Title: Air-Conditioning Is an Environmental Quandary - The New York Times
Headings: The Cost of Cool
The Cost of Cool
Content: Workers could wear lighter, looser clothing to work in summer — instead of carrying sweaters to protect themselves from over-chilled air. Architects could design office blocks using materials that did not conduct so much heat and where humans could open the windows to take advantage of natural ventilation and breezes. Stan Cox, author of “Losing Our Cool,” suggests that one solution might be a return to room air-conditioning, so we only use energy to cool spaces that people are actually using. He believes that people are accustomed to working in frigid offices but could acclimatize to warmer conditions. Mr. Wargocki says that an office temperature in the mid to high 70s should be fine. The comfortable temperature for sleeping (naked) is around 84, Mr. Tanabe says, if a fan is on. Those suggestions are a good deal warmer than the norms in the United States, which underlines a cultural differences in cooling preferences. “The temperature many Americans find most comfortable indoors in summer — 70 degrees — feels uncomfortable to most Europeans, who find it too cold,” said Mr. Sivak, who suggested that Europe’s greater environmental awareness might make people more inclined to put on an extra sweater in winter or tolerate a bit more heat in summer. Unfortunately many tropical places — including Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong — seem to have followed the United States’ lead in cooling preferences, Mr. Tanabe said, holding cooler to be better. But certainly if I deserve to have an air-conditioner here in New York, my counterpart in Mumbai deserves to have one, too.