Losing Our Cool

One of the Mother Nature Network’s ten “must-read environmental books” of the year, Losing Our Cool is the first book to examine how indoor climate control is helping send our outdoor climate reeling out of control. With summers growing hotter and energy demand heavier, Stan Cox shows how air-conditioning transforms human experience in surprising ways, by altering our bodies’ sensitivity to heat; our rates of infection, allergy, asthma, and obesity; and even our sex lives. It has also enabled an irrational commuter economy, triggered a migration toward the American South and West, and created the kind of workplace in which employers wear sweaters in July. But, as Cox shows us, by combining traditional cooling methods with newer technologies, we can make ourselves comfortable and keep the planet comfortable as well.