--- title: Overcooling Buildings Is Wasting Millions description: Overcooling buildings is wasting millions, recycled ocean plastic could be the brick of the future and more. canonical: https://time.com/4492876/overcooling-buildings/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-14T16:00:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:31.241Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Overcooling Buildings Is Wasting Millions og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4492876/overcooling-buildings/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Overcooling Buildings Is Wasting Millions twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Overcooling Buildings Is Wasting Millions by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Sep 14, 2016 4:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Sep 14, 2016 4:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**Turn down the AC: Overcooling buildings is wasting millions.**](https://theconversation.com/overcooling-and-overheating-buildings-emits-as-much-carbon-as-four-million-cars-64950) By Eric Williams in the Conversation **2\.** [**Recycled ocean plastic could be the brick of the future.**](http://www.curbed.com/2016/8/1/12335500/recycled-plastic-bricks-byfusion-replast-ocean-trash) By Barbara Eldredge in Curbed **3\.** [**Here’s how technology can make any doctor into a specialist on-demand.**](https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/12/doctors-primary-care-specialists-project-echo/) By Bob Tedeschi in STAT **4\.** [**Congress should take the lead on keeping Russia out of our elections.**](http://blogs.cfr.org/cyber/2016/09/12/congress-needs-to-warn-russia-on-election-interference/) By Robert Knake at the Council on Foreign Relations **5\.** [**To help millions of families, America needs to rethink what ‘poverty’ means.**](http://wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/the-decline-of-the-american-middle-class/too-rich-to-be-poor-too-poor-to-get-by/) By Lili Holzer-Glier in the Wilson Quarterly  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4492876/overcooling-buildings/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4492876/overcooling-buildings/"},"headline":"Overcooling Buildings Is Wasting Millions","datePublished":"2016-09-14T16:00:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:31.241Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4492876/overcooling-buildings/","keywords":["Innovation","medicine","russia","poverty","recycling","Air conditioning"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4492876/overcooling-buildings/","name":"Overcooling Buildings Is Wasting Millions"}}]}] ```