Yup. We need to go beyond AC as a cooling method. It is bad for the environment & expensive. A lot of the answer lies in returning to traditional methods that used simple techniques to ensure homes remained cooler than the outdoors throughout the day. https://www.ft.com/content/839d4ccf-269f-44fe-914b-544644a4c819

So many homes built in Nigeria are ostensibly designed on the assumption that heat will be cooled away using air-conditioning. This is crazy, given how expensive power is in the country and the fact that we are talking year-round heat.

But it's hard to get around this when (a) so many people are now so used to air-conditioning that any temperature outside that range is uncomfortable; and (b) air-conditioning is aspirational and evidence of one's success.

One important role that air-conditioning plays in a city like Lagos is that it allows you shut out the noise. This is not trivial, and I don't know that any traditional method can get around this advantage of air-conditioning.

For example, I don't think I've seen a ceiling fan in a new home built in Nigeria in the past ten years or so. But they were very common when I was growing up. Why did those gradually disappear? https://twitter.com/jamiltoyo/status/1299715718494257156?s=20

Given economic realities, it must be the case that AC remains a luxury of the minority. But the point is that it is possible, with better building practices, to make buildings so much more energy-efficient that the need for air-conditioning falls away altogether.