Is it too hot or too cold

Is It Too Hot Or Too Cold?
Have you noticed that it's warmer in the summer than it is in the winter? And colder in the winter than it is in the summer? A lot of people have noticed that but don't want to accept it.

What millions of people apparently want is for it to be warmer in the winter than it is in the summer. When it's winter, they turn the thermostat up to 80 degree or so. When it's summer. they set the air conditioner for 70 or so.

In other words, when we have any control over the temperature we want it to be cooler in the summer than it is in the winter.

And conversely warmer in the winter than it is in the summer. This is extremely costly in terms of energy and in terms of money too.

Back when there wasn't much humans could do about winter cold but dress warmly and light a fire it’s understandable that we would look for more heat in the winter.

And in the summer before there was air conditioning our species could dress lightly sit in the shade take a dip in the water sip on a cool drink and hope for a refreshing breeze.

So we tended to be obsessed with heat in the winter and with coolness in the summer.
But wouldn't you think we would accept some comfortable temperature level in both seasons? The fact is we don't. So perverse is human nature that a temperature we purposely heat our homes to in the winter we consider unacceptably hot in the summer.

And the coolness we seem to require from our air conditioners in July and August we will regard away too cold a few months later. Think of the fuel and money we'd save if we weren't this way.

It is fairly typical of human nature, it seems to me that as soon as we learn how to do something we always go too far.

The Osgood File www.cbsnews.com