Must be the global warming that’s making the days here in the tropics unbearable. I hope that more folks will do their part in cutting down the carbon emission. As for me, I make an effort to totally switch off all electrical supply to various electrical gadgets at home when they are not in use. Electricity is consumed even in the idle / standby mode. Somebody has actually calculated the total electricity consumption in a year if you leave, say your TV, on the standby mode. We can cut down quite a bit of carbon emission if every household just cut off electrical supply to electrical appliances completely when not in use. Of course, the big culprits are our vehicles that run on hydrocarbon fuel and power stations that burn fossil fuels. There are scientists around the world testing their ingenious ideas to solve the global warming crisis but until these ideas work, we are on our way to steaming up our planet.
Hitting the air-conditioner whenever the weather becomes unbearably hot is not helping to deal with the global warming issue. It merely creates some creature comfort while using up more electricity and hence increasing carbon emission by increasing fuel consumption at your local power station.
I found a way of cooling down at home one day when the situation drove me mad. It was simple. By using the understanding of change of states, one can find some heat relief. Just wet your exposed arms and legs with tap water. (But please don’t wet them until you are dripping all over. Your mother / maid / spouse will be upset with the drippings!) Heat will be absorbed from your body as water turns from liquid to gas. Yup, this is the principle of evaporation. Actually our sweat uses the same rationale to cool down our bodies but it leaves an unpleasant and sticky sensation. In our tropical climate, sweating also results in body odour, no thanks to the skin bacteria having a splashing good time. In addition, our arms and legs have a high surface area to volume ratio. This increases the rate of cooling. Nice. :) You can even sit before a fan with wet arms and legs. The rate of cooling is even faster! Shiok shiok! :D
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