Tunnel Vision: When You Can't Stand the Heat, Conserve

By Brendan O'Hallarn Wednesday, July 14, 2010

I’ve taken to heat in Virginia like giraffes take to staircases.

I’m not a fan. I’m also not a stoic about it.

“Quit complaining about the weather. What can you do about it? Stop being such a whiner,” my wife will say.

“But did you know it’s supposed to be 106 today? One-hundred-and-six! People shouldn’t live like this!”

Our conversations go nowhere.

My grand plan when we’re retirees is to be reverse snowbirds. You know those people who escape cold weather by living a few months a year in their condo in Florida? We want to do that, but have our summer property in my home province of Ontario. We’ll live here nine months a year, and avoid the beastliest summer weather every year.

Well, that’s the plan. I need to make a living for a few years before that happens, and for me, that means commuting.

Last week, when the weather was its seventh-level-of-Hell worst, I saw a sign on one of the electronic marquees on I-64 urging me to Be Air Aware.

Sounds good, I thought, but I’m not turning off my air conditioner today. I’ll have a stroke.

Then the sign suggested that I refuel my vehicle after dusk as a simple way to be more Air Aware. Intrigued, I put that into Yahoo answers, and found out that in fact refueling after the sun sets does cut down on the evaporation of fuel into the atmosphere, and cuts down on air vapors that can contribute to greenhouse gases. So I’ve started to do this.

Air Quality Awareness Week was May 3-10 in the United States this year, a joint initiative of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service.

On the website for Air Quality Awareness Week all sorts of tips are provided for how to be a greener commuter. Most are common sense, like doing your errands during your trip to and from work, limiting engine idling, and getting regular tune ups and car maintenance checks, especially for spark plugs.

Avoiding spilling gasoline when you fill up, not “topping off” the tank, and replacing the gas cap tightly can help drivers avoid some of the same evaporation that occurs with daytime refueling.

Naturally, carpooling and biking or walking to work are the ultimate energy savers, but I was happy to see that the EPA-NOAA didn’t take an our way or the highway approach - or rather our way, NOT the highway – in promoting Air Quality Awareness Week.

We use a ton of energy at this time of year. The flickers in our electricity supply during the recent heat wave are pretty graphic proof of that.

We’ve been over this. I’m not going to suddenly wake up one day with a magic bus route to Old Dominion University. And unless a Tunnel Vision reader has a few thousand dollars they won’t need, I’ll be driving the fuel-hog SUV as long as it lasts (which won’t be long).

But imagine if every one of us incorporated just one or two of these Air Aware tips into our daily routine? That’s a lot of fossil fuels saved, a lot of greenhouse gas emissions stopped, wouldn’t you say?

I know. I’m going to stop using all that hot air complaining about the weather to my disapproving wife several times a day. That can be another Air Aware effort I can undertake.

I predict it will last until the next time it’s 106.

Brendan O’Hallarn, cold-weather person, writes Tunnel Vision for WYDaily. Got a commuting tip? A warm weather energy saver? Let Brendan know at brendan@wydaily.com.