The Sun Is Both The Problem And Part Of The Solution.

One of my favorite Filipinos soups: Arroz Caldo

The power went out for about half an hour this morning with no warning and I worried about another day sweltering without a means to cool off like last week. Then aroumd 4 a storm hit and the power went on and off several times. Every time the power goes out, it drives home the point that having our own solar would mean that wouldn't happen. Over the years, I've spent about four months living in the Philippines. Like the last time we came in June and July, the heat is tough to handle. The best time of year both weather wise and socially is in November/December during the holiday season. The Philippines does Christmas in a way that makes anywhere else pale in comparison. If we could, that would be the best time to come.

 Even Filipinos not used to the heat returning from the U.S. struggle to adjust. Today the temperature was almost 95 and humidity is in the 80-90 percent range. In real feel, that is about 105 degrees everday. Basically, that is the standard for every day at midday and it is cool compared to the highs in April and May when dangerous real feel highs in the 110s and higher were regular. If it rains in the afternoon or evening, it cools off, but   if not, the heat continues. Mornings and evenings are mostly nice, but the middle of the day is tough. 

Fortunately, this time, for the first time, we have Aircon in our bedroom which allows us to take respite if needed during the middle of the day and turn it on at night. One feels a little shy about indulging in aircon when other family members are braving the heat, but not being adjusted, one can feel the stress on the body transitioning from the cool/dry of North Dakota to the hot/humid of the Philippines. The last summer we were here I still recall sweating through the days beside a fan and trying to sleep in the thick air of night. While we don't use the air more than maybe a few hours in the afternoon and at night, the ability to take those breaks helps the body recover.

While 80 to 90 percent of Americans have air-conditioning, only about 10 percent of Filipinos do. It is rare to see an entire house air-conditioned as in the U.S. There is one just a short way from us that must belong to a prosperous owner as they have several of the big boxes mounted on the outside of their house. 

If they do have it, most people have aircon in one room, but most of the population uses fans. Not only is an airconditioning unit expensive, but electricity is more expensive adjusted for income.

 Air-conditioning, like cars and other consumer goods are a sign of prosperity. As with more people having cars here, more people also have airon than the last time we visited. That is a great sign of prosperity on the one hand, but also the driver of record energy consumption and release of carbon into the atmosphere.

 The bulky outdoor units attached to the side of houses are hard to miss. Even for hardy Filipinos that think 70 degrees is cold, the heat is getting to be too much and aircon is being added as they can afford it.

Aircon, common in America is becoming more common here because it is more needed as heat and humidity reaches the point where a human body begins to break down. The so called "wet bulb" temperature is when sweat, the body's natural cooling response fails to evaporate due to the combination of heat and humidity. The past few weeks I can't help but thinking about the horrific opening scene of Kim Stanley Robinson's speculative climate fiction novel Ministry for the Future where a combination of power failures and wet bulb temperatures during a heat wave in India kill millions of people. He set those events far in the future, but this year is illustrating how horrifyingly close we are to something like that becoming reality. As I sat in near deadly heat with no power in recent days, it made me feel such scenarios may not be too far off.

Since most of the people on the planet live in increasingly hot places where air-conditioning is going from luxury to necessity, what does that do to the climate? Again, the planet can not support every Indian, Chinese and Filipino living like an American. Aircon in cities cools interior spaces while it blast the heat into exterior spaces exacerbating the problem. It sucks huge amounts of power from already taxed and weak power grids and requires more energy from fossil fuels. It is a sort of death spiral of burning to cool ourselves we need to break out of. Again, as in my last post, the proof of solar is being shown all over this country. Manufacturing solar has a dirty side that needs to be fixed, but If we don't find solutions, the alternatives are too terrible to contemplate.