The Portland Tribune has determined that the lowly fan is the best solution for Portlanders dealing with the heat this summer.

From a sustainability standpoint, the simple yet effective principles behind a well-placed fan win easily in the mostly manageable summers of the Pacific Northwest, where super-high temperatures are fairly rare. Buck up. You can get by.

They also recommend augmenting the fan with traditional passive cooling strategies:

Natural, or passive, cooling employs some common-sense approaches that take advantage of the local climate... Even on the hottest days, temperatures tend to drop dramatically in the evening. Keep windows open in the morning to allow cool air into the house, then close them before the mercury rises and keep curtains and blinds drawn during the day to repel direct sunlight.