Probably because AC is newer. Home heating has been seen as a necessity for generations, so most people have had it, while there are still plenty of people who lived without AC for large chunks of their life.
Plus there's the San Francisco factor. AC is simply not necessary there most of the time for most people. Even when it is hot, it is usually hot/dry, and tends to cool down at night. Thus there are many people here who think AC is a needless luxury everywhere because they personally do not need it.
I think this is huge. Extreme heat kills more Americans than hurricanes, tornadoes, or extreme cold. However, the people it kills tend to be poor and far away from the political and cultural power centers in the US.
Active cooling is too expensive and too unreliable for most of the human population. It's cheaper to pour a concrete slab foundation for thermal mass and/or clear the airflow beneath the house, plant some trees, and insulate a roof than it is to install an AC and run it every summer.
Plus, if there's a power outage but you live in a house that's naturally cool, the heat won't reach unlivable levels. Hot weather can set off cascading failures in infrastructure: demand rises as everyone's AC kicks in, equipment fails in the heat, fires start, workers at power plants find it difficult to cope with the heat, etc. Passive cooling increases the resilience of the population.
AC isn’t bad but it encourages inappropriate construction techniques.
If you’re in the southeast us, traditionally buildings would have awnings, good airflow, etc. Now, cookie cutter commercial construction is a sealed box that relies on HVAC for temperature and moisture control.
Ditto in the north - until energy prices started climbing buildings like hotels were built as large footprint 1-2 story buildings to save capital costs. (Less structural costs, no elevator) Those buildings are impossible to afford heat nowadays, so you’re seeing more multi-story hotels and apartments.
I think it's mostly just the common trend of eco-virtue-signaling these days. Why focus on technological progress when you can just generate a lot of outrage with trigger words like "climate change" and the like?
It's worth noting that refrigeration is over a century old now.
It's not people who give a shit about climate change who are saying that air conditioning is bad.
Maybe you'll find a lone crazy to validate the persection complex that compels such a mendacious post, and you'll definitely get a little mild "do you really need it at 66F in June?" rhetoric and I'm sure that hits conspicuous consumers right in the feels that definitely matter just as much as reality does--but on the other hand, it is also precisely the folks who care about such things who push for cooling stations and other ways to symptomatically address the worsening heat waves in urban areas, because heat kills and it kills the poor and the old preferentially.
It isn't those awful hippies who have a problem with air conditioning--it's the people who wish that those people (and poor people! lest we forget!) would conveniently disappear. For other people, of course. Those positing that people should just Tough It Out aren't doing so themselves.
AC isn't just for the heat, it also controls humidity. Yesterday where I live it was 27C and 80% humidity.
In the day I was mowing the lawn and after 10 minutes sweat was dripping from my forehead (I'm not that unfit). Then I took a cold shower, and after 30 minutes I was swsaty again from the humidity. When I went to bed I switched on the AC...
I find 35C+ in dry regions much more comfortable than this, especially if you have an old stone building that acts as big thermal mass to keep the inside comfortable during the hottest parts of the day.
Italian here. In many places they don't just turn on AC when not needed, but even do that the wrongest possible way: while leaving shop doors open w/ no air barriers. No idea of the reasoning behind that practice, but I often see shops doing that, especially coffees. Do they think customers won't in if they see transparent doors closed?
As a result, their power bill will probably be huge, but having also fridges and blast chillers, electric stoves, espresso machines etc. working all day, that might go overlooked. I've heard somewhere in the EU there are harsh fines for shops using AC while keeping doors open, but sadly that's not the case here.
> No one seems to complain about the environmental impact of home heating in cold climates.
Humans chose to migrate to those climates tens of thousands of years ago when they had no other choice. They arrived to escape conflict, tension, or in search of more resources.
Then they survived in those climates with literal stone age technology, and struggled, but persevered for thousands of years. Finally, in the last 100 years they managed to get comfortable with modern technology.
Asking them to move is asking them to give up hundreds of generations of genetic adaptation, and cultural integration with their location.
On the other hand, the places that people are critical of are those that have expanded dramatically in population only in the last 50 years - places that have never supported significant human populations, but suddenly were able to due to:
* Air conditioning technology
* A sudden, but now expiring, era of cheap fossil fuels.
We're talking about places like Saudi Arabia, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and so on.
These places never supported significant human populations the way that "Northern Europe" has, and is only now able to BECAUSE of AC technology.
I have seen an article about how home heating uses significantly more energy than cooling, though heat pumps should help that some. There is also a lot of money and rhetoric going into insulation and air sealing to make home heating more efficient.
Different techniques are needed for hot climates, but I sure as heck don’t see a disproportionate attention on AC vs heating. It all falls under building energy usage, which is a substantial consumer of primary energy worldwide.
I think because in many places in the past people coped fine so there is a scare that this AC popularity will increase energy usage.
You are correct that Heating in cold climates probably is worse. AC has the advantage that the load matches sunny summer weather. At least in Europe - Asia and Eastern USA the humidity at night is an extra problem.
Why the bias against cooling technology?
No one seems to complain about the environmental impact of home heating in cold climates.