Air-Conditioning Is Terrible for the Earth — Here’s How to Live Without It

We live in a society that has been built around the idea of energy-intensive cooling. Here are some easy ways you can stay cool and cut your summer energy consumption.

Over the past decade, gains in the general energy efficiency of appliances have been wiped out by our growing reliance on one device in particular: the air conditioner. Just since the mid-1990s, as the U.S. population was growing by less than 15 percent, consumption of electricity to cool the residential, retail and automotive sectors doubled.

If people in India, Brazil and Indonesia used as much air-conditioning per capita as we do (and why not, their climates are hotter than ours), they would consume not only their own electricity supplies but also all of the electricity in Mexico, the United Kingdom and Italy — plus all 60 nations of Africa! The air-conditioning of America’s homes, businesses schools, and vehicles causes the release of greenhouse gases equivalent to 400 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

But while working on Chapter 1 (pdf) of Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World, I learned that there are still plenty of people who, out of ecological and other concerns, live without air-conditioning — even in the hot heart of the Sunbelt.

Chris George and Dani Moore, for example, kept their windows open and their refrigerator stocked with ice water through the entire summer of 2009 in Tempe, Arizona. I visited them on the second-hottest day of the year, when it was 114 degrees outdoors and 100 in the kitchen.

Sheila and John Stewart have been opening their 1920s-era house in St. Petersburg, Florida to Gulf breezes year-round since 1984; Sheila told a local reporter in 2006 that life in hot, humid Florida without air-conditioning is “a thermostatic thing. Your body gets used to it.”

Meanwhile, we residents of central Kansas are no strangers to triple-digit temperatures. Torrid south winds can ripen our eight million acres of wheat overnight. But my wife Priti and I have lived here for the past 10 years without air-conditioning. Life in Kansas, and before that, in India, has taught us a few ways of adapting to heat.

As I see it, if you want to get some really creative ideas for keeping cool at the height of summer, go to someone who has figured out how to live without air-conditioning on the fringes of Phoenix — the world’s number-one urban heat island — or in the sun-broiled steambath that is southwest Florida.

So I asked John, Sheila, Dani, Chris and Priti to help me come up with a summertime guide to remaining comfortable — or at least of sound mind and body — without air-conditioning.

If you follow any of this advice, it may be out of a desire to reduce your carbon footprint or your utility bill. But we’re betting that as you begin to realize some of the benefits of the non-refrigerated life, you’ll find yourself looking for more opportunities, even excuses, to turn off the air-conditioning. — Stan Cox

The ground rules for online courtesy gelled sometime in the late ’90s: Don’t swear on public forums. Zip large files before sending. AVOID WRITING IN CAPS, AS IT IS RUDE TO CYBERSHOUT.

Today, as we spend more and more hours interacting online (Americans devoted twice as many minutes to social networking and blog-reading in 2009 vs. 2008, according to a Nielsen survey), there are more opportunities than ever for awkwardness, unintentional insult, rejection, creepiness and misunderstanding.

So this week, Stuff Hipsters Hate co-blogger Andrea Bartz and I are taking a break from broad-swath advice spewage and instead playing Emily Post to our friends’ and fans’ real-life netiquette conundrums.

Frenemy territory

“A friend-of-a-friend whom I see in a group setting every month or two just randomly unfriended me on Facebook. I have no idea how I offended him, but now running into him is understandably uncomfortable. Should I just confront him?” –A Good Person, I Swear

We find it hard to believe you’re totally innocent here, AGPIS.

The unfriend is a powerful symbol of cut ties — We know plenty of sworn enemies who’ve steadfastly avoided it, still sending one another token Facebook event invites with fake smiles frozen on their tremblingly spiteful faces.

So if this snip-snip wasn’t preceded by an actual blowout, you’ve got to ask yourself why somebody would want you erased from their feed — do you update every 20 seconds with inane observations? Pen mushy posts on your girlfriend’s wall?

If you’re still coming up short, you could … we dunno … ask him what’s amiss? If this makes you feel all squirmy-like on the inside — revelation! Maybe y’all shouldn’t be FB friends. Dude played FarmVille, anyway.

Word imperfect
“My co-worker sends business e-mails with a staggering number of spelling and grammar errors. It’s at the point where we’re all embarrassed he’s allowed to communicate with the outside world, but no one knows how to tell him. He’s like the guy in the office with terrible breath.” — Mortified By Proxy

Yeah, we hear this happens in fields in which employers value prowess in “math” and “hard sciences” and other such bewildering voodoo.

But unlike the close-talker who reeks of stale onions and rotting corpses, this guy probably knows his writing skills are subpar.

(Side note: This is why you must always, always, without exception, accept gum when offered and shove it into your mouth post-haste. I don’t care if, thanks to a raging case of TMJ, the chewing motion will enflame your jaw and give you the bulbous chipmunk-y appearance of a college freshman who has just had his wisdom teeth yanked. Just assume it’s a hint about your oral hygiene and start masticating.)

Anyway, the good news for you is that you can treat this like a bad breath scenario, with even less subtlety.

Vaguely blame it on the clients who’ve been subjected to his LOLcats-like missives (”They called me all confused, apparently they had misinterpreted something you’d written ’cause there was a typo”) and offer that Altoid — collaborative e-mails from your team (i.e., you write — or skim — the important ones).

Since that’ll create more work for you, ask what else he can take on to re-level the load. Or just eat his soul. Wait, sorry, we were getting corporate America mixed up with hell. Our mistake.

Family values

“My little cousins/conservative aunt/Dad tried to friend me on Facebook. I don’t need them/her/him seeing my drunk shenanigans or my angry status updates, but I get majorly guilt-tripped for rejecting their requests.” — Hipster Who May Or May Not Be Of Legal Drinking Age

This, HWMOMNBOLDA, is a common complaint and the reason many users keep scads of potential friends in Facebook deep-freeze. They’re loath to hit “accept” and ashamed to hit “reject,” thus locking acquaintances in friend-request limbo for all time.

Relatives, gung-ho about these newfangled social networking sites, are probably just excited that you showed up when they asked Facebook to find friends in their address book. (Fully 48 percent of parents merrily friend their hapless kids on Facebook, finds a survey from electronics shopping site Retrevo.)

But stand your ground. If you’ve traditionally limited your profile to your 677 favorite peers, letting in just one out-of-demo friend will throw off your delicate Facebook ecosystem (or just require a lot of freaking detagging).

You could allow them to see your limited profile (so certain portions — i.e., all the snaps of you beer-bonging and then consequently darting around the yard sans pants — just don’t show up when they stalk you). But why bother?

Just mention that you only use Facebook to stay in touch with your good friends (”I’m just not that much of a Facebook person” is an effective lie), and direct them toward better ways to keep abreast of your goings-on: sweet weekly e-mail check-ins or your public Twitter feed, for example.

Relatives just want to feel close to their little angel — no need to let on that you’re currently foaming at the mouth and this close to quitting your job and finally starting that screamo band.

The very talented Michael Wilde wrote and recorded a song about little ole me entitled “Rockstar Booking Agent”. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Rockstar Booking Agent – MIDI Mix
Rockstar Booking Agent
©2010 Cynthia Weber, Michael Wilde

She usually wakes up in the morning wrong side of the bed
Trying to remember where she laid her head
Tough to know where you are when you wake up feeling half past dead
Flip the switch on the computer start the coffee on the run
Load up all them emails get the promo work done
She’s a multi-tasking mama don’t quit till the game is won

Got a big old batch of home-made go-go juice
Gotta get the blood pumping get the typing fingers loose
Another long day still chasing that golden goose
Five hours sleep can drive a woman insane
All that hard work you never hear her complain
When it’s all said and done she got everybody drinking champagne

Cause she’s a rockstar booking agent working this crazy town
Got a bunch of entertainers needing work so they don’t drown
She got 5000 friends on Facebook
Yeah the VIPette’s pretty well known
She’s a rockstar booking agent working this crazy town

Calling all clubs I got a star for you
But voicemail’s all she ever gets to talk to
Still pluggin along makin everybody’s dreams come true
Now the suns on the left coast and it’s sinking fast
Hit the shower throw some clothes on get that foot on the gas
Showtime at 10 and she know it’s gonna be a blast

Cause she’s a rockstar booking agent working this crazy town
Got a bunch of entertainers needing work so they don’t drown
She got 5000 friends on Facebook
Yeah the VIPette’s pretty well known
She’s a rockstar booking agent working this crazy town

Awwww, work it girl! (Lead Break)

She’s a rockstar booking agent working this crazy town
Got a bunch of entertainers needing work so they don’t drown
She got 5000 friends on Facebook
Yeah the VIPette’s pretty well known
She’s a rockstar booking agent working this crazy town

She got the whole damn world on Facebook
They keep the VIPette running around
She’s a rockstar booking agent working this crazy town
(Spoken) Awwww work it, girl… get us all some work!

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