How, in the days before refrigeration, before electric fans, before air-conditioning — did people make it through summer in New York?

在没有冰箱的日子，在有电扇、空调之前，纽约人是怎么熬过夏天的?

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.

简单说来，很多人没有熬过夏天。有将近1500名纽约人1896年的时候死于热浪，另有将近700人1901年的时候被热天害惨。

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.

2000年至2006年间，城市约有600例中暑身亡，专家预言气候变化会导致接下来数十年中暑人数飙升，但现代生活的便利意味着其实也不会像以前那么危险。

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世纪30年代，空调成了公共设施，20世纪中叶，普及到私人住宅。空调数量激增，中暑身亡的风险也稳步下降。

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

但我们的先人们没有空调也有优势：他们更耐热。

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.

事实上，我们依赖空调也让世界变得更热，住宅制冷所需能量之多引起气候研究人员的担忧。

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.

但从心理学角度说，这也确实让外面空气更热。你越使用空调，离开空调你就越不舒服。

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.

科学家门层次为“适应型安抚模型”：我们理想的温度某种程度上取决于我们近日所处的温度。