The duty tells me that managers of Montreal businesses open their doors wide while their air conditioner is running (“Should Quebec ban air-conditioned businesses from leaving their doors open?” July 27, 2022).
To make such a decision, you must never have wondered where the heat that the device removes from the store goes, never have approached the back of a refrigerator. The heat that is expelled from a place (inside a fridge or living room) does not disappear. She is sent elsewhere. For this, we expend mechanical energy, part of which is degraded into heat.
Already, cooling your store warms the outside air; opening the door forces the system to work nonstop and amplifies the effect of the heat wave on all city dwellers. Doing so is as stupid as current global warming; it is also an unacceptable lack of civility towards Montrealers with breathing difficulties.
In Quebec, there are very few places where air conditioning and refrigeration systems are used intelligently. Shops and many other places are too cold in summer. In order not to freeze, I always have to put on “a little wool” before going in, and when I get out the air seems even more suffocating. To provide adequate air conditioning, you must create a temperature that is only a few degrees lower than the outside temperature, and not aim for 18 degrees Celsius.
In North America, there are many climate misfits. From the young people dressed in tight black clothes in the middle of July to the designers of new buildings who have neglected to equip them with sunshades on the southern facades. All compound the problems of global warming.
Where humans have adapted to the heat, they cover themselves in loose, light-coloured clothing, the houses have openwork wooden shutters, to reduce the heating of the windows and increase the circulation of air. Here too, small green gestures make it possible to better survive heat waves.
In summer, I cool my house without spending electricity. The windows are open from dusk until morning, then closed during the hottest part of the day. On the windows, screens, in fabric coated with aluminium, reduce the entry of heat. Sometimes, rattan rod blinds placed under the eaves and in front of the windows lower the interior temperature further.
Opening the cellar door promotes a slow rise of fresh air to the floors. Linen is washed on the hottest days and line dried to absorb heat. Leafy trees partially shade the walls and promote air circulation. The old unglazed brick cools like a water jug by the evaporation of the water on its surface. The lawn is mowed without a motor. The car is parked on light gravel, not asphalt. Finally, I travel by bike; in hot weather, it’s much more comfortable than the car.
Collectively, we can do more: impose the planting of trees in parking lots, make public transport free by financing it through a tax on large cars, equip low-income housing with photovoltaic sensors and solar-powered fridges, stop subsidizing the construction of buildings without green walls, sunshades or photovoltaic panels on the south facade.
We can even do more: if we can be made to switch to summer time every year, why not change the opening hours as well? In June, it is light from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. We could then work and be active from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., in order to close offices and shops during the hottest hours and devote this time to resting in the shade.
The way Montreal stores act revolted me. But the political inaction shocks me more. Above all, the lack of imagination and the little intelligence deployed to progress towards a viable civilization are distressing. It’s a sad illustration of human stupidity.