I Spy Something Green
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
Have you ever played “I Spy” on a car trip through the Midwest during the summer? It is so hard because not only are your color options minimal but there are also abundant answers to “I spy something green.” Tree? Soybean Field? The road sign? My brother’s pallor after a winding road? The options are still endless! So endless, that I am still constantly keeping an eye out for the greenest solution! Green is my Grandma’s Kansas backyard. Green is a flock of bicyclists. Green is a baby who recycles. Or green is how you survived the summer of 2010 without air conditioning.
ShoreBank Facebook Fan Steve took a really green approach to keeping cool during the East Coast heat wave sans an air conditioner. Steve freecycled his air conditioner 3 years ago. Why? According to Steve, “my wife says that it’s because I’m ecological and she’s cheap. We prefer to say frugal. We think that frugal is choosing to be economical with yourself and cheap is being economical with others. A few years back, the combination of high electricity bills and wanting to green our behavior around the house led us to our experiment of apartment life without AC. We’re in a 4th floor walk-up and it was a real leap of faith. Hot air rises and seems to pool in our little 2 BR unit.”
How does one cope in a heat wave without AC? Steve’s response: wet shirt contest. I thought he was joking. No! Not joking! His family uses the following tactics to make do without the AC:
- Draw heavy curtains. “Sun pouring through windows in a heat wave is not your friend. We draw heavy curtains during the day to reduce the amount of energy heating the inside of our house.”
- Use ceiling fans and window fans to circulate the air. “Window fans these days have multiple settings for drawing in air from outside, sending out air from inside and even exchanging air (one fan blows in and the other simultaneously blows out). Experiment with what cools your place the best.”
- Use wet shirts to keep cool during the day. “Dunk a t-shirt in cold water. Wring it out. Put it on. It’s a little cool and clammy at the outset, but it works on the same principle as sweating. Your body heat is dissipated by working to evaporate the water. It really cools [Steve and his family] off.”
- Use a drying rack for laundry. “It seems to cool the bedroom the same way. Drying the clothes takes heat energy. When our bedroom is hot, hanging the laundry seems to cool it off. (We haven’t experimentally checked the results to see if the temp actually drops, but anything that contributes to the mind-over-matter method is good for us!) A nice bonus is that the drying rack also saves energy and money.”
- Take frozen water bottles to bed. “You might want to wrap it in a hand towel before bedtime or it could give you a puddle of condensation. It really works. A small bit of cool on any one place of your body (torso, neck, etc.) makes your whole body feel cooler.”
I admire Steve’s dedication to not cave to air conditioning convenience and his ability to keep his cool while saving green. We all might not have the ability to save and survive sans air conditioner, but anybody can spot green. And spying a green object or lifestyle like Steve’s could help you win a 6-speed folding bike!
Enter ShoreBank’s “I Spy Something Green: What is the Greenest Thing You’ve Seen This Summer?” 100-150 word micro-essay contest starting August 2, 2010! The winner will receive a Tokyo Citizen 16-inch 6-speed Folding Bike with Ultra-Portable Frame and more. Visit Facebook.com/ShoreBank for contest entry and voting guidelines, rules, and additional information. So get ready, get green, and write a micro-essay! We can’t wait to read about the green things you’ve spied this summer.
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