There is a popular theory of geographical determinism that states that civilization is most effective in a temperate climate. The thought is, of course, that a tropical climate is too hot and humid for civilization to develop because the heat makes people too lazy. To be sure, there are few tropical areas of the world today that have reached the wealth of the global “North,” most of which occurs in the temperate zones of North and South America, Europe, East Asia, and Oceania. There have even been some impressive civilizations that are nearly arctic in nature, although none from the continent of Antarctica, although it might be argued that a struggle against nature that is too harsh could be just as enervating to civilization and culture as a society where one simply had to struggle to move because of the heat and humidity.

As it happens, the area where I grew up was largely uninhabited before the days of air conditioning. This is not accidental. If one wants to stay cool in an area like Florida, one has to be very clever about it. This is true, it should be noted, for any similar type of land. In Spain, for example, the Alhambra is well known for its thick walls that serve to capture the heat in daylight and then disburse it in the cooler evenings. Florida was never known for thick stone architecture, though, given the sandy soils and general lack of a firm foundation to build upon, even though adding mass would make life safer against hurricanes as well. Most people who have ever traveled or lived in places like Ghana or Thailand (or Florida) will agree that without some kind of fans (whether operated by electricity or by some sort of hired help, if one is sufficiently well-off) it is difficult to summon the energy to do anything at all in a remotely productive way.

That said, while few people would be insane enough to live in Florida without good air conditioning, Florida is not a place where people tend to die because of the heat. After all, people who live in Florida or other very hot areas know that it is hot, and generally are able to handle the heat, even if it may sometimes involve a languid determination not to be outside in the heat that may appear lazy to the outsider. On the other hand, those areas where heat is less familiar are often less prepared [1] to handle it, since they are not used to devoting so much of their infrastructure to deal with events that are infrequent crises rather than an ordinary part of life. I suppose that is true for all of us; we learn what is important to deal with through the course of our lives, and we handle best that which we handle most. On the other hand, when a serious and novel situation hits us that we are not prepared for, we do not always deal with it successfully, as was the case when ten thousands of people lost their lives in Europe over a heat wave that would be fairly ordinary in a place like Florida or California in the summer. Meanwhile, I’ll try to stay cool, as best as I can, even if that’s not very well.

[1] See, for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/06/30/in-the-heat-of-summer-sunshine/