The past two days we've had to rescue a wayward Lesser Goldfinch that has meandered into our house. All the doors open; windows open--the birds go from our feeders and, rarely, into the house. Being birdbrained and all, they have a hard time finding an exit. I practice capture and release.
But we leave the windows and doors open anyway, as we do not have air conditioning. It is hot here in the foothills (during these hot spells I'm reminded of the summer in France that killed thousands of the elderly when it got unusually hot). A quick search on Google leads me to the stat that now only two percent of businesses and households in the US do not have AC.
The hospital I work at didn't get AC until 1981. My family back in Minnesota didn't get AC until the early 70's. Air conditioning is really a very recent phenomena. And one that has spoiled us in my view. Better to deal with the heat the natural way: Do nothing! Take a dip in a swimming hole. Pour a bucket of water over your head. Be active in the morning and in the evening. Take a siesta during the heat.
Gone are the days of sleeping on the screened in porch during warm nights. A shame really. All these industrial conveniences lead to missing out on being a creature in our environments.
Sometimes it is best to bring the outside in. To let the inside be the same as the outside. Lose the artificial environments.
2 comments:
Really? 2% seems very low. Maybe that's because I cling to the north where more people don't have it. Duluth was famous for not needing it, but I read while I was there more were getting it (must be that falsified warming, don't you know)
I do think it's a necessity in summer offices, but those are artificial environments already.
Hey Green,
The stat was from 2003, from a dotgov sort of page. Summer offices in buildings that don't have windows that open, are made of glass and steel certainly need AC.
But I'm wondering if we built things differently, maybe the need wouldn't be there? Or, at least, greatly reduced? For now, we are stuck with these awful, ugly things...
allan
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