This video is made in partnership with Bill Gates.

So, here's a statement: over the last 50 years,

Hong Kong has become a giant refrigerator.

That's right, despite its hot, humid, subtropical climate,

the city remains an icicle all year round.

But what do I mean by this?

Well, Hong Kong has a bizarre problem.

It has developed an obsession with air-conditioners so extreme

it no longer makes any sense.

Winter coats are needed during the sweltering summer.

ACs are blasted in the midst of winter.

All throughout this densely-populated metropolitan,

you'll see the signature sights of white cooling boxes

littering the residential landscape.

And commercial buildings aren't better.

Tourist publications have warned travelers

of arctic shopping malls and icy restaurants,

with Lonely Planet cautioning "temperatures are set so low,

you may find your extremities turning blue."

It's no surprise that in Hong Kong, electricity consumption per capita

is among the highest in the world,

with ACs chugging 34% of all electricity used in the city,

over three times the global average, jumping to 60% in the summer.

If you live in a typical Hong Kong or American home,

your air conditioner uses more electricity

than your lights, refrigerator, and computer combined.

This makes it the biggest consumer of electricity you own,

and the single largest household producer of carbon emissions.

Now, there are many countries around the world

that use and abuse their air conditioners,

Singapore, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the US, to name a few,

but Hong Kong, the city I grew up in,

takes all this to a whole new level.

So, this raises questions, why are there so many ACs? Why is the temperature set so low?

And strangest of all, why can't they just turn it off?

With Hong Kong, the answer is never simple.

But let's start at the beginning.

Blast-off, 1935.

This was when the old Hong Kong and Shanghai

bank building was completed, the head office of HSBC.

At the time, this was the tallest building in Hong Kong, 70 meters,

which is hard to imagine now.

Despite its grandeur,

this wasn't enough for HSBC's chief manager,

who had asked the architects to build him the best bank in the world.

To him, this meant centralized air-conditioning,

a first in Hong Kong.

And so, well, HSBC's head office

became the nation's first fully air-conditioned building.

But it wasn't until almost 40 years later in 1972

that ACs made the leap from commercial to residential.

Until then, much to the chagrin of manufacturers,

ACs in Hong Kong were usually found in offices and retail centers,

with most people simply using electric fans.

Yes, Hong Kongers, at one point, had to be convinced

that ACs were a necessity rather than a luxury,

if only that were the case now.

Apparently, part of the reason for this sudden popularity

was a memorable episode of a popular local TV sitcom

that followed a family's quest to install an AC unit,

quite the luxury, along with their trials and tribulations.

This included dealing with the social jealousies

triggered in their community.

And this left a big impression on viewers.

It wasn't long until having an AC or a 'lang hay gay'

as the locals call it,

became something of a status symbol in Hong Kong,

signifying success, modernity and comfort.

Now, understanding the market potential, electricity corporations and AC brands

started pushing further for the widespread installation

of air conditioners,

to the point of accusations being thrown around

of the aforementioned sitcom episode being product placement.

By this point, the AC markets of other countries

had also exploded, with the US having its boom in the 1950s

but Hong Kong would soon separate itself from the pack.

Now, the first prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew,

famously called air conditioners "the greatest invention of the century",

allowing the rapid modernization of his tropical country,

and the same could no doubt be said of Hong Kong.

As more shopping malls and commercial centers sprung up

in the following decades,

the need to satisfy the consumer base grew in tandem,

and the icy breeze of air conditioning was key to their success.

Many locals will say ACs are necessary to create a people-friendly environment

in this sub-tropical climate,

providing a cool refuge for those sweating buckets

out on the streets, soothing their stresses and anxieties

undoubtedly heightened by those packed Hong Kong crowds.

But one can argue it's really more about creating a consumer-friendly environment.

If the temperature difference is significant,

it may give the visitor a greater sense of prestige

and for many Hong Kongers, it's all about prestige.

For malls or shops where the ACs are set to a higher temperature

or, God forbid, completely absent,

potential customers may automatically perceive

the establishment as more primitive, discouraging their entry and patronage.

However, walking into an extremely cool shop

after being in 25-38°C high-humidity heat, that's up to 100°F,

well, the price tag in front of you may no longer seem so outrageous,

perhaps this scarf is worth it after all!

And, speaking of winter items,

some have said ACs are intentionally turned way down

to push the sales of sweaters, coats, jackets, scarfs, and the like,

essentially, an effective way of promoting their winter sale.

Now, the Hong Kong government officially recommends

that room temperatures be maintained between 23 and 26°C in summer,

and between 20 and 24°C in winter,

but not surprisingly many commercial centers have failed

to follow these guidelines,

with temperatures frequently dropping well below the government-stipulated minimum.

Some of the worst offenders include the most popular and luxurious

of shopping destinations, including,

The Landmark, Pacific Place, Times Square, and IFC mall;

with IFC purportedly being as low as 15°C or 59°F.

To maximize profits,

these corporations really had cemented the AC

as an essential part of the Hong Kong lifestyle.

Moreover, it's not just malls and shopping centers

that neglect the government's temperature guidelines,

but almost everywhere else: supermarkets, restaurants,

libraries, buses, taxis, school classrooms,

university campuses, theaters, post offices,

and even their own government offices.

It's clear that it's not just consumerism motivating this AC culture.

It runs much deeper than that.

There's a widely-held belief in Chinese traditional medicine

that lots of fresh air and circulation is necessary for maintaining good health,

and from our last video on Hong Kong

about their exceedingly long life expectancy,

it's clear that Hong Kongers care a great deal

about their general health and wellbeing,

which perhaps calls into question what many believe fresh air actually is.

A lot of people conclude from this traditional belief

that air conditioners need to be on all the time

because they provide fresh air and circulation.

"AC equals healthy" seems to be the motto,

which indeed explains a core aspect

of their general eagerness to use air conditioners,

but the irony is that the opposite is often true.

And I'm not just talking about the severe chilling of skin

and damp, sweaty clothing,

or the fact that you're more likely to catch a winter cold

in the summertime due to frequent and drastic temperature changes,

but a critical misconception of ACs

that has caused a great deal of harm throughout the decades.

You see, in 2003, Hong Kong experienced the SARS outbreak,

the first pandemic of the 21st century.

In 2009, there was the H1N1 swine flu.

Both resulted in deaths in the hundreds and illness in the thousands.

As a result, Hong Kong's public health system

implemented several public policies

to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

This boiled down to: wash your hands, quarantine,

wear a face mask,

I'm sure these are all sounding quite familiar,

and increase in-door air circulation.

Now, that last one tapped into what had long been ingrained.

If more indoor air circulation was needed, then that meant cranking the AC harder,

longer, faster, colder.

"AC equals healthy".

The outbreaks only further entrenched this mindset.

Of course, the problem with all this

is that infections actually spread more swiftly

in cold conditions.

In fact, the transmission of SARS largely occurred

in well-air-conditioned environments, low temperatures and low humidity,

with one study finding the risk of SARS in Hong Kong

to be 18 times higher in lower temp conditions.

In addition, there's actually technically very little air cleaning involved with ACs

as mesh filters fail to catch bacteria, viruses,

and the numerous pollutants from the outside air

and we all know Hong Kong's outside air isn't exactly fresh.

Worse yet, many large commercial buildings

actually turn off their fresh air handling units

in favor of recirculating the already-chilled air through the system,

recycling the same air over and over again.

This is to save millions of dollars each year.

And so, well, taking all this into account,

it's fairly shocking then that, even in the middle of winter,

ACs are being blasted for the express purpose

of maintaining circulation,

rather than the need to lower temperatures.

Now, imagine the further intensifying of fears,

along with poor practices, with the emergence of COVID-19.

But, you might be thinking, still, this isn't enough,

this isn't enough to fully explain the excessive use of ACs

on a systemic level.

And, you'd be right. Because, ultimately, as often the case, it comes down to cost.

In Hong Kong, electricity is supplied by two companies,

CLP Holdings, for Kowloon and New Territories

and Hong Kong Electric Company for Hong Kong Island,

and, in general, prices are made quite inexpensive

across homes and businesses,

to the point where even on the cheap and smaller end of HK apartments,

ACs are a common sight

and we all know Hong Kong apartments can get pretty small.

This size issue, by the way, can have some real consequences,

which I discuss in the extended Nebula version of this video,

more on that at the end.

But, the thing is, the price system here is really skewed.

Breaking it down,

electricity consumers are divided into three categories:

residential users, standard non-residential users,

and the big-wigs, high-consumption non-residential users.

The first two are charged progressive rates,

as in the more electricity they consume, the more they pay, as one would expect.

But for the last category, high-consumption non-residential users,

they're charged regressive rates,

the more electricity they consume, oftentimes the less they pay,

or at least the less unit rate they pay.

So, total costs decline substantially once a certain threshold is reached.

This means "large users of electricity pay proportionally less than small users".

And who are these large users? Well, mostly the conglomerates,

the ones who own those gigantic shopping malls,

office buildings, and other commercial centers.

So, they are incentivized to crank the AC, whether winter or summer.

One possible solution to this problem is for the government

to unify these electricity rates for household and commercial users,

so that households are no longer handicapped.

That way residential users

don't have to subsidize the electricity bills of commercial users.

But, of course, as with politics, that's easier said than done.

Now, with all that said,

there's an even larger-scale concern we have on our hands,

and that's loop.

You see, there's something that happens

when millions of people turn on their ACs at the same time

in a metropolitan area such as Hong Kong:

a lot of excess heat gets pumped out into the streets.

This results in something called the Urban Heat Island effect,

where the city gets significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas.

This in turn leads to people to feel hotter