Title: Air conditioning energy: AC saves lives and causes less climate change than heating.
Headings: Hot and Bothered
Hot and Bothered
Air conditioning isn’t bad for you or even (relatively) for the planet.
By Daniel Engber
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Content: At one point it proposes that building managers might be setting thermostats too low because they’re “heavyset, as body fat is the ultimate heat insulator.” This has the science somewhat backward: Body fat is indeed an insulator, and that means that it prevents a person’s core body heat from seeping out into her skin. ( You’ll recall the skin is where you’d find a person’s thermoreceptors.) As a result, a fat person might end up feeling colder than a skinny person, and not the other way around. ( The exact relationship between body composition and perceived warmth is very complicated and varies with context. As a rule of thumb, you’ll probably be warmest if you happen to be both fat and muscular .) Advertisement
Advertisement
According to the Times, overcooling makes people less happy and productive. We “work less and make more mistakes” at 70 degrees than we do at 75 degrees, the essay says, citing figures from an observational study of 19 workers at a sales office in Piscataway, New Jersey. While it’s true the researchers found a correlation between ambient air temperature and workers’ “correct keystrokes,” the result applied only to a subset of their study group—the seven people who happened to experience temperature shifts of more than 7 degrees during the study.