So keeping it cool contributes to global warming, huh?

On a hot summer day, 35 percent to 40 percent of electricity use is “weather sensitive,” says Ray Dotter, spokesman for PJM Interconnection, which operates the region’s electricity grid.

In other words, mostly air conditioners. (His office, by the way, is 77 degrees.)

Michael Wood with Peco Energy Co. says when daytime temperatures rise from the 70s to the 90s, electricity use spikes 50 percent or more. It’s the grid’s busiest time of year.

Also the most expensive. Peak energy is priced at a premium. And to avoid brownouts, the grid itself - the plants and transmission lines - have to be sized not for “normal” use, but for the spikes. It’s like building all the shore roads big enough for Memorial Day traffic.

Here’s the math on conservation: Every degree the thermostat goes up translates to a 3 percent savings in energy and dollars.

So what could be simpler? It doesn’t take a government program or a scientific breakthrough. Just press a button.

Around the region, many temperatures are in the low 70s - even the eco-friendly Eagles offices.

At Philadelphia’s City Hall, known for its hot atmospherics, Mayor Nutter’s office last week was 72 despite a priority to reduce energy use.

So a tip of the sun hat goes to Gov. Rendell, who this month directed that thermostats in state buildings go from 74 degrees to 75. He says it will save 5.3 million kilowatt hours a year - nearly what 500 households use.

All that’s true, but I’ll tell you what: I have central air. My mom doesn’t. Because of that, I definitely take a look at the weather report before I go up there.

At the same time, living in Maryland, which was a slave-holding state, every once in a while, I allow myself to wonder what the enslaved people who lived here 150 and 200 years ago did in this kind of weather. Not just the heat, but the fairly impressive thunderstorms that crop up regularly. As hard a time as I sometimes have sleeping when it’s “too hot,” I can’t imagine what it was like with no fan, let alone no AC.

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