A friend of mine returned from Kurdistan last summer. I asked how he got on with the heat. He said the worst day was 48C. His family don't have air con.That might work in some places but not here! Sacramento is predicted to have triple digit days 30% of the year in another 30 years.
People die here, like they did in Seattle Washington last summer, without AC. We open cooling centers for those without it each summer.
A builder from the SF Bay area build houses in Davis CA with passive cooling in the 1970s. The owners had to retrofit AC into the houses since the cooling did nor work.