That sort of rules out the majority of the US - at a minimum New York and everything south of it on the East Coast, Chicago and everything south of it in the Midwest, the entire Southwest... Add in wintertime and we've eliminated everything except the Pacific Coast. Outside the US this rules out Latin America, Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. Most places aren't lucky enough to have the northwestern European climate of mild summers and mild winters.
Also, the American custom of having air conditioning on all the time, everywhere prevents people from seasoning to the heat : when there was hot temperatures in France, people died in the North where such temperatures were unusual, not in the South were people were accustomed to it. Also not helping adaptation to heat is the modern insistence on not adapting the way of life, from architecture to dress code to, as I said, work hours, to the climate. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
That sort of rules out the majority of the US...
Either the first settlers were very irresponsible, or global warming (at least in the cities) crept quite a distance...
Are we really to suppose that summer temperatures in the biggest cities (like LA, Tokyo, etc.) were just as unbearable 100 years ago, without any air conditioning? Could it be that everyone is just afraid to announce comparative statistics?
Most of the southwestern U.S. was settled after A/C was invented. LA only passed the 1 million mark in the 1920s, and places like Tucson and Denver were quite small until the 1950s.
By the way, while Tucson does have impressively hot summers, it is, in fact, dry. Sitting outside, in the shade with a light breeze is comfortable at air temperatures that are below body temperature. Midnight on the desert was delicious. From October to April the climate is hard to beat. And snow on the face of the desert...sometimes alights and lingers. The natural beauty of the place can be stunning. There is natural beauty around Las Vegas, but one has to travel a ways to find it. If sanity be culturally normative, then by the norms of this culture I claim insanity.
In the meantime, the Spanish government wants to get rid of the siesta/long lunch break and the August screeching halt... When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
