The assumptions of an air conditioned society.

Interesting ideas that the ubiquitiousness of AC is, well... not evil... but might come with significant costs. At the very least it increases a lack of awareness of our environment...

Pt I:
AlterNet: EnviroHealth: Air-conditioning: Our Cross to Bear:

"Traditionally, humans have dealt with heat and humidity by cutting back on physical activity in the middle of the day, maybe even taking a siesta. That was before economic 'competitiveness' became a universally accepted end in itself."

Pt II:
AlterNet: America's Air-Conditioned Nightmare:

"Imagine a country where economic life, by necessity, slows during the summer. Where potential customers stay home or go swimming on a hot afternoon, so salespeople are sent home early. Where factories simply shut down the line for a couple of weeks. That was this country before air-conditioning, but in 2006, it sounds like a distant, exotic land. In today's rapid-growth, high-consumption 'service economy,' workers and consumers, like computers and ovens, are components, each of which is maintained at an appropriate operating temperature.

...Only a tiny number of politicians, and no leading member of either major party, would dare put ecological limits ahead of short-term economics. Who's going to suggest that summer be a time to back off and simply not make, sell and buy so much stuff? None will dare say that a million and a half people have no business living and working in a place like Phoenix or that Miami has grown beyond supportable limits. And the ecological damage done by that refusal to slow the wheels of commerce is irreversible"