<DIV>First published in hardcover as an unprecedented heat wave swept across the country, <I>Losing Our Cool</I> received extensive national and local coverage for exposing indoor climate control's collision with an out-of-control outdoor climate. As air conditioning approaches 20 percent of year-round electricity consumption by U.S. homes (the highest percentage in history), Americans use as much electricity for air conditioning as is currently consumed for all purposes by the one billion residents of the continent of Africa.<BR><BR>Author Stan Cox documents the surprising ways in which air-conditioning changes human experience: giving a boost to the global warming that it is designed to help us endure, enabling an otherwise impossible commuter economy, and altering human migration patterns. Though it saves lives in heat waves, it may also be altering our bodies' sensitivity to heat; our rates of infection, allergy, asthma, and obesity; and even our sex lives. <I>Losing Our Cool</I> convincingly argues that by reintroducing traditional cooling methods and putting newer technologies into practice?and by moving beyond industrial definitions of comfort?we can make ourselves comfortable and keep the planet comfortable, too.</DIV>