When will staying cool become uncool?

John Michael Greer (The Archdruid Report) thinks using less is about to become faddish.  I tend to agree.  There’s a toilet paper commercial on right now where the cartoon bears ask “How are you going to use less?” I think it’s relevant because advertisers are pretty tuned into what people want, and “use less”, as a phrase by itself (as opposed to “use less” of something specific), is something I hadn’t heard in advertising before.  My other reason for agreeing is simply that I’ve joined the use-less movement myself, not purely out of economic necessity, and, as long as electronic devices aren’t involved,  I tend to be an early adopter of cultural shifts. 

I wish it would hurry up though.  In particular I’m getting sick of people whining about the heat and their broken air conditioners.  I’m ready for it to be socially acceptable to give someone a hard time about using air conditioning, and for people to feel some shame at least about doing so.  We have been a bit warm in the house, but I’m resisting turning on the air conditioning now that we have screens on enough windows to get some breeze.  I’ll probably turn it on today because I have a pregnant friend coming over to help me build a solar cooker and it’s supposed to be in the 90’s.  I’m certainly no enviro-saint myself;  I am making an effort now but I didn’t always take responsibility for my resource use.  I just think of the kids who are growing up today in air-conditioned houses, who as adults will be so ill-adapted to an even warmer climate combined with energy shortages.  Kids (or at least mine, who always wants to be outside), seem to be so much more adaptable to temperature variances than adults are.  I think we do them a big disservice by getting them used to such a narrow temperature range.

I’ve washed my hair 3 times now ( every other day) with a locally-made shampoo bar and rinsed with homemade vinegar.  I expected a break-in period, based on what I’d read, I expected my hair to feel straw-like for a few weeks.  So far, I am pleasantly surprised to say the only difference I’ve observed is a small improvement in manageability.  So…tell me again why I’ve been putting all those chemicals on my head for 37 years?