Air conditioning, shutting down prisons, and a cyberpunk Detroit [what we’re reading this August.]

1. The World Is Getting Hotter. Air Conditioning Could Make It Worse. {Atmos}

   This article from Bridget Reed Morawski at Atmos takes a hopeful look at how the Global North could reconsider its use of air conditioning as a must-have standard of living, and instead choose to live around the extreme temperatures that are becoming the norm. TLDR: make ceiling fans sexy (again?).

2. No one thought they could shut this prison down. Can an interracial, interregional coalition do it again?

   The Bureau of Prisons is looking to spend money! One of its latest targets for a prison-building project is Letcher County, Kentucky, which has already experienced the legacy of environmental destruction via its coal mining past. This article from Ray Levy Uyeda at Prism makes clear the intersection of environment, race, and poverty in organizers’ and residents’ reaction to the project.

3. Night City: The Shared Roots of Cyberpunk Literature and Detroit Techno Music.

   This thoughtful piece from Ashley Cook at Runner Magazine takes a quick look at Detroit’s tight relationship to architecture, fiction, labor, and music with visions of a modernist utopia. Men become machines, and the other way around, and Cook’s writing makes fresh notes on Italian Futurism’s dated role in all this. This is a particularly resonant read in the context of Detroit’s Michigan Central Station opening its doors to the public just a few months ago.