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Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

nytimes.com

211–220 of 327 posts

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#211

I own a CO2 monitor and it is shocking how high it can get in a house with two people just existing. 800 ppm or more. Outside air is 410. In a car with air on recirculate, it was getting to >1220 ppm, a level that impairs decision making and lowers brain function. I try to drive with air on fresh from now on. I don’t doubt the air in our conference room with 20 people gets super high in CO2 as the meeting goes on, an…

[deleted]

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most surprising things I was taught when taking classes in Germany (which went beyond the mandatory classes you have to take to get a driver's license) are the following. Well, not really surprising once you think about it... - Mouth-to-nose is usually better than mouth-to-mouth, at least when there is no obstructions (like bleeding, broken nose, snot, etc). - If you're doing chest compressions, expect a high pro…

> "Don't be shy, no time for false modesty, it may cost a life." Or it may cost the rescuer quite a bit when a woman regains consciousness half-naked with a man on top of her.

Yeah, it's no surprise this isn't taught in the US...

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most surprising things I was taught when taking classes in Germany (which went beyond the mandatory classes you have to take to get a driver's license) are the following. Well, not really surprising once you think about it... - Mouth-to-nose is usually better than mouth-to-mouth, at least when there is no obstructions (like bleeding, broken nose, snot, etc). - If you're doing chest compressions, expect a high pro…

> "Don't be shy, no time for false modesty, it may cost a life." Or it may cost the rescuer quite a bit when a woman regains consciousness half-naked with a man on top of her.

The man has a pretty good explanation in that case, iff there was a good reason to administer CPR. So what would it cost the rescuer, exactly? Unless you start undressing every unconscious woman you encounter, even if they seem to have no other problems...

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#214

I own a CO2 monitor and it is shocking how high it can get in a house with two people just existing. 800 ppm or more. Outside air is 410. In a car with air on recirculate, it was getting to >1220 ppm, a level that impairs decision making and lowers brain function. I try to drive with air on fresh from now on. I don’t doubt the air in our conference room with 20 people gets super high in CO2 as the meeting goes on, an…

How much would the influence of house plants shift things?

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#215

I did some research on this: https://enki.org/2018/06/06/co2-monitoring/ I now am very conscious about keeping a door open and getting some fresh air into the room. This is a challenge in modern, well-insulated buildings in Florida in the summer.

If human breath is in the 3.5-4% range, how does the difference between .05%(green building), and .15%(conventional building) in ambient air make such a large difference? It sounds like the small sample size exasperated the issues. The results are much less conclusive looking at other studies.

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#216
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I picked up a CO2 monitor a while ago myself, and the biggest surprise was having it on in the morning in our bedroom with the doors closed. It was easily over 1000ppm IIRC. Ever since then I've made sure to set my AC system to run the "house fan" for 15 minutes or so every hour at night just to circulate the air in the house, and while the numbers went down significantly, anecdotally I swear that I wake up easier in…

> I picked up a CO2 monitor a while ago myself, and the biggest surprise was having it on in the morning in our bedroom with the doors closed. It was easily over 1000ppm IIRC. Any recommendations on CO2 monitors?

I always sleep with the window open, because the fresh air feels nice.

In evolutionary terms, you could speculate that the nice feeling of fresh air could be an instinctual response directing the organism to seek higher quality air.

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#217
post #31
post #4

Please, not the open air movement again. Edit: for the non-stewards of History that have no idea what I'm talking about: http://digg.com/video/what-was-the-open-air-movement-and-how...

That was fascinating. Little did I know the cinema is to blame for AC.

Another interesting topic is the movement's impact on steam heating capacity in the skyscrapers from the era. Has lasting effects to this day because of overcapacity.

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#218
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exhaled breath is about 3.8% or 38000ppm so (20000) that's really high! I'm not too surprised since the turnover rate through a few small holes with a relatively large volume is bad. Reducing the facial volume would help a lot as each breath would expel more CO2 as a fractional percentage. It seems that any sort of face covering or even significant exercise could raise your ambient CO2 level well above 1000ppm. I'm a…

I found the study I read, and I'll re-link it here, it is eye opening to say the least! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15893291

Is there a link for the Elsevier-disabled people?

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#219
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Don't be shy, no time for false modesty, it may cost a life." Or it may cost the rescuer quite a bit when a woman regains consciousness half-naked with a man on top of her.

Yeah, it's no surprise this isn't taught in the US...

It's not usually taught, I think, because if you dony have a knife (which is what professional rescuers will use if they need to do this), removing clothes tends to add delay and also involve moving the subject, both of which are strongly contraindicated in most circumstances where a lay rescuers needs to use CPR in the first place.

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#220

I live in a badly-ventilated room in a converted loft with no windows and constantly worry about this sort of thing. Other than buying oxygen-producing plants (which tend to die on me when my back is turned) I'm not sure how to alleviate the situation.

The linked article says the results are inconclusive on the effect of CO2 indoors.
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