From Publishers WeeklyCox (Sick Planet) provides the first-ever book-length look at the aftermaths on our environs and on our health of air-conditioning in this enlightening study. He documents how greenhouse emissions increased and ozone depletion skyrocketed once air conditioners became prevalent, and presents staggering statistics: the amount of electricity Americans use for powering their air conditioners alone equals the same amount the 930 million residents of Africa use for all their electricity needs. Cox reveals some surprising info as he explores air conditioning as a potential spreader of contagions—of asthma and allergies and perhaps even sexual dysfunctions. He offers a reality check to proposed solutions that have fatal flaws (and may be worse than the troubles they undertake to solve) including dematerialization, bettered AC energy efficiency, and clean energy options. In addition, he provides a list of changes that will help: reducing indoor heat, using fans, utilizing cool roofs, and increasing vegetation. Well-written, exhaustively researched, with a veritably global focus, the book offers much for consumers, environmentalists, and policy manufacturers to consider before powering up to cool down. (June)
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About the Author
Stan Cox is a senior exploration scientist at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, where he works with a team of scientists on breeding perennial grain crops for future, ecologically resilient food-production systems. He has a PhD in plant genetics from Iowa State University and served as a exploration geneticist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1983 to 1996. He lived in India from 1980 to 1982 and from 1996 to 2000; in the later period, he worked with the Institute for Rural Health Studies in Hyderabad on a study of cervical cancer in rural areas. He has published approximately 80 scientific papers and book chapters.
Cox’s columns have appeared in the Denver Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Hartford Courant, the Kansas City Star, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the San Jose Mercury-News, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Providence Journal, and scores of littler papers in 27 states. He has been writing investigative environmental pieces for AlterNet since January 2005 and writes oftentimes for CounterPunch and CommonDreams.org. He is on the editorial board of the Green diary Synthesis/Regeneration.
He is the author of Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine and contributed a chapter to Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn.
