在沒有冰箱的日子，在有電扇、空調之前，紐約人是怎么熬過夏天的?

The short answer is: A lot of them didn’t. Nearly 1,500 New Yorkers died during a heat wave in 1896, and nearly 700 fell victim to another one in 1901.

簡單說來，很多人沒有熬過夏天。有將近1500名紐約人1896年的時候死于熱浪，另有將近700人1901年的時候被熱天害慘。

There were roughly 600 heat deaths in the city each year between 2000 and 2006, and experts predict climate change will cause that number to soar in the coming decades — but the conveniences of modern life mean they’re not as dangerous as they used to be.

Air conditioners became fixtures in public spaces in the 1930s and spread to private homes throughout the middle part of the 20th century. The risk of heat death has steadily dropped in conjunction with AC’s rise.

20世紀30年代，空調成了公共設施，20世紀中葉，普及到私人住宅。空調數量激增，中暑身亡的風險也穩步下降。

But the lack of AC also gave our recent ancestors an advantage: it made it easier for them to tolerate the heat.

但我們的先人們沒有空調也有優勢：他們更耐熱。

Our reliance on air-conditioning is actually making the world hotter; residential cooling uses such a massive amount of energy, that AC use has climate researchers worried.

事實上，我們依賴空調也讓世界變得更熱，住宅制冷所需能量之多引起氣候研究人員的擔憂。

But on a psychological level, it’s also making the air outside feel hotter: The more air-conditioning you have, the more you need it to feel good.

但從心理學角度說，這也確實讓外面空氣更熱。你越使用空調，離開空調你就越不舒服。

Scientists call this the “adaptive comfort model”: the idea that our ideal temperature depends in part on whatever temperature we’ve recently been exposed to.

科學家門層次為“適應型安撫模型”：我們理想的溫度某種程度上取決于我們近日所處的溫度。