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Stan Cox

Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer) Paperback – June 5, 2012

by Stan Cox (Author)

4.1 27 ratings

See all formats and editions

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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.

Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publisher

The New Press
Publication date

June 5, 2012
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.75 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

1595587756
ISBN-13

978-1595587756
See all details

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is an important book. The history of air-conditioning is really the history of the world's energy and climate crises, and by narrowing the focus Stan Cox makes the big picture comprehensible. He also suggests remedies―which are different from the ones favored by politicians, environmentalists, and appliance manufacturers, not least because they might actually work.”
―David Owen, author of Green Metropolis

“As Stan Cox details in his excellent new book, Losing Our Cool, air conditioning has been a major force in shaping western society.”
―Bradford Plumer, The National

“This book is the go-to source for a better understanding of the complexity of pumping cold air into a warming climate.”
―Maude Barlow

“Important. . . .What I like about Cox's book is that he isn't an eco-nag or moralist."
―Tom Condon, Hartford Courant

“Stan Cox offers both some sobering facts and some interesting strategies for thinking through a big part of our energy dilemma.”
―Bill McKibben

“Well-written, thoroughly researched, with a truly global focus, the book offers much for consumers, environmentalists, and policy makers to consider before powering up to cool down.”
―Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Stan Cox is a plant breeder at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. He has written on environmental issues for newspapers nationwide, including the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, as well as for CounterPunch, AlterNet, and many other online publications. He is the author of Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The New Press; Reprint edition (June 5, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1595587756
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1595587756
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,751,925 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #539 in Home Heating & Air Conditioning
- #1,895 in Social Aspects of Technology
- #7,176 in Environmental Science (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.1 27 ratings

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Stan Cox

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Before joining the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, as senior scientist in 2000, Stan Cox worked as a U.S. Department of Agriculture geneticist for thirteen years. His environmental writing has been widely published. He is the author of Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine.

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Greg Cox

A remarkable take on our limited world view.

Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2010

Verified Purchase

Losing our Cool does a remarkable job describing our limited world view through the lens of air conditioning. At a time when we are being called to (and often stubbornly refusing to) look at the balance of convenience and comfort versus long term destruction this book provides a wonderful lens through which to view this problem.

The paradox of air conditioning is a great sociological metaphor for the myriad ways we as a culture "drive right by" evidence of our doing great destruction to the ecology when realistic other options are available.

Cox's book evidences careful research, very approachable prose and a wry sense of humor. This is one of those books that was waiting to be written and Cox has done an excellent job. You will enjoy and be challenged by Losing Our Cool.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Peter Koziar

Good insights, but lacking solutions

Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2010

Verified Purchase

The book does a good job describing the problem, but I was expecting more about how to solve it. It really didn't have a lot to offer in that regard - just things like swamp coolers that really don't work in our area because of consistent high humidity.

Our climate also doesn't get very cool in night during the summertime, so opening the windows doesn't help. I joke that here it gets up to 90 degrees during the day, and cools off all the way to 89 at night.

21 people found this helpful

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Dangerous Dave

Wish I had more stars to add

Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2010

Verified Purchase

This book covers a topic of great importance and relevance in a highly readable way. Every aspect of air conditioning, beneficial and baneful, is examined through the eyes of an investigative writer who has really done his homework. The writing style is concise and reads easily, without insulting your intelligence. It's also incisive without being judgmental. We all think we couldn't live without AC, but if we want our grandchildren to have it, we should pay attention to Stan Cox's book.

4 people found this helpful

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Patrick Campbell

Terribly disappointed

Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2013

Verified Purchase

As a chemical engineer, I found some of the science reasonable even though I can tell from the energy balance another writer noted shows he is in over his head.

Probably the biggest waste of money for an ebook on Amazon.

My biggest complaint is that there seems to be an ever present belief on the part of the author that we can stop generating CO2 and other gases with only a little effort. Good luck on that.

I was surprised a lot that the average American household only spent a couple hundred bucks a year on the a-c. Perhaps Kansas and other places are cool. I don't know anyone with a large home in the Houston area that pays less than an average of several hundred per month. Pane that's with high SEER units, insulation and radiant barrier like crazy. That's with a set point of 76F.

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

Carol E. Williams

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2018

Verified Purchase

Read this, and you'll understand everything. I bought extra to give to my HVAC repair person and family members.

Helpful

Henry A. Bonges III

very understandable read

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2013

Verified Purchase

For a book on energy issues - it is under the radar (at least for me). Very clear on the history and impact of A/C - along with possible improvements.

Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2014

Verified Purchase

This had great shipping. It's a very nice book and it's very clean. Thank you so much for this book!

Helpful

James Denny

Air conditioning--blessing or curse?

Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2010

Stan Cox's "Losing our Cool" is thought-provoking. If the standard line of thinking is to take air conditioning as unequivocally good, then "Losing our Cool" reveals the down-side of air conditioning. In a non-polemic way, buttressed with data from multiple disciplines of science (biology, chemistry and physics) and with behavioral analysis from the worlds of psychology and sociology, there are notable negative effects that have come from the "mass conditioning" of the air in the space that we inhabit.

This includes the loss of neighborliness when every house in the neighborhood is shut tight in the summer months to prevent the loss of cooled air. It includes the sociology of "keeping up with the Joneses," where to forego air conditioning when everyone else has it, is to mark one's self as poor, a Luddite masochist or just plain odd. Other issues include the increasing amount of emphysema, allergies and asthma (due to less exposure and adaptation to airborne allergens and pollens and exposure to nematodes in soil), to the weight gain in today's youth, (due not only to the diminishing amount of outdoor activity, but also due in part to the fact that the body expends less energy when the ambient temperature is held to about 72 degrees), author Cox brings out a wealth of amazing facts about the effects of air conditioning on our lives.

As regards energy expenditure, the energy requirements of mass air conditioning in the United States and worldwide is simply staggering. He makes a compelling case that the U.S. South would have far fewer people today than would be the case had not air conditioning become popularized in the decades after World War II. The demographic mix of population among the 48 continental states would be much different today were it not for air conditioning. He mentions that the statue chosen by Florida for display in the U.S. Senate's Statuary Hall is the man credited as "the inventor" of air conditioning!

In a particularly thought-provoking section on the consequences of achieving greater energy efficency, Cox brings up an ironic (or counter-effect) that can be demonstrated empirically. As greater efficiencies in air conditioning are achieved (such as improved technology that gets rewarded with the "Energy Star" symbol allowing a consumer to get the same amount of cooling for less energy and therefore at a cost-savings), what usually happens is either a "rebound" or a "backfire" effect.

Example: when a 30 percent efficiency is achieved with new equipment, i.e., a new compressor or pump, some percentage of that (maybe as little as 10 percent or as much as 100 percent of the 30 percent efficiency improvement) is diluted by the "rebound" because people tend to use the more efficient compressor at a higher rate, i.e., they keep the house at a lower temperature or they use it for more hours of the day. If any percentage of the 30 percent up to the entire amount of the 30 percent is absorbed by rebound, then there is less energy savings.

The "backfire" effect goes one step further. This is where the 30 percent efficiency improvement is absorbed completely by additional use. In "backfire," the new equipment results in greater energy use than the energy improvement was able to deliver.

The principles of "rebound" and "backfire" behavioral consequence can be used as an analytical technique when setting automobile fuel standards and for many other forms of energy consumption, not just for air conditioning.

Cox takes his analysis globally and discusses the world's hottest country, India, in some depth. As India modernizes and an upper class and middle-class emerge in significant numbers, the energy requirements for air conditioning India give the reader much to consider. Many additional coal-burning power plants, nuclear power plants, wind turbines, solar panels and hydroelectric power will be needed to keep the billion-plus residents of the Indian sub-continent cool in the decades to come.

3 people found this helpful

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