The Wastefulness of Air Conditioning

Why do I go to work every day and freeze my buns off in the middle of the summer? Because my office must have the thermostat set to 60 degrees. I actually cannot wait to get outside after sitting in arctic temperatures for six hours. I do not have air conditioning at home, only a fan, and it is has not been that bad. I live on the 12th floor of an apartment building right by the lake, so there almost always seems to be a nice breeze blowing in. So I started wondering how much wasted energy was going into running the central air in the building, and how much CO2 it was putting into the atmosphere.

According to the Oregon Environmental Council, the average heating and cooling of the air in your office accounts for 39% of energy use in a typical setting. They say that if you adjust the thermostat by three or four degrees, you can save up to 10%. Simply being comfortable as opposed to being cold would no doubt save my office a great deal more than 10%. No one should have to wear a sweater in the summer.