I was reading the NY Times online this morning and noted with interest the observation that in Houston, TX, on scorching days, that the tunnel system under downtown fills up with humans escaping the heat. Seems like a pretty good response to seasonal heat waves and perhaps even hurricanes.
So in my free time I’ve been working on a treatment for a screenplay, kind of inspired by Children of Men crossed with Dune, where extreme surface conditions on the Earth’s surface result in a kind of splintering of society where people travel very little and have difficulty communicating with other parts of the world due to weather caused isolation and a destroyed infrastructure.
Lots of homes out here in the west don’t have basements, which I imagine might be a cool refuge during a heat wave, so it seems like cranking the AC is the way to survive the hot spells these days. But given this failing infrastructure and the increased potential for brownouts, the AC isn’t a guarantee either.
My question for the Southerners and SWesterners is this: If you had no power for AC or refrigeration, how would you keep your family (or yourselves) cool in say a month long heat wave? How do you think you’d alter your normal routines?
personally I’m trying to figure out where to move away from the hell that they call Phoenix. In reality, with no AC, I’d lie on my tile floor all day, make sure I had solar screens covering all my windows where the sunshine touched them, not just the south and west windows and plant a large shade tree on the south portion of the yard without caring what my neighbor thought.
The funny thing is, I can actually see this hapening in large parts of the desert SW. There is no water conservation, nor much thought to any energy saving features on the new homes that are being built.
I just read the article, only 102 wtf? They need to HTFU. When it’s above 110 then they can complain about heat.
I’m in Atlanta and our house is a cape cod style, with the upstairs right under the roof. It’s unbearable up there unless I run the window A/C units along with the house A/C. I dug out my crawl space and made a basement which is not heated nor does it have A/C. We could live and sleep down there and be fine. I wish I had a couple hundred gallon tank buried in my yard. Throughout the year the gutters would fill it with rain water and then I could at least water my fruit trees. I could care less if my grass dies, but save my fruit trees.
Funny, I always feel the same way about Phoenix in August. Then February rolls around and my selective amnesia kicks in and I can’t think of another place in the whole world I would rather live. As far as no A/C, you can bet your ass I would find any way out of Phoenix.
I lived in Dallas for 2 years. I hated the heat (and the shitheaded texASS attitude, but thats another story). I moved to northern IL. 2 days ago it was 65 degrees and rained all day- in AUGUST. I know how to lead in combat, I think I’ll be able to go to school to become a physician’s assistant. Now I just need to learn to farm a bit and hunt, and I’ll move my family to northern Canada when the world falls apart. It should have weather about like southern IL does now in 30 years.
Your AC will make condensation. Pump the condensation into buckets outside the house and use that water to water your trees. Our Dogwoods and Apple trees are thriving on A/C Water.
I wish I had a couple hundred gallon tank buried in my yard. Throughout the year the gutters would fill it with rain water and then I could at least water my fruit trees. I could care less if my grass dies, but save my fruit trees.
It’s been very dry here this year and it has me thinking along similar lines. You can buy rain barrels pretty cheap…or simply find a source of used juice barrels…maybe $50 per 50 gallon barrel…then get some pvc pipes to connect them up, run your gutter system into it, and maybe insert a pump into one of them to pump the water out to a sprinkler system. I am going to do this for next summer…we got 1.8 inches of rain yesterday…
My question for the Southerners and SWesterners is this: If you had no power for AC or refrigeration, how would you keep your family (or yourselves) cool in say a month long heat wave? How do you think you’d alter your normal routines?
Hmmmm…the same way as we did it for the couple of thousand years or so before A/C came along. Don’t work during the heat of the day, keep out of the sun, wear clothing/hats to provide protection fr the sun, cross ventilate the house, etc…
I’m assuming that you mean if it gets REALLY hot. Like 150+ hot. If you’re simply looking for how people live in hot conditions just look at the hot places on earth. I though I read that there were several 120-130 degree days in Iraq. Those people manage to make it thru.
OTOH at the point that it gets so hot that plant life starts going away, particularly plant life we need to live off off, the easy move would be underground.
I’m guessing basic infrastructure would survive and life would be “flipped” around. We’d become nocturnal, doing all of our “work”, especially above ground work, during the night when it would only be 100-110 or so. We’d still have to maintain ventilation systems, power systems etc., of which most would still be located at surface.
I think Dune is a decent example of life in an extremely hot and dry climate. The one thing I always though they fell flat on was food. Man can not live on melange alone. They covered water pretty well, but not to much on the food. I’m guessing you’d have to have large underground terrariums couple with the underground water reservoirs.
Yeah, that’s kind of the direction I’m going; they extend siesta to the daylight hours and then become creatures of the night.
Iraq is a good example of a relatively developed and arid country where the infrastructure went to hell as a result of some external pressures. I read of folks sleeping out on their roof tops at night to catch any kind of breeze and going back to 12V electrical systems because they can charge automotive batteries using a variety of means.
I’m also writing from the perspective of a post-petroleum future, Mad Max style.
*The funny thing is, I can actually see this hapening in large parts of the desert SW. There is no water conservation, nor much thought to any energy saving features on the new homes that are being built. *
Energy? Who knows, but for water I do see huge deslination plants in the future. The Pacific Ocean has all the water we could ever need! (yuck & major $$, but I can see it happening).
I can see San Diego turning into Tucson , white rocks in the front yard . The water Nazi are making PSAs save 20 gallons a day off your usage , or we "may " call for rationing . As far as tree watering drip irrigation is the way to go , keep all the discharge lines at the same level and crank the regulator down low . This way you can avoid the small 1/4 " 1 - 10 gal flow restrictors that clog up with minerals - just use the straight 1/4 " hose .
Heli I love it over 100 when its dry , good for a quick 10 mile sauna ride.
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