You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.

Hey, it's Mariel.

Summer is finally and officially here.

It's going to be 98 degrees in New York for the next couple days.

So you'll find me hiding inside with the air conditioner blasting.

But okay, let's talk about that for a second.

That impulse to crank up the AC. Of course, if it's an unbearably hot day, we're going to want to do that,

and that's understandable. But air conditioning systems do use a lot of electricity. So when we use

them, we are unfortunately contributing to climate change. NPR's climate solutions correspondent,

Julia Simon, has been covering this. And on this episode of Life Kids, she shares five ways to

use less energy at home this summer. The tips are pretty easy, and they can help you save on energy

bills. Julia, the first tip you have to help us use less energy at home is a simple one, right?

It's very simple. I kind of love it. The tip is, open a window. To explain why, I talk to Dorit Aviv.

And I'm an assistant professor of architecture at the Weitzman School of Design in the University of

Pennsylvania. What people don't realize is that the inside temperature is sometimes hotter than it is

outside because people inside of buildings produce heat constantly. Things like our computers or

cooking or other devices, all of those increase the indoor air temperature. So Dorit says, instead of going to the thermostat and lowering your air temperature on your air conditioner system, you can just open the window.

Yeah, it sounds like this advice might work better in some climates than others,

more temperate climates, more temperate seasons.

Yeah, I mean, but this actually often works.

You know, early in the morning, this makes a lot of sense at night.

There's even this expression called night flushing when you open the windows

...