Live The Good Life: Give Up Air Conditioning

Stan Cox tried to make the case for reducing our reliance upon air conditioning in a recent essay in the Washington Post:

...In a world without air conditioning, a warmer, more flexible, more relaxed workplace helps make summer a time to slow down again. Three-digit temperatures prompt siestas. Code-orange days mean offices are closed. Shorter summer business hours and month-long closings -- common in pre-air-conditioned America -- return.

[...]

Saying goodbye to A.C. means saying hello to the world....

This portion is particularly idyllic and, in my view, insanely implausible:

...During unseasonably warm spring and fall days, hearings are held under canopies on the Capitol lawn....

Read the entire puff piece HERE. The essay garnered 1321 comments!

Reactions to Mr. Cox's essay have varied. See these two letters to the editor. The first letter, written by Warren C. Robinson (one who has lived in the Washington, D.C. area for some eighty years), calls Mr. Cox's essay "hogwash." The second letter, written by Beth Baker, waxes poetic:

Stan Cox's July 11 Outlook commentary was music to my ears. For me, summer is a time of porch-sitting, hearing orioles sing through my open windows, fans blowing, enjoying a tall glass of iced tea or a gin and tonic, wearing a sundress, and generally reveling in a languor that I never feel in winter....

Read both letters, and decide for yourself which one is more in touch with reality.

Ultimately, as should not surprise us, Mr. Cox's recent essay in the Washington Post is a promotion of his book Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer).

By the way, no word yet as to just who is the first volunteer to give up air conditioning in a Washington, D.C., heat wave and just sweat out muggy weather. I rather imagine that Obama wouldn't be the first to step up. Heh.