In 2024 I started a new tradition: no using air conditioning until June. Here is that article condensed to one paragraph:
In getting out of our comfort zone, I challenged my family to go without air conditioning until June. A little suffering of the high 80s builds resilience and grit. The challenge isn’t feasible everywhere (hundreds in Phoenix died of extreme heat the year previous), but summer doesn’t start until June 20. If you can’t handle spring without air conditioning, you probably don’t belong where you live.
We completed the challenge that year and last year. This year will be challenging. It reached 92 degrees Fahrenheit in Philadelphia last week, breaking April heat records on the 15th and 16th. Humidity hasn’t even kicked in yet. We’re not halfway through spring. This is an El Niño year with a 1-in-3 chance of becoming a “Super El Niño.” It’s going to be dreadfully hot.
My will to endure to June is shaky.
I have turned on the AC in the car already. The boy is on two baseball teams and I’m coaching my daughter’s softball team. Sometimes they go straight from their walk home from school to the field, so a five-minute cool-off is needed for performance. If AC in the car is the threshold, I’ve failed. But I’ll try to hold the line on the house.
Just after creating the new tradition in 2024, I wondered about heating. On the other side of the coin, shouldn’t I abstain from central heating until December? I thought about it. It’s possible, but nah. The AC challenge was motivated by someone close to me who didn’t last one year in Arizona because of the heat. I want my children to know heat intimately, to be wary of it. To not take air conditioning for granted.
Humans built big cities in freezing locales 200 years ago, 2,000 years ago. Warming up isn’t as hard to do. Bundle up, set things on fire. Cooling down is tricky. There are fewer ways to do it and they’re less effective. Air conditioning changed everything. Previously sparse wastelands like Florida and Arizona became major population centers as people inverted summer with winter, spending their winters outdoors and their summers indoors. But it’s not natural.
I try to check my climate alarmism. You have to appreciate human ingenuity. We’ll find a way. Things will work out.
But the insurance analysts (who have skin in the game) believe 2026 will be a breakout year. Financial safety nets designed in the 20th century will reach their limits. Capital will abandon high-risk corridors. Inability to insure properties will annihilate value, decoupling from perceived reality in a surreal way. That’s what the insurance nerds say.
Weather experts say 2026 will see global temperatures create a persistent state of extreme stress. A Super El Niño on top of record-high ocean heat will make breaking heat records the new normal, more than it already was. This isn’t just discomfort, but possibly the summer when the human body and electrical grids don’t recover. Chronic strain may break energy independence and/or biological resilience.
My “Rust Belt Revival” wager will likely fail. A return to the “Snowbelt” is certainly underway, but the ship is just starting to turn around. It won’t get back to where it started, much less advance in that northern direction enough to move the needle for congressional apportionment, by 2030. I should have set my bet for 2040. But what fun is that?
Time to move! Here in Central Mexico, the hot season has already begun. Some people have mini-splits, but all I have are three evaporative coolers — poor man’s AC. As soon as the rains come in June, our summers will be glorious, cool enough for flannel nightgowns at night.
In researching this article I generated forecasts for a few cities where I have friends or family. Here is Guadalajara, courtesy of an artificially intelligent:
Guadalajara: “Record-Breaking Dry Heat”
The Forecast: Extremely Hot.
The Vibe: This is the city most affected by the El Niño drought. Because the summer monsoon is expected to be weak, the cooling effect of the afternoon rains will be missing. Expect Guadalajara to be much hotter and drier than a typical summer, with intense solar radiation.