5 Tips for Saving on Your A/C Bill  | Mon Jul. 26, 2010 2:30 AM
GMT  Despite the relentless series of heat waves that has
scorched much of the US this month, for many people, sultry
summers are a thing of the past: If you can't stand the heat,
just trot over to the thermostat and crank the central air. But
as journalist Stan Cox reports in Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable
Truths About Our Air Conditioned World (And Finding New Ways To
Get Through the Summer), our heat intolerance comes at a price:
Air conditioning currently accounts for almost a fifth of total
electricity use in the US, and it creates considerable
greenhouse gas emissions—ironically, in making our homes and
offices cooler, we're also making the weather warmer. Cox, who
recently imagined what Washington, DC., might be like sans air
conditioning in an article he wrote for the Washington Post,
believes A/C takes a toll on our social lives, too, and he
blames it for the decline of the grand southern tradition of
evening porch-sitting. "There's an e