In a message dated 06/19/08 16:20:07 Central Daylight Time, dave_king_ev@... writes:
When it's hot, I accept being a little hotter. When it's cold, I
accept being a little colder. I do have a furnace and AC, and I use
them both. I'm no Luddite, but I also live in the real world: summer
hotter, winter colder. This idea that we MUST manage our environment
to keep temps in a narrow comfort range AT ALL TIMES wastes huge
amounts of energy. Too hot to go camping?....then don't go camping.
Or sweat.
Same with food. When I was a kid there was a thing called "seasonal"
food. Anyone remember that? For example, you couldn't get
strawberries in the winter. They just weren't on the shelves, and no
one went to the produce department at the A&P and asked "Where are the
strawberries (or the watermelon, or the cantelope)?" No one asked
because we already knew the answer.
But nowadays I doubt the average child even knows what "seasonal"
means. Nowadays you can walk into Walmart and buy a quart of
strawberries the size of ping pong balls (and about as tasty) every
day of the year (and every hour of the day) for just a couple bucks.
THAT's waste. That's an energy-wasting culture run amuck. We grow
artificially irrigated and fertilized fruits year round and ship them
all over the country so we can have strawberries 24/7?
And then we call that a balanced diet. It's insane.
All that insanity is pissing away our energy. We can't drive our vans
and piss away our energy at the same time. Not for long.
I don't want strawberries in the winter. I don't want 5000BTUs of AC
on top of a van parked in 100+F Texas. I want to be hot in the
summer, cold in the winter, and looking forward to strawberries when
they are in season.
Balance. No smiley face expressed or implied.
So...this begs the question.....where do you live?
I don't disagree with you in theory.
I grew up without air conditioning in houses, schools, churches,businesses, public buildings or cars.
But it has been proven that humans are happy and more productive when they are comfortable.
Sure humans can 'survive' extremes of heat and cold and even tolerate it, but we really have rather narrow comfort zone.
Someone once said....if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
Kent Kirkley
'97EVC
