Summertime: Air conditioning fever, and my travel plans

I rolled down the windows in my car as I drove around my Connecticut town today. It reminded me of my New Jersey childhood. All Americans born in the 1950s spent the kid years riding in the backs of cars with the wind crazily whipping through their hair. Cars didn't have air conditioning in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Neither did most houses. Air conditioning has taken over the indoor world since the 1970s. Now the summertime is the time of electrical overload. I don't preach to people to try to live without A.C., but I do say that everyone should remember all of the stay-cool tricks from the past. These tactics help save energy whether you have A.C. or not. Shade the windows when you go out for the day. Always shade windows on the sunny side of the house. Avoid turning on a lot of lights when you aren't in the room. Turn off the TV unless you're actively watching. Don't cook heat-intensive meals; the A.C. will have to work harder to cool your hot kitchen. And if you have A.C., turn the temperature up when you go away. MY TRAVEL PLANS I will deliver the keynote speech at a colloquium in Raleigh, North Carolina, in September: "Energy Independence: What You Can Do Now." Monday, September 11 from 2-3:30 p.m. Fall Open House & Kick Off Colloquium presented by: The Encore Center for Lifelong Enrichment at NC State University. My talk is sponsored by NC Greenpower. Location: McKimmon Center, 1101 Gorman Street, Raleigh, NC For more information, call 515-5782 I will speak on how every individual can contribute to Energy Independence. Then I will moderate a panel discussion with North Carolina experts from the NC SolarCenter, NC Greenpower, and the NC Energy Office. I'll also be selling my book. I will speak about my book, The Homeowner's Guide to Energy Independence, on September 16 at The Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver.