AC by itself isn’t the problem and will be more of a necessity. Starting to use more alternative sources of energy to provide electricity is the problem. The US provides 63% of its electricity from fossil fuels, while Germany does only 54% and France only 8.6%. Now France is heavily dependent only nuclear energy, which may be a cost we don’t want to bear. There is still little question that we could be getting much more energy from renewable energy.
You’re right. I moved it to 69 last night and shed a blanket. But then the dog settled near my leg and I got hot again and regretted my decision.
You don’t need AC at all. The Apaches, Karankawa, Kiowha, Commanche, and hundreds of years of Mexican and American settlers lived in Texas with no AC. Just like you don’t need radiators, gas heat, or fuel oil heat (which is trash). Just build a fire in your fire place, bring in the animals, and huddle around. It’s all good, John. I’m sure you do your part. Then again, if I’m running an ultra high efficiency unit and get my energy from clean natural gas or wind (thanks, west Texas), it’s a hell of a lot different than burning coal or fuel oil. I’ll try to make up for my horrid habits by avoiding using my heaters until sometime in mid-December and we can call it even.
In any event, I’m sure glad I have AC, and pity those who do not when they’re dealing with mid-90s temps. Hopefully it at least cools down in the evenings and nights.
Very publicly-spirited of you! 
It’s 86F here now and sticky, so I’ve got my window AC running now, but I’m quite comfortable with it at 76, and 78 at night. And I try to get by with a fan when I can. (My guilty pleasure: Looking forward to nights when I can run the AC with a clean ecological conscience and block out all the NYC noise – garbage trucks, sirens, loud people!)
I’m appalled, though, when I hear AC machines running up and down my block when it’s 70 degrees out. People don’t even bother to consider whether they need it. And shops leave their front doors open with the AC set for 65.
Energy has generally been much more expensive in Europe, and Europe was once much poorer, so they take a lot more care. The hotel I’ve stayed in many times in Barolo still has timers on the hallway lights. And they’re set short! When they install AC, it’s high-efficiency units.
We use AC because it’s hot and it’s hot because we use AC.
Where will it end?
73 in the summer and 58 in the winter are the thermostat settings in our house. We are considering bumping the winter temp up to 60 in a few years as we get older.
I don´t know… In the central and south of Spain it can get very hot. Most of the older homes and businesses (in the villages) never did and still do not have AC. They manage. The main construction is cement and stone, they close the shades and windows in the morning, use fans, close shops and businesses at 2:30 or 3:00p open back up at 5:30p, make cool soups, like gazpacho, salmorejo, and ajo blanco, then at night the windows and shades open up and homes cool off. Water is not abundant so beer and tinto de veranos are beverages of summer.
Me personally, I go hang out in the cellar!! 
As far as the vineyards, moisture and heat are definitely recipes for mildew and moldy rot. It is a very fine balance. As far as the vines handling heat, from what I have studied, as long as the temperatures in the spring and early summer had an incremental increase in temps and didn’t have a scenario of very cool temps followed by rapid scorching sustained heat, then the vines should have no difficulty handling higher temps.
We run 78 during the day and 76 at night in the summer. 68 day and 64 night in the winter.
These are pretty much our set-points as well, with adjustments for when we’re out of the house (warmer in summer, colder in winter). A programmable thermostat with 4 periods per day and settings for each day provides a lot of flexibility.
If you’re in an old NYC apartment building with steam heat like mine, it runs at about 80F all winter long, even with the radiators off. There’s so much accumulated heat in the walls and pipe chases.
That’s probably why I’m content with just a fan much of the summer. I’m used to 75-80F indoors year round. ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
As a quick update, I spent a few in Burgundy this week. Things were looking good, although rain was lacking. People were concerned with phenolic maturity starting to become stuck due to lack of thereof. Berries were super concentrated (according to Cecile Tremblay, a bit too much, “very thick skins”) and sugary. We tasted some berries from Lafarge’s Clos du Chateau des Ducs, right behind their home: super sugars, but still a bit unripe seeds (green). FWIW, Frederic Lafarge was super happy with berries’ health. They looked great, more millerandage than usual.
During our visit at Bouley in Volnay in the afternoon, it started to rain slightly. Thomas was smiling when we came out of the cellar. They rain continued on Friday, so good news, but curious to know how much of it hit the higher slopes, due to the micro climats there.
Information on harvests circulate quickly: Arnaud Ente apparently already started on Tuesday of this week already, Roulot should have started yesterday. Pierre Morey would start only on 1 September. For the reds, people would start as from 1 September. So for the whites, there is seemingly a big difference in starting date, much more than the reds. Curious what the impact will be.
If there is a bit more rain the coming days before the harvest, it should be a great vintage. One vigneron mentioned, “20 years ago we would cry if it would rain in the week(s) before harvest, and now we smile…”.
They had the first snowfall in the Sierra Nevada, Granada, Spain on Aug 23,2018
![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
I don’t know if you can get facebook urls through here or not, but if so here is a video…
FYI directly above the ski lift the says Puleva is the mountain peak Veleta!!
That is awesome Nola!
Also snowfall in Austria today, down to 1500 m sea level … (no danger for any vines) …
crazy weather … but tomorrow warmer again…