Keeping Cool in Blistering Heat

By Giorgia Piantanida

The MENA region is one of the fastest heating regions in the world. As temperatures keep increasing, especially during the summer months, people continue to look for new and innovative ways to cool down, especially due to the disparity in the lack of access to air conditioning. Traditionally, buildings and cities were built in such a way to aid cooling, but as western architecture spread throughout the region beginning in the 1950s, there was a move towards reliance on AC units. This created a belief that the ultimate fix to high temperatures was air conditioning, not larger structural shifts. 

Keeping Cool on a Budget

One of the techniques to stay cool is to opt for liquids that help reduce body heat and combat the warmth. Among these drinks are jellab and laban, traditional drinks that help stay cool in the hottest summer months. If there is low humidity, a great option is a hot drink, which has been proven to trigger a sweat response which then cools the body. 

Another approach is to take a cold shower, wear only the most essential clothes and lie on your back on tiles near a window, away from the sun. Otherwise, it’s best to stay outdoors, so public parks are a popular option during hot months. 

If available, a trip to a beach, lake, pond, or creek is often used as a cooling option, often with a side of cold water and cold watermelon, particularly in Iraq. Whenever you venture out, it is also helpful to keep heads covered, to prevent sunburns, and cover from sandstorms if they are a threat near where you live. 

If there is access to a fan, some families put blocks of ice in front of it, so the fan generates even colder air. In ancient Persia, there was common use of wind catchers, which were meant to cool down temperatures, and can today still be found in the Iranian city of Yazd, though they have fallen out of use. These wind catchers were buildings designed to catch the cool wind and recycle warm wind, thereby creating a constant change over of air to keep the space cooler. 

The Larger Issue

We are living at a time of intense climate change, and every month these immense climate shifts become clearer. The UN has previously stated that we are living in an age of “climate apartheid”, and this is immensely clear if we only turn our attention to the haves and have-nots of air conditioning. Even if a family has a cooling system, those fueled by fossil fuels are often too expensive to power in part due to the subsidies placed on them to discourage use. We see the disparities only too clearly - the FIFA World Cup in Qatar is promising fully air-conditioned stadiums as families who live close by continue to struggle under immense heat. 

We must learn from these approaches to cool down ourselves because they will also help cool our planet. Increased heat triggers power outages, which makes AC units all but useless, which we have already seen happen in India this past spring. However, if we keep running the AC units during times of high heat, we will be continuing to rely on tactics that worsen the very problem they are meant to solve, as they continue to draw on fossil fuels. Air conditioning can also leak refrigerants, which can contain strong heat-trapping gasses, which will directly impact global warming. 

Currently, the use of cooling systems accounts for about 20 percent of energy use globally. And by 2050, AC energy use is set to triple if we continue on this current path. This would mean more climate devastation than ever before. And this data does not guarantee all will have access to these technologies - currently, only 8% of the countries in the hottest part of the world have such systems. And within those countries, there is a lack of even distribution. 

However, there is hope as we look ahead. One of the steps that can be taken is to increase the efficiency of air conditioning systems, so they leak less and slow down the necessity of energy needed to power them. Another step is to phase out the use of refrigerants in AC systems. There is also space to work on sustainable cooling energies, so we can slowly move away from cooling systems that rely on fossil fuels. Steps can also be taken to make indoor spaces naturally cooler, such as providing more insulation, as well as changing consumer habits to living and working in slightly warmer environments. 

Keeping cool has become a human necessity for life in a world that is rapidly heating, and we must ensure that all people, regardless of where they live, have access to this right.