Power Hungry

摘要

Sprawled lifelessly across a chair at my sister's home in Phoenix, I watch the mercury outside rise on its way to a high of 112. Most metropolitan Phoenicians, 4 million and counting, cope with life in a solar oven by dialing down the thermostat. My sister's family is not among them. Although the National Weather Service has declared an "excessive-heat watch" today, my brother-in-law insists that the house be air-conditioned only at night-to 78 degrees-to avoid peak-load hours. A lone fan swooshes the air, and only when people are in the room. Behind his back I call him the Green Ayatollah.