[formandfile]

I would say that the heat and humidity of NOLA played a big role in the misbehavior and violence seen in the aftermath of Katrina last year.

Atlanta didnt take off as the south's regional corporate headquarters until air conditioning was widely available. The Fox Theater had A/C before the White House for crissakes! The last three days here have been brutal, with temps hovering in the mid-90's, and 100s seen in the valleys around Eatonton and Rome.

Agreeing with everyone else, the southeast doesnt work well at all without A/C, and disagreeing with whoever said that the heat is no big deal, just remember that there are only so many layers that one can take off. When i lived in Boston for a few years the cold did kick my ass (due to lack of acclimation) but getting by was only a matter of wearing a few more layers on the colder days. There is no escape from the heat, however.

I think alot of people will simply pack up and leave if the grid becomes too unreliable to provide for A/C locally. The Southern Company does a good job of keeping the grid in decent working order in our neck of the woods. That said, things would be helped enormously if more homeowners invested in a geothermal exchange heat pump, as they use only 1/3 of the electricity that conventional HVAC units use.

Of course the bright side of living down here is that wintertime is a cakewalk.

[Lore]

I've noticed that "getting used to" AC will impair your ability to sweat, thus the body doesn't cool down properly...so YES it is addictive.

I'm on my 3rd summer without AC and what i find most disturbing are the peoples reactions to it. They are completely & utterly dumfounded that i'm not using it. Many people will no longer come over because of it. People look at me like a leppar when they hear i don't use AC...it's actually kind of frightening.

mmmm....could be your deodorant with all that heat just an't cutin it!

Seriously, I lived for 35 years in Western MI without AC. Summers can be warm and humid there but really high temps were just a few days during the summer. Now that I live here in the SE I couldn't imagine not having it. In truth though, you can stand a lot more than you think and do get acclimated after a while.

[frankthetank]

The future looks really greasy and stinky. Ive been taking 2 to 3 showers a day due to biking/working/etc... I like it better then winter, however it hasn't been above 90F for a while (mostly mid 80's)...

[IanC]

This is a totally cool thread! It's a nice, cooling, change of pace from talking about cars.

I just wanted to point out that the AC issue seems to be worldwide. Watch the news out of Iraq and see how pissed off people get when power fails and they can't cool down their houses - it's been in the news since we invaded.

The other side of that is to ask how places like India and Indonesia have been able to have gigantic populations (or at least way bigger than the US) and have not seen AC as a Basic Right. They can handle the heat - can't we?

All this is easy for me to say, living in Western Oregon. the weather is super mild and humidity very low. We have a house build in 1880 that was really hot upstairs in the summer, even if it only got up to 75 outside. We installed a solar attic fan for $550 this year and it has made a dramatically positive difference.

-IanC

[Falconoffury]

Has anyone ever gone several days without sweating, and finally when you do sweat heavy, it really smells? If I can sweat every day, it hardly smells at all, but when I go many days without sweating, it's as if all the waste products have been building up over time.

I keep my thermostat at a reasonable 82 degrees fahrenheit. I plan on strategically placing some fans throughout the home and bringing up my thermostat even more. It will help me save money, as I expect that electricity rates will rise.

I don't know if most of you know, but living in heat is a good way to lose weight over the long term. Even if you aren't moving, your body will have to keep your internal temperature at 98.6 degrees. Your body will work towards burning the fat simply to make it easier to maintain your body temperature.

[JoeCoal]

[Location: Tornado Alley] == 110 degrees ++ 110% humidity.

I like my basement. It's very cool underground.

I want to dig deeper...

[RG73]

The other side of that is to ask how places like India and Indonesia have been able to have gigantic populations (or at least way bigger than the US) and have not seen AC as a Basic Right. They can handle the heat - can't we?

I'm reading through all these posts and wondering why no one brought up the fact that vast numbers of people live in the tropics with no a/c with conditions not at all unlike the U.S. Gulf coast (except it is like that year round). Populations have certainly increased in those parts of the world in the last fifty years or so, but certainly even without electricity large populations existed in southern China, southeast Asia, India, Central America, Central Africa, etc.

Lots of shade and various passive building techniques to keep buildings cool, and you don't try to move around a lot during mid-day. Pretty simple really. I live in a pre-WWII era building in Texas with no insulation and piss poor wall units for my a/c. The place is a sweatbox. If its 95 outside, its 105 in my apartment. I seem to function just fine running just the fan most of the day (and even if I ran the a/c because there is no insulation, it never really cools down anyway). You adapt. Sure, I'd like it a lot better if it was 70 all the time, but I hate big electric bills more than I hate the heat.

Loss of a/c is really the least of my post-peak worries. I'd much rather stick it out in the south where we have to worry about staying warm about 2 days a year and have a constant growing season. So it gets really hot and icky for several months and you have to sit in the shade (and still sweat) for about half the day. Beats freezing. And lets not forget that there is always the time honored tradition of swimming in the summer. Worst comes to worst I'll go sit in a stream, lake or spring all day (of course once the aquifers are pumped dry, the spring business is out...). Go fish, stay cool.

More of a concern is the throngs of from the frozen north coming down in the winter time once their natural gas runs out....

[dub_scratch]

People addicted to AC? Perhaps that depends on where people live and the climate given. Or maybe NOT?

Coastal California is absolutely the best climate for human habitation. In the hot evenings of summer, all I need is to put the fan in the hot side of our apartment and point it to blow out the window. That is enough to drop the temperature to a comfortable level throughout the apartment, and it works very quickly. IMO, no AC is needed-- ever!

And still, even here there are people addicted to the fucken AC. I work in view of the ocean in Santa Monica, where usually all we need is an open window, and still my boss has to keep turning the AC on, and on, and on..... And I hate it. It is absolutely freezing here always, and I am someone who acclimates to cold temps easily. Perhaps it is the draft from the register blowing down on my head all workday. Even in the cool dry coastal/subtropical winter that damn AC is running.

In light of that behavior here in the most naturally AC climate on earth, there is no doubt in my mind that for some, artificial AC is as addictive as autos.

Perhaps it's a control freak thing.

[Princess]

[whinny pampered Princess]

I want my air conditioning, dagnamit! We're having a heat wave this week in Sacratomato (108ºF/42ºC) and I can't cope. When it's this hot, which it rarely is, my asthma flairs up and I find it extremely difficult to function. I actually drove into San Francisco today (where, because of the heat, all mass transit was FREE!) where it was a lovely 72ºF/22ºC. It's going to be like this through the weekend and maybe into Monday or Tuesday.

I'm just screwed when TSHTF.

[/whinny pampered Princess]

[Concerned]

The other side of that is to ask how places like India and Indonesia have been able to have gigantic populations (or at least way bigger than the US) and have not seen AC as a Basic Right. They can handle the heat - can't we?

I'm reading through all these posts and wondering why no one brought up the fact that vast numbers of people live in the tropics with no a/c with conditions not at all unlike the U.S. Gulf coast (except it is like that year round). Populations have certainly increased in those parts of the world in the last fifty years or so, but certainly even without electricity large populations existed in southern China, southeast Asia, India, Central America, Central Africa, etc.

They work hard, are slim relative to western populations which makes them easier to keep cool and they are younger, that is less people in the 75-100 year old demographic.

[peaker_2005]

I've never lived in a home that has aircon, and couldn't care less about having it.

Temperatures here can reach 35c (not uncommon) and there's the occasional 40c day. We have the odd hot day even in winter here, too (though we haven't this winter...)

The bedrooms in this townhouse are upstairs, so the heat builds up in summer (it can be quite hot, though you do get used to it).

The key to surviving heat is to keep well watered.

Sydney is great temperature wise - you only need a couple of extra layers/pile on the blankets, and in summer you wear a t-shirt and shorts. One summer I even went barefoot for weeks (this is despite the fact that the pavement would easily reach 40+ degrees C).

And, until a few weeks ago, I was still wearing thongs around (despite 8 to 12c lows).

It's great.

[Heineken]

The US economy would collapse without air conditioning. Even if opening windows could be installed (at crippling cost) in the millions of hermetically sealed office buildings, overheated office workers would be far less productive. Fast-food joints would be unbearable in summer, and people in traffic jams would choke on hot fumes. And so forth.

[basil_hayden]

Lots of good points here. Me personally, I'd rather be cold than hot, I figure I can always put more clothing on, but you can only take so much off (that's all that came to mind when I read the throngs of thongs from the north comment above, LOL).

I live in the Northeast, which is rather hot and sticky in the summer. 95F and 95% relative humidity is the norm, and let's face it, weather like that messes with your mind and body. But you can acclimate, I'm sure, or maybe it just knocks a couple years off your life, whatever.

Someone mentioned going swimming - I'd love to - point me to the unpolluted swimming holes please! I've even stopped going to the Sound to go swimming, tired of reports of sewage washing upon the beach from substandard municipal treatment facilities.

Solar attic fan - I'll have to try that, makes sense. But it seems to me an intake from below ground, where it's cool, would be needed. And soil gas itself couldn't be drawn in because the humidity and carbon dioxide levels are too high, but some type of heat exchange/dehumidification would work in a residential setting.

As far as the collapse of modern society - let's face it, the last guy that pulls a permit to install the last A/C unit that overloads the grid and sets it ablaze will be blamed for the end of Western civilization. He won't have to turn off the lights on his way out.

[Choon]

The other side of that is to ask how places like India and Indonesia have been able to have gigantic populations (or at least way bigger than the US) and have not seen AC as a Basic Right. They can handle the heat - can't we?

While those of us in the rural parts of Malaysia can live without the AC, I can definitely tell you that a huge majority of urbanites absolutely can't live without it, especially the younger generation who have known nothing other than the modern convieniences of technology.

I find this very, very shameful. Many of us who were born right here can't even stand 30 minutes of our natural weather/climate. I've hardly used the AC since I was a kid, and haven't used it ever since I moved here 7 years ago, AND despite the fact that I have eczema, I have no problems living without air conditioning.

Goes to show how fragile technology can make us become.

[BrownDog]

I have to agree with the points about the way buildings are being built. Where I live, just about every home built in the last 50 years utilizes no passive solar cooling, and therefore depends on A/C to be inhabitable. It may be 100*F and humid outside, but because there's nothing to cover the windows, and no natural convection, it will be much hotter inside, beyond just "getting used to it."

The office building in which I work is a big, sealed greenhouse. Without A/C, I cannot imagine that it would be survivable in the summertime.

I suspect that modifications could be made to some structures to make them more tenable, but I still think that this will be a major problem.

[Novus]

I think AC has allowed us to extend into overshoot more than what would otherwise be possible. The older generations will often point out how they grew up without AC. The one point that seems to miss then is that they were young and fit back then and so was most of the country. For someone who is young and fit AC is pure luxury but this nation of fat old people it has become a necessity. America was a much younger country 50 years ago. America also thinner and in a lot better shape 50 years ago too but now more than half the country is overweight. India is able to support its population in the tropics because they are a young and mostly thin people. Losing the AC could knock ten maybe even fifteen years off of Western Life Expectancy.

[lawnchair]

They work hard, are slim relative to western populations which makes them easier to keep cool and they are younger, that is less people in the 75-100 year old demographic.

Certainly the latter two, but the first point misses. The trick is, they *don't* (or didn't) work so hard. At least not in the same sense we do. It's the modern Americans who have to work (hard labor or not) from 9 to 5, 260 days a year, no question allowed. A large part of life without A/C is getting up early and taking siesta. It's also taking long summer breaks to the beach. It's also expecting productivity to go down in the summer.

Unfortunately, we've exported our work 'ethic' (the ethic of "I'm here, thus, I'm doing my job") to much of the rest of the world. American managers have banned siesta in tropical sweatshops (night-shift jobs are coveted in 24/7 un-airconditioned factories in Central America). No longer are Paris and Madrid empty two months of the year. Now, it's turn on the Carrier and see your family when you turn 70.

[Heineken]

People can live in the tropics without AC because it is moderately hot all year.

This is an important point vis-a-vis the US. In summer it is substantially hotter in Washington, DC, than in Lagos, Nigeria (a good example of a moist tropical city). Ditto for comparing the vast warm areas of the US mainland with most or all of South America. The summer heat in the tropics is, in general, moderate, not extreme.

US society, as currently configured, is uniquely dependent on AC, just as it is uniquely dependent on cars and cheap fossil fuels. And therefore it is uniquely vulnerable.

And it's just going to keep getting hotter, year by year on average.

[Wiggums]

The only way air conditioning goes away is if the whole grid fails. Now if that happens (it won’t) we’ll have much larger problems.

We can still live comfortably and reduce the amount of electricity consumed by air conditioning. As with most every way of life here in America there are many ways to increase the efficiency of air conditioning. If all homes had double pane insulated windows, ceiling fans, and 15+ SEER air conditioning units the amount of electricity demanded in the summer would go way down. Also, many home owners have under/over sized units or units in bad repair.

Lastly, most people don’t know how to use their air conditioning effectively. You should pick a reasonable temp for the day (78+) and then leave it there. One thing that really increases peak demand is people come home from work and turn their units on after leaving them off all day.

I think it would be interesting to compare the costs of turn of air conditioning verses the lose of productivity that would result.