2)
(a) In praise of air-conditioning | Rebirth of the Cool; How to spread the benefits of air-conditioning -- without frying the plant. (in the "Leader" section, as introduction to a more detailed article)
("Air-conditioning is one of the world's great overlooked industries. Automobiles and air-conditioning were invented at roughly the same time, and both had a huge impact on where people live and work. Unlike cars, though, air-conditioning has drawn little criticism for their social impact, emissions and or energy efficiency. * * * Yet air-conditioning has done more than most things to benefit humankind. Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, called it 'perhaps one of signal inventions of history.' It has transformed productivity in the tropics and helped turn southern China into the workshop of the world. * * * For children, air-conditioned classrooms and dormitories are associated with better grades at school * * * Environmentalists who call air-conditioning 'a luxury we cannot afford' have half a point, however")
Note: signal (adj): "distinguished from the ordinary : NOTABLE <a signal achievement>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/signal
(b) Air-conditioning | Global Cooling. Air-conditioning do more good than most people realise, but also much harm. Efforts are finally under way [sic] to get one without the other.
Quote:
air-conditioning "became universal south of the Mason-Dixon line, turning the South into an engine of prosperity * * * In Japan, the government is helping schools install coolers. In Texas, on the orders of a judgethe state government has been putting them into prison [Massachusetts prisons have it as well as heating in winter for decades].
"Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, took the view that air-conditioning 'changed the nature of civilisation by making development possible in the tropics * * * The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air-conditioning in buildings where civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency.'
"In 1990 few Chinese households had air-conditioning/ Twenty years later, the country had just under one unit per household. It now accounts for 35% of the world's stock, compared with 23% for the United States. India and Indonesia are seeing rates of increase similar to China's in the 1990s. * * * The population of the 800km long southern coast [countries: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman] of the Arabian Gulf increased from 500,000 in 1950 to 20m now, thanks to air-conditioned vertical palaces. At current rates, Saudi Arabia will be using more energy to run air-conditioning in 2030 than it now exports as oil. At the moment, only 8% of the 3bn people in the tropics have air-conditioning, compared with over 90% of households in America and Japan. * * * after mobile phones, the middle class in emerging markets want fans or air-conditioners next. Even the proliferation of skyscrapers in the developing world's megacities encourages air-conditioners. Because tall buildings have different air pressures at top and bottom, they usually have to be sealed, and cooled in summer. * * * A study by Tord Kjellstrom of Australian National University found that, in South-East Asia, people without cooling could bot work during 15-20% of working hours.
Note:
(i) underway (adj and adv)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/underway
has only "underway for adjective, but lists "underway" as adverb but for the latter, note "less commonly under way."
(ii) Arabian Gulf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabian_Gulf
(may refer to "The Persian Gulf, since the 1960s controversially referred to as the Arabian Gulf or The Gulf by some Arab countries: see Persian Gulf naming dispute")
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发表于 9-1-2018 12:45:57
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