Barcelona is a hot, humid seaside town where people have been deferring to heat for thousands of years....rather than rely on machines, and wreck their old architecture with window units and ducts, they design their habits, hardware, clothes, and attitude to cool themselves off. Now their deference seems sustainably avant-garde.
The secret to Catalan comfort is not a gadget, but a self-induced, mind-body state of discomfort suspension: heat tolerance. Accordingly they plan their seasonal vacations, daily routines, food, drinks and wardrobes for maximum cooling. In other words, it is the culture that cools, not the contraptions.
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It is the antithesis of American life, which offers up every day as a shapeless continuum of snacking, working and shopping at 24-hour stores with season-free air.
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What happens when humans treat themselves like dairy products chilled behind glass?
Civilization declines.
The proof is in Barcelona. Spend five glorious weeks in its barely mitigated heat, as I did last summer, then return home and refrigerate yourself in the relentless mono-temperature now anesthetizing the continent. Conclusion?
A/C is the killing frost sure to wilt the last fragile shoots of American culture.
Keep Cool With Culture, Not Contraptions (Treehugger)
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