new england air conditioning

it's hot as fuck out and i want to talk about heat management in vermont and why i haven't really felt the need for air conditioning until the last few years. the short answer is climate change. it was not this warm when i was young. you already know that though, and there's a more interesting part to the story. i often think about daytime temperatures, but a really important change is how cold it gets at night (or doesn't).

i spent most of the summers of my childhood sleeping outside, and it got cold. wear a sweatshirt and socks in your sleeping bag sometimes kind of cold. in august. or, at more normal levels, cold enough that you definitely needed a layer. this summer, i've been going outside at night in a tank top and been warm still. the cold air lets the humidity drop a bit, but it also allows for some beautiful tech: new england air conditioning. 

in my house we open the windows at night and close them in the day. this is a fairly obvious thing to do, but it's really very effective. our house has a lot of south facing windows and would often be uncomfortably cold in the summer. i would put on a sweater because it was too cold inside and then go outside and it would be really warm. i'm don't really like air conditioning, but at this point i understand the necessity. i miss cold summer nights.