To endure heat waves, remember — lowering the AC makes the heat worse. Set it at 78°.
We’ve come to take air-conditioning for granted, and for the most part, only appreciate it when it’s not there to provide comfort. Most of the time it gets shoved out of our consciousness like background music in a movie, and insidiously becomes accepted as a given.
We are currently living in a collapsing world and if we do not act fast to halt the advancement of environmental destruction, the weight of it will bring down our techno cultural edifice and cast us out into unfeathered reality, stripped of our creature comforts. When this happens AC will no longer be available as it is today.
Recently, vetwife posted this diary with suggestions for coping with growing heatwaves:
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2024/6/11/2246118/-Do-this-during-the-Heatwave-It-Help
It got me thinking:
We’ve already experienced major heatwaves this summer in various places all over the country, with more to come, bringing what will be for many, unendurable heat. Unless you’re able to stay indoors the entire time and if you’re lucky enough to have air conditioning that doesn’t fail due to power outages, you’ll suffer through periods that test your limits or beyond.
For countless millennia mankind has dealt with heat by both physiological adaption and traditional coping strategies. These included various types of human powered fans, the evaporation of hanging wet sheets, cooling showers, seeking relief in the evaporation enhanced cooler air under shade trees, immersion in any available body of water large enough to be cooler than the surrounding air, caves or later, dark rooms with thick walls, as well as, behavioral adjustments, spicy diets, pale light-weight fabrics and whatever other moderating techniques our ancestors could innovate.
Acceptance in the face of meager heat managing options, especially for the vast majority of the poor, was an essential mitigating factor. Not knowing yet that better technology would come, negated the added torment of not being able to access it. Across the world, many people without AC now know what they’re missing and that perspective can increase their suffering if they choose to focus on it.
By accepting limitations, we can get past seeing them as restrictive. In the process, not only do we suffer less, but acceptance can enable us to flourish while still being ‘root bound’. This particular form of adaptability is one of our great strengths.
But there are added factors that increase the suffering heat can cause.
Food producing and processing ‘advancements’ and our endgame infatuation with ease, have entered the mix. These have added the liability of being overweight and out of condition to the burden of enduring high temperatures.
I grew up in the 1950s without air conditioning and lived without it until my early 50s.
As an adult, I’ve weathered 25 summers in New York City, which we fondly referred to as “Calcutta on the Hudson”, and after that, 15 summers in Miami Beach with no air conditioning.
I was finally driven to install it in an effort to preserve humidity vulnerable materials in my apartment from climatic attrition. Without it, fabrics became musty, metals corroded and art suffered a variety of ills. From the moment it switched on, I felt like I’d been let out of prison to be led into Paradise. Within no time at all, it had obliterated any memories of what life was like without it.
Nevertheless, while people I know here set their ACs on average in the low to mid 70s, I have always chosen to run mine at 79°F.
At 78°F, I’m too cold. As we’ve learned from global warming one or 2° can have a profound effect.
78°F, by the way, is the recommended AC temperature setting during a heat wave according to this article from yahoo news:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/whats-best-temperature-set-ac-161723867.html
And here are the preferred average temperatures of AC users:
https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/2024/06/28/florida-heat-poll-most-popular-air-conditioner-thermostat-setting/74215528007/
From that article:
“That's considerably higher than the national average. A 2021 Consumer Reports survey found people with central air conditioning set it to a median temperature of 72 degrees, with none of their respondents choosing a temp over 76.”
Years ago, a good friend lent me a copy of Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s “The Worst Journey in the World ” which is considered a classic of Polar literature. It is one of a handful of nonfiction books I’ve read which flagrantly defy credibility. (Prescott’s “The Conquest of Mexico”, being another.)
Cherry-Garrard’s extraordinary book is an account of Robert F. Scott’s ill-fated mission to claim the South Pole for England — only to find that the Norwegian, Roald Amundsen had gotten there first.
As remarkably fascinating as this narrative is, I was continuously struck with the major role that Antartica weather plays in his faithful historic account — weather there being primarily the cold and the wind, with ice and snow in supporting roles.
Scott and his band of approximately 25 men were forced to endure the 8 month near sunless Antarctic winter in a 50’ x 25’ prefabricated wood shed that they had brought with them and assembled on the north shore of Cape Evans on Ross Island.
Six others of his party miraculously survived the winter in a cave dug in the ice at Cape Adare. While their story is a testament to will power, it does not serve my purpose here.
If those at Cape Evens needed to go outside, they could be taking their lives into their own hands. While average winter temperatures for the continent ranged from -12°C to -35°C, mid-winter temperatures in this area could plummet as low as -50°C. At the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, it can reach -100°F, which is -73°C.
The approximately 20 ponies they brought with them to haul sleds to the North Pole, needed to be fed and cared for daily. Even though these were housed in an attached shed that ran the length of the main hut, with frequent blizzards there was always the risk of getting disoriented and becoming quickly and hopelessly lost. Sight and sound were made short work of by these raging snow laden tempests, that reached at times the level of hurricane force winds.
I can no longer remember the exact temperature range outside of Scott’s Hut and searched in vain for it, but I trust your credulity has been sufficiently stretched to impress my point.
Even though the shed they lived in had a stove augmented by the added heat factor of 25 men in close quarters, which could make the indoor temperature uncomfortably warm, their bodies apparently started acclimating to the all pervasive outdoor temperatures. The fact that they had none of the benefits of our modern textile innovations, with only wool and cotton to insulate their bodies, possibly aided in their building a resistance to the cold.
When spring came, bringing with it Antarctic-style balmy weather, they responded to this rise in temperature by stripping down to light undershirts when working or exercising outside, so as not to feel overheated. I read “Journey” at least a dozen years ago but remember that the temperatures were still hovering around zero degrees Celsius when they did this. (I actually remember -10°C, but this memory has worn sufficiently for me to slip into disbelief.)
Cold Acclimation and Acclimatization in Humans from the website “Cool Antartica”
In the book “Kabloona” by Gontran de Poncins, there is an account of a missionary living in the furthest inhabitable reaches of the North American hemisphere in an ice cave dug by the Inuit for storing frozen seals. This ‘cosy’ home was a ‘comfortable’ and constant -50°C, with the only ‘heat’ to speak of, coming from a ‘blubber’ lamp. He worked, slept, but apparently did not suffer in it.
While humans are vaunted for their unparalleled abilities to adapt (possibly to compensate for our unparalleled stupidity), before reading these great books, I had no idea that the human body could expose itself to such temperatures while actually feeling momentarily comfortable with them. ( Now if we could only adapt as well when confronted with diversity and change.)
During the 70s and 80s in New York City, I experienced this temperature acclimation first-hand, in a clear, though far less dramatic way. Invariably, in early February the temperatures would go up into the low 70s for several days and we would all be running around in light shirts. While it would feel like early summer to us, when spring brought the same temperatures more gradually, both allowing time to acclimate and eliminating the jolt of sudden contrast, we might opt for sweaters or light jackets.
As humor can nest in fact, I joke that in Miami Beach in the winter, with temperatures often in the 60s to low 70s, you can tell the tourists from the locals, because the locals are wearing coats and sweaters, while the tourists are wearing T-shirts.
It’s my hope that this rather long introduction provides sufficient examples to help illustrate the ‘drift’ that most people experience as their bodies are unconsciously and adversely acclimated from prolonged exposure to excessive air-conditioning.
Depending on the circumstances, the degree to which we can control our minds, emotions, and therefore rational responses, varies. As a result, most of us have a tendency to overreact to change and then overcompensate.
During hot summers, walking in and out of air conditioning can trigger a variety of physiological responses that in turn push our subconscious to try to compensate for sensations we’ve become conditioned to perceive as unpleasant. In our self-centric pursuit of comfort, we can become chronically dissatisfied with anything outside of an ever narrowing range of temperature.
Living here can lead one to the conclusion that people move to Florida to ‘escape the heat’, as once arrived, they put considerable effort into doing just that, by spending most of their time in ‘tricked out’ coolers.
As we all have different levels of tolerance, what some find to be cold others find warm. When attempting to accommodate this range, those managing the AC in public spaces try to find the ‘sweet spot’ of fewest complaints, or just default to their personal preference, with mine being too ‘extreme’ for consideration. Being an anomaly, I’ve learned to bring a sweater with me when nutritional necessity, clothing attrition or social obligation drive me into any of these ‘faux-polar’ public spaces.
Learning anything in Florida can be challenging, but having lived here longer than I ever thought humanly possible, by dint of persistence, I’ve managed to observe first hand an overarching tendency for Floridians to become ‘cold junkies’.
Over time, their bodies acclimate to artificially adjusted indoor temperatures, which they incrementally find less cooled to their liking. In response, as is commonly done with pain drugs, they ‘up the dosage’ — in this case by lowering the temperature. While this eventually finds its limit, it is invariably much lower than necessary or advisable in the threat of extreme heat.
But to most, when the heat comes, resisting temptation to adjust the AC thermostat down seems counterintuitive.
It’s typical of human interaction with the physical world that repeated exposure dulls our senses and we need to ‘increase the volume’ to attempt to preserve experiential ‘constants’ as they erode.
By responding to the increase of outdoor temperature by lowering the AC, we are also lowering our ability to cope with heat.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/11/air-conditioning-protect-extreme-heat
Our world is setting. Whether it will rise again depends on our having what it takes and our will to survive. If six men can survive the Antarctica winter in an ice cave, there is no limit as to what we’re capable of when we get pushed to the edge. We’ll soon be there.
Going forward global heating will continue — with the rise in temperature unrelenting. If you want to increase your odds of survival or just mitigate your suffering, it’s time to start acclimating yourself to rising temperatures by weaning off of your AC dependency.
This does not mean giving up air conditioning altogether, but rather adjusting it back up to a more moderate range that tempers ill-considered ‘necessity’ and nurtures sustainability. When the heat hits, if everyone continues to selfishly crank up the AC, power outages will become inevitable. While hoarding toilet paper is pathetically selfish, ignoring the common good in a heatwave becomes collective cognitive-dissonant genocide.
Human selfishness is constantly trying to ‘steal the reins’ and wreckage is always the result.
As I mentioned above, diet and exercise have an enormous impact on our ability to withstand higher temperatures and as a survival protocol, on many levels, they can’t be overstated. When combined with AC moderation, fitness could provide the ‘1 - 2 punch’ for many to survive the next round of heat.
I suspect that some here will tell themselves that these cooler temperatures are necessary for age and health reasons. While that may be the case for some, it bears reappraising.
A close friend adjusted his AC setting up after I told him I was working on this diary and explained to him what it was about. He has left it there ever since, despite being overweight, diabetic and a ‘host’ to various other ailments. Among other benefits, he has discovered that it has reduced a lot of his aches and pains.
In order to avoid what we perceive as immediate, even though brief discomfort, we will willingly condemn ourselves to far worse, with delivery guaranteed. When it invariably arrives, avoidance has fled, leaving suffering behind.
While that royally sucks as verification of human ‘superiority’, it is our struggle against such tendencies that help lead us towards a fuller maturity. Although it is my experience that most of us have trouble adopting new habits that are more beneficial for our health and well-being, this is not possible at all unless someone presents alternatives.
But obstinance tends to a weed filled garden that it is forever enlarging.
After all, no one does survival training when busy shopping.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/26/2248553/-Earth-Matters-Recent-heat-waves-preview-what-s-to-come-25-of-U-S-yards-have-unsafe-lead-levels. MB Earth Matters
NOTE: Arndis has left a comment that provides some very insightful and useful information — and so I’m adding it here so that readers won’t miss it:
“My location is north of you all, but also natively has hot humid summer days that feel imported from further south. That drop from low 90s F to high 70s F (up here that’s low 30s C to mid 20s C) is the critical improvement. I’ve almost never had the luxury of central AC, just smaller AC units and fans, which are far better than nothing!
Another thing we do is to watch the weather and set up cross-drafts and stack effects. When it’s cool at night, or a cool day, open the windows. Preferably ones opposite each other (cross-draft) or with a clear path from a lower storey inlet to an upper storey outlet (stack effect). Adding fans (maybe a whole-house fan) to exhaust hot air will improve results when the air is still. Then in the early morning, close the windows before the heat starts building! You’ll have banked some cold to lower the burden on the AC and your electric bill. (The room that hovered at 30C all week is 24 C today because it’s 22 C and breezy outside today! We’re grabbing all the cold we can!)
Hot regions in Asia and other places have traditional building techniques against the heat. These often rely on architectural features that your average North American building doesn’t have and which may be difficult to retrofit, or not anticipated by local building codes. Those in design and construction ought to be studying those techniques for use in new construction and major renovations, to lower the load on powered cooling technologies.”