They found that as CO2 levels increased, the volunteers’ strategic and leadership abilities worsened to a degree “so astonishing that it was almost hard to believe,” says epidemiologist Mark Mendell. The highest levels of CO2 that researchers measured, 2,500 parts per million, could easily be found in buildings—including schools—that are “fully compliant with current standards” for ventilation, says Roger Hedrick of Architectural Energy Corp. Surprisingly, Hedrick says, even 1,000 ppm of carbon dioxide—a level that “used to be considered a benchmark of good ventilation,” though far above outdoor concentrations of less than 400 ppm—caused a significant dip in performance among study participants. Researchers have long thought that moderately elevated CO2 levels had no effect on people’s health or performance, Mendell says, which is “why these findings are so startling.’’ They suggest that efforts to make buildings more energy-efficient shouldn’t lock in the biggest source of indoor CO2—human exhalation.
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