Frank T. Pool

The Texas Heat Dome has not abated. Temperatures all this week were above 100 degrees, with another week of those temperatures in the forecast.

I grew up in East Texas without an air conditioner. I remember how on hot summer days I would close all the doorways to the center hall in our house on Maple Street, leave the attic fan running, and lie on the hardwood floor letting the relatively cool air sucked through the space below the closed door flow over my shirtless body.

We had oscillating fans, including one very old one inherited from my grandmother, and a three-speed box fan that I would also lie in front of, reading or napping. I loved its sound, including the rattle of its steel grill.

I envied neighbors who had window units in their homes. For a long time, I don’t think I ever knew anybody with central air conditioning. We had an evaporative cooler in the garage my dad converted into a “den.”

When I got a steady job at Brookshire’s the first thing I bought was a portable phonograph, and the second was a used evaporative cooler. The pump didn’t work well, and I had to go out periodically and spray it down with a garden hose, but that was still a great improvement for my uninsulated bedroom—another of my dad’s additions to the house.

These days, we are staying home or traveling in air-conditioned cars to places that also have air conditioning. As long as the electrical grid holds up, we will be comfortable. And if it doesn’t, we can break out a portable generator that should give us some level of air conditioning.

Texas has been installing solar power generation and batteries rapidly in the last few years. This is in addition to the many wind turbines that I’ve noticed constructed in the state for the last 15 years. Sometimes I wonder if in 30 years, those gleaming white towers with their enormous blades will get rusty and need painting.

Some years back I immersed myself in the science of climate change. I interviewed a Texas A&M climate scientist, read some books, reports, and many articles, and tried to figure out what was going on.

I discounted opinion pieces, especially the ones that started throwing hardball words like “socialism” and “existential.” I also have not felt the need to convince denialists or alarmists. I figured that sticking to the science and avoiding politics might be a better move.

I have read some writers like Bjørn Lomborg and Stephen Koonin who are skeptical of current climate policies, and who say that some of our concern is excessive. But what I’ve noticed is that they, indeed hardly anybody anymore, denies that global warming is happening, and that it is primarily caused by human activity. What we should do about it is important, but “climate change is a hoax” has run its course.

There have been many articles about the extreme weather in the Northern Hemisphere this year. Floods in India and Vermont, fires in Canada, water temperatures simmering around Florida, and unrelenting heat in many places around the planet. Actually, reading too many such articles can be described as “doomscrolling.” I needed to unplug from obsessive anxiety.

“Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” That used to be a joke, back in cooler times. I’m sitting indoors mostly, doing a lot of reading. My library is part of my investment in resiliency…along with the generator.

I water my fairly small front lawn on the designated day, leaving the back yard to the sun. Our “devil strip” between the sidewalk and street is flourishing with lantana and other flowering plants, thanks to a clever soaker system my wife rigged. Home owners in the neighborhood usually water; renters never do. It’s the crunching of summer lawns.

We have an exercise bike, a TV, and streaming music. As I write, I’m listening to the 2023 summer playlist compiled by Barack Obama. The playlist is…well…eclectic. Jackson Browne is singing “Doctor, My Eyes,” a standard from my Nacogdoches college days.

Perhaps I’ll write more about the playlist next time. Until then, keep cool, y’all.