When the summer sun beats down on office buildings, the coolers come on to make the working environment bearable.  So how come the men are comfortable while the women are forced to being sweaters, hoodies, and leg warmers to the office? 

Stipulated:  Few, if any, Australians are worrying too much about air conditioning in the office during the month of August.  But the global news cycle does tend to spin around the Northern Hemisphere.  Hey, you could always print this up and post it in three months.

A new study in the journal Nature Climate Change says office temperatures are set using a rather outdated model that was based in part on the resting metabolic rate of a 70-kilogram, 40-year-old man.. in the 1960s.  Like in "Madmen".  That guy probably smoked and drank and wore wool suits all year, ya think? 

Study authors Boris Kingma and Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt of Maastrict University in the Netherlands assessed 16 young women who did light office work.  The Dutch study found the ladies' metabolic rate was significantly lower than current standard values, based on Brylcreem guy.  This suggests they may require lower levels of office cooling in the summer to be comfortable, they said.

"If you have a more accurate view of the thermal demand of the people inside, then you can design the building so that you are wasting a lot less energy, and that means the carbon- dioxide emission is less," said Kingma.

The increased energy consumption of coling offices for men with neckties isn't good for the environment.  In Japan, they're already dealing with this with the annual "Cool Biz" campaign, which urges salarymen to leave their black suits in the closet in favor of short sleeve shirts with open collars.  Offices are then able to raise the temperature to a gender-neutral level, saving money, and taking a lot of pressure off of the electrical grid.