A confession: When I first got the assignment to do a story about air conditioner efficiency, I didn't exactly leap from my seat in excitement. (Which is why extra kudos go to those who've made it as far as this web page!) But, really, I should have known better.

AC seems mundane because it's ubiquitous – but because it's ubiquitous, its impact is astonishing. If you took air conditioning out of the picture, there might not be such thing as the California energy crisis. We could put dozens of power plants offline. In terms of global warming, it would be like taking hundreds of thousands of cars off the road, permanently.

Why air conditioning and not, say clothes dryers or refrigerators? Well, partly because AC sucks lots of power (especially central AC systems though, bought new, even those may be more efficient than your old window unit), partly because of the way we use them: all at once. When heat waves hit, Californians turn on their ACs practically in unison, hitting up a beleaguered electricity grid that fires up every creaky last turbine to handle the load.

So, it comes as no surprise that a number of Californians are putting serious energy into making air conditioning work better. At the top of that list is California Energy Commission Commissioner Art Rosenfeld, the efficiency guru who, perhaps more than any other person, can be credited for California's remarkable efficiency gains over the last 30 years. We also hear from AC inventor and entrepreneur John Proctor. And thanks also go to Jeff Scalier, of Antioch-based Blue Star Heating and Air Conditioning, who introduced me to his very satisfied customer, Al Mason, and whose mother I hope enjoys the CD we send her.

If you want to retrofit your central AC system to tailor it to California climate (and make it 20 percent more efficient) a number of Bay Area installers are ready to do it. Here are some of them, courtesy of Proctor Engineering:

– Vtech HVAC Services, Antioch, 925-752-6075

– Bland A/C & Heating, Inc., Bakersfield, 661-836-3880

– Herrera Heating & Air Conditioning, Bakersfield, 510-750-6972

– Action Air Conditioning, Clovis, Fresno, 559-292-8640

– California Indoor Comfort, Fresno Area, 559-276-7457

– Certified Heating and Air Conditioning, Fresno County, 559-273-8048

– ReNu, Marin County, 415-462-0245

– Queirolo's Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc., San Joaquin County, 209-464-9658

– Leo's Heating & Air Conditioning, San Joaquin Valley, 209-271-7873

– Air Solutions Heating & Air, Stanislaus County, 209-380-3032

– Air Flo Pro, Stockton, 209-915-4730

– University Refrigeration, Stockton, 209-609-8400

– CPR Sheet Metal, Inc., Vacaville, 707-628-7495

– Right Now Air, Vacaville, 707-447-3063

Listen to the Air Conditioning Reinvented radio report online.

Architect Nabih Tahan's home in Berkeley was built to Passivhaus
standards. It needs no furnace or air conditioning
and is comfortable year-round.

One of the highlights of the week was going on nature walks a few mornings with David Lucas, a naturalist. (He is the author of Wild Birds of California and revised the classic guidebook Sierra Nevada Natural History.) His insights about birds and other life forms found their way into many a poem written that week. Did you know that some bird species have more that 120 distinct tunes that they learn to sing in a certain order? I didn't. The really hot singers can do a shuffle of songs but not miss one of the 120. Just before dawn, neighboring birds duel with one another with song variations. And their brains are so much smaller than ours!

Imagine memorizing 120 poems and being able to recite them all in a row, and then getting up early the next morning for a poetry slam where you mix and match stanzas; starting, for example, with some Wordsworth, then a little T.S. Eliot, mix in some Emily Dickinson, and end with some "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg.

So, What has this to do with green homes? Lucas showed us the force of nature that in all things wants to survive. At Squaw Valley we created poetry that in a short time connected us to one another. That feels to me like surviving in a culture that wants us always competing with each other. Creativity seems as natural as eating, and I think it's how we are going to get out of the present environmental crisis we are in.

This morning I heard about some scientists at MIT who discovered a catalyst that could very well make the conversion of sunlight into hydrogen easy and inexpensive. And a few weeks ago I visited a house in Berkeley built to Passivhaus standards. The standards were developed in Austria but are new to the United States. The architect and occupant of the home I visited in Berkeley, Nabih Tahan, is bringing the concept in this country. A Passivhaus is so well designed that it doesn't need a furnace for heating or an air conditioner for cooling, even in Germany. Because the house is so well sealed, it needs to be ventilated mechanically. That is done through a heat recovery ventilator, a device that pulls up to 80% of the heat from exhaust air and transfers it to the incoming, fresh air. These houses use very little energy.

The poets and the architects are doing it, and the birds are doing it with their tiny birdbrains. We all can learn to adapt creatively to different ways of thinking about our environment, different ways of building buildings, and different ways of living in them.

Low winter light over the town of Iqaluit,
the capitol of Nunavut,Canada. Photo by Bill Semple,
architect and senior researcher at the Canada Mortgage
and Housing Corporation.

Among home performance professionals, we also call the systemic approach, the whole house approach. For example, we think it is best to retrofit your home to make it more energy efficient before you invest in an expensive solar electric, or PV, system. You can buy a smaller PV system that way, and draw less energy from the electric grid. We think you should switch to CFL bulbs right now, buy Energy Star appliances when you need new appliances, and before the next hot summer have a home performance professional air seal your attic and add insulation. Make sure the contractor checks to see if you have proper ventilation in your home after air sealing-otherwise your gas appliances may back draft nasty things like carbon monoxide into your living spaces. Don't go out and buy new windows, no matter what the advertisers tell you, until your old windows are worn out. In other words, do it all, but when the time is right.

There is a debate going on in our country about how to solve our energy and environmental problems. Some say corn ethanol is the answer; others say it's cellulosic ethanol. Some say wind energy and some say solar energy; some say more government regulation is the answer and some say let the free market decide. These either/or approaches are wrong in my book. The more we are divided in our passion to solve our problems, the less likely we are able to solve them. The best-built homes are the ones in which all the parts-building site, building envelope, walls, foundation, attic, roof, HVAC system, appliances, lighting, and people-work in harmony and are most adaptable to change.

Tom Friedman also said in his talk at Berkeley Lab that writing in blogs about solving our energy problems is not enough. In our March/April 2008 issue of Home Energy we will publish a story about home building in the far north of Canada, within the Arctic Circle. The Inuit people who live there are already building to adapt to the climate change that is already occurring, as well as preparing for more climate change in the future. They are building homes that are culturally appropriate. They are also building in a way that will reduce as much as possible the emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing climate change. Amen to that! Amen to the systematic approach!

Jim Gunshinan is Managing Editor of Home Energy Magazine. He holds an M.S. in Bioengineering from Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree from University of Notre Dame.