National press pick up cognitive performance work

10th December 2018 Maija Powell

The Independent, Daily Mail and Sunday Times have picked up on findings of a CEE paper on CO2’s effect on cognition, memory and work performance.

Climate change likely to make us more stupid, study finds (The Independent)
Surging levels of greenhouses gases are making people tired and stupid, scientists claim (Daily Mail)
Greenhouse gases are making us more stupid (The Times)

The articles draw on insights from a paper in the Building Services Engineering Research and Technology Journal entitled ‘Possible future impacts of elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 on human cognitive performance and on the design and operation of ventilation systems in buildings’. Written by the UCL Energy Institute’s Professor Robert Lowe, Dr Gesche M Huebner and Professor Tadj Oreszczyn, the paper suggest that high levels of CO2 combined with less than optimal ventilation in buildings can lead to poorer memory function, decision-making and higher levels of fatigue by the end of the century.

The story was picked up by a number of other outlets including:

Access the original paper on the Building Services Engineering Research and Technology site

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