Frozen Solid
February 11th, 2008
When I was puttering around my kitchen this morning I realized that… well, it did seem to be a little chilly on the tiles. Under ordinary circumstances this wouldn’t have bothered me- I keep my apartment around 55 degrees at night, no higher than 62 while I’m around (programmable thermostats FTW), but now that this mornings’ chilliness was on my mind I realized that I hadn’t heard the comforting hum of the heater yet. No problem: I can check the thermostat after my shower, yet then I had to get dressed and check email and whatnot, and by the time I remembered I was dressed and ready to go out the door.
46 degrees Fahrenheit.
The complete failure of my apartment’s heating aside (turns out the heater’s fine, it’s the fan that’s not cooperating), this made me think a little bit about energy conservation and the adaptability of the human race. We evolved all over this happy little planet, shown by settlements ranging from Scandinavia all the way to Sub-Saharan Africa, and climate control has only been around since the discovery of fire. So why has it become such a necessity?
My personal, completely unscientifically supported feelings on this (based on my own experience living in places from Texas to Minnesota) is that we really never give our bodies the opportunity to adjust as the seasons change. We’ve become cloistered in our climate controlled houses, cars and offices, exposing ourselves to the real world only when comfortable, necessary, or impossible to avoid.
It really is a self-fulfilling demand structure: We seek out comfortable temperatures, which over time reduces our ability to adapt to extremes, which makes us seek out comfort more often, and so on and so forth until we’re blasting the A/C when it’s 76 degrees out.
Does this strike anyone else as completely unnecessary? Start opening up the windows early this season, let the air in, and not only will you be more comfortable as the summer heats up, but you’ll also save money. The same goes for winter: Keep your thermostat a few degrees lower, let your body generate its own heat (keep the odd blanket handy), and the cold won’t bother you that much anymore. Just remember to do it gradually with the seasons, sudden change isn’t going to make anybody happy.
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