Thermodynamically if we take the headline at face value this is absolutely worse in principle, since abstractly the "outdoors" is simultaneously being warmed by

Thermodynamically if we take the headline at face value this is absolutely worse in principle, since abstractly the "outdoors" is simultaneously being warmed by waste heat from A/C. If this were the case it is fighting itself and certainly doomed to lose. But reading the article reveals that there is some (sufficient?) separation between the "outdoors" and outdoors in the literal sense.