Diamond-Cut Life

This is a revised reprint of  a May 2008 post. Here in Portland, Oregon we’re having 100 degrees plus for days running, which for our mild climate is a major heat wave. How to cope with it? I suggest we do what people did for the 99.9% of human history prior to the invention of air conditioners. They slowed their pace down so they wouldn’t overheat themselves. And played in the water whenever possible, like the young lass here running through a sprinker.

Air conditioners use outsized amounts of energy. My home doesn’t have AC, but just fans. Running a moist cloth over my face and body and standing in front of a fan is just as cooling, in my experience, as AC. Air over cool water is also the principle by which highly effective and inexpensive ’swamp coolers’  work. Too, I’ve read that steady use of air conditioning makes people more susceptible to heat stroke when they eventually are exposed to hot weather.

Speaking of energy, even Portland, with the benefit of hydropower from Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, still gets about half of the energy in its grid from coal plants. Coal-burning causes the carbon emissions that cause global warming. We need to reduce our emissions. That’s what all the green fuss is about. Let’s stop fussing and start changing, i.e. let’s behave differently at 95 degrees than we would at 65 degrees.

A heat wave is a good reason to finally sink into an excellent book (I suggest my favorites, both fiction and nonfiction, here). It’s a good time to be languorous instead of high-powered, and sensual. We can take care of both ourselves and the earth’s resources by responding to heat with a slower, more relaxed pace.

photo courtesy of adwriter

Related Posts:

• Heat Wave: Slow Down
• Coal, Incandescents and Conservation
• How Vampire Bars Relate To Coal Plants