Episode Details

Can we stay cool in a warming world without wrecking the climate or ruining our cities' beauty? This episode dives into three nested problems: where to hide the ugly AC boxes, how to cool without accelerating global warming, and what to do when opening a window means letting in dust, noise, and honking. We start with Paris's surprising roof-vs-facade regulations and its massive district cooling network under the Seine. Then we tackle the physics of refrigerant lines, the limits of passive cooling in dense cities, and the real innovations — radiative cooling panels, phase-change materials, and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery — that might actually let us have our igloo and a livable planet too.