One thing that I think gets lost in the shuffle of air conditioning discourse:
AC units are generally heat pumps and they generally have smaller temperature differentials to overcome (i.e. heating a house to room temperature while it is snowing is a much bigger job than cooling a house to room temperature on all but the hottest of days).
This means, generally, AC is more energy efficient than direct heating like a furnace. The narrative about 'AC is going to destroy the world via emissions' is mostly because the already developed places have cooler climates than emerging places.
Living in Arizona, this is always a surprising fact to remember since the electric bill is highest in the summer.
On one hand I understand heating has way bigger temperature differentials to overcome but heat is so easy to make. Most machines and technology create heat as a waste or byproduct so it always feels like purposely creating heat should be so easy.
Also, a person in Arizona is going to use much less energy than a person living in Minnesota. Not to mention the energy used in Arizona is going to come from lower carbon sources than in Minnesota. It just breaks people expectations that a big, complicated machine uses less energy than simply setting something on fire.
they are more efficient long term. short term though it is 'it is cold in here turn up the heat' the time it takes a heat pump to make that happen is much longer than say a natural gas system. the NG system uses more energy though to do it in a shorter amount of time. but it happens perception wise faster.
My reasoning is that everyone in the US had parents who knew you'd die if you didn't heat your house, but in most cases, AC is a comfort thing, so AC was treated as the luxury and heat as the normal.
AC units are generally heat pumps and they generally have smaller temperature differentials to overcome (i.e. heating a house to room temperature while it is snowing is a much bigger job than cooling a house to room temperature on all but the hottest of days).
This means, generally, AC is more energy efficient than direct heating like a furnace. The narrative about 'AC is going to destroy the world via emissions' is mostly because the already developed places have cooler climates than emerging places.