not be cooled by any natural means any longer.

People used to build their homes a lot less than 'air tight' and they 'breathed'. They used to build them so the windows ALL used the prevailing wind patterns for cooling. Many had sleeping porches. Most were single homes with windows on all sides, not banks of apartments stacked up with windows only on one side. Some of this is because of codes, some is just because people are more worried about esthetics than anything so practical as a self cooling home.

If people are forced to build/live this way, they deserve AC.

At what point is it that it is a necessity?

When dozens of elderly people die of heat-related causes in the span of 2-3 days. There's also the air quality. How many ozone action days did they have in July and August back in the 50's?