Not quite. 50 degrees, while a little cool, isn't so chilly that you couldn't make up for it with a thin layer of fat and a high-calorie diet. I'm still in shorts and t-shirts at that temperature.

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audentes fortuna iuvat

Here in Calgary) get up to about 30c in the summer (average around 25c) and down to minus 30c or so in Winter (usually minus 15c or so). I definitely enjoy the cold more. You can always add a blanket or sweater in the cold but you can only take so much off.

I like our high altitude summers. Hot sunny days but then cool nights. Today it's sunny skies and up around 28 or so (80 F.) but tonight will cool down to where I put my PJs on and slip under a blanket. I especially like it when we hike in the Rockies and it cools as we gain altitude...nothing like sitting on the tongue of a glacier in July.

I just feel healthier and more invigorated in the winter. I can cross country ski or skate, play hockey outdoors and just 'feel great'. In summer I feel sluggish at times.

So am I. But the shorts and t-shirt are covering the primary body mass. When it gets down to 50 degrees, go and spend a week outside naked. Then get back to me and let me know how it went.

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Well, my point was that you'd live a lot longer, and more comfortably, at 50F than you would at 150F.

Interesting responses & discussions. Thanks, everyone.

Well, if you were dumped naked somewhere, you'd probably live much longer somewhere that was 100F as opposed to -100F :P

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Depends on how much water or firewood you have access to.

This isn't very meaningful. Naked is probably the preferred condition for 100F. Try surviving at 100F while dressed for -100F, then tell me which is easier.

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Both extremes can stress survivability but I think extreme cold is a greater stresser.

A blizzard hit this neck of the woods in Indiana in 1978. It dropped temperatures down to -30 degrees F. A friend of mine, Tom Bishop woke up in the middle of the night to find his electrical power out. His house was heated with fuel oil. The power was out for only 2 hours, but when it came back online, his oil had turned to gel in the cold and therefore he was unable to restart the furnace. He loaded his family up in the car and headed to his parents house. A few miles down the road, he blew 2 tires.

In extreme cold, we rely on our infrastructure. Even a small break in the infrastructure can turn into a life and death situation.

My brother, David, lives up in Alaska. He routinely lives in cold -50 degrees F. At those temperatures, even metals can become brittle. It is not uncommon for individuals to get in their vehicles and put their car into gear only to break off the shifter.

When I think of -100 deg F weather, I shutter. One mistake can be fatal.

On the other extreme, heat can be harsh. I was out in the desert in +130 deg F weather. I spent the day exploring underground mine shafts. The temperature was a cool +70 deg F underground. When I came up in the late afternoon, I heard about a boy who died from the heat while driving a 4 wheeler.

I have personally experience hypothermia where the heat engine in the body shuts down and the other extreme heatstoke. I have also experienced 2nd degree burns from the sun. I feel it is easier to survive the heat than the cold.

Yes, sleeping outside naked in 50 F can give you hypothermia very easily.

This whole discussion is skewed by the fact that human body temperature is not in the middle of Earth's temperature range -- it is MUCH closer to the upper end.

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I've been aught in 45 Degree Celcius heat fo a long period and almost died as there was no way to cool off, even thewater was 30+C.

I have lived in minus 15 celsius and found it easy to warm mysel up, we can make fire without power but not ice so IMHO it is a given that the cool is easier from a survivable poijnt of view.

Try the desert heat with a 20 knot wind in your face, so hot tat it hurts your eyes.

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I work in a kitchen where the temperature regularily exceeds 60C (140F). It is very uncomfortable, and I can literally drink and sweat out 6 liters of water in an eight hour shift without managing to stave off dehydration. You could not survive for long at 140F.

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I think it completely depends on how you define extreme. And extreme from what? But if you look at the world, there are a lot more people living in equatorial regions than in polar ones, so you'd have to assume that people generally prefer warmer weather than cooler weather.

I'd have to add my vote to that. Being an Australian, one can't have too many beaches!

Which would be how I would design a system. More proof that the "designer" did a bad job designing?

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009