It’s that time of year in northern NJ — temperatures in the mid-90s and near-liquid humidity. And I hear a lot of people complaining about the discomfort of it all. They’re ready to cry bloody murder as they break a sweat while walking between their air-conditioned cars and their air-conditioned houses or offices or shopping malls. Air conditioning has become a social expectation here, as in most other places outside the “third world”. <\/p>\n
Being a bit out-of-step with the world around me, I don’t embrace air conditioning. I have one in my apartment, but it doesn’t work anymore. I never use the one in my car; I’d rather get a few extra miles per gallon, especially now with four-dollar gas. The only place where I do need air conditioning is at work. And even there, the system can barely hold 80 degrees on summer afternoons. Obviously there is a lot of complaining. But not by me.<\/p>\n
So how do I survive a weekend at home in late July and early August? I have some fans to keep the wet 90 degree air moving. But most important, I find that my body knows how to adjust to the weather. Basically, it does what people used to do in primitive hot-weather cultures; my metabolism throttles back and I sleep a lot during the day. I do all of my chores and projects in the morning, and by 2 pm I’m in my reading chair with an open book and closing eyelids. As the afternoon drifts by, I go back and forth from nap to nap. By 6 or so, I get up for dinner, and then snooze some more. Then around 9 pm I get some energy back and putter around until about midnight. <\/p>\n
I’ve thus gone into the classic “siesta” cycle of Latin countries in the tropics. In the last 50 years or so, many people in these countries have abandoned the traditional “lazy afternoon” way of life in favor of air-conditioned hyperactivity all day long. And that has driven up the demand for oil; air conditioning, no matter how efficient, will always be an energy-intensive proposition. And now oil production is not keeping up with demand, thus threatening the world economy with spiking prices. (As I previously discussed, investor speculation in oil futures has made things worse. But until some of the speculators get hurt and the bubble bursts, there’s nothing you can do about it; it’s just a nasty little side-effect of free market dynamics). <\/p>\n
So, perhaps our modern society will eventually be forced to re-adopt some of the old traditions like lazy, sleepy afternoons and active evenings (not all old traditions are bad; although admittedly, stuff like nationalism, racism and warfare have to go). Another thing: the heat isn’t as bad when you maintain your proper weight. Obesity is becoming an epidemic in the USA, and I think that it has something to do with the notion of universal air conditioning, air conditioning as a right. If energy scarcity forces us to restrict air conditioning to places of work and to those who need it most, e.g. the elderly and the medically frail, perhaps Americans would watch their weight more carefully, reducing diabetes and heart disease and increasing life spans. <\/p>\n
Yea, I know, I sound like a communist autocrat telling people how they should live and forcing social changes on the unwilling masses. But no, I’m not. All I’m saying here is that if $8 gasoline and outrageous electricity bills do ever cause Americans to re-think their ways of life, their dread regarding going back to older ways of life may be somewhat unfounded. Take my word for it — a lazy, sleepy afternoon in a hot and humid room (with open windows; no more sealed-in buildings with “central air”) really isn’t that bad!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s that time of year in northern NJ — temperatures in the mid-90s and near-liquid humidity. And I hear a lot of people complaining about the discomfort of it all. They’re ready to cry bloody murder as they break a sweat while walking between their air-conditioned cars and their air-conditioned houses or offices or shopping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,33],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4783,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions\/4783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}