Americans use air conditioning just about everywhere. Europeans, for the most part, do not. But a deadly summer heat wave that threatens to become the new climate normal has sparked a fierce debate about whether it is time for the continent to finally cool down.
The dispute has grown “especially heated” in recent weeks, said Yahoo News. “Millions” of visiting World Cup fans have kept cool in “American bars, restaurants, hotels and even stadiums” while their neighbors back home suffered Europe’s “worst-ever heat wave” without much relief. Just 20% of European homes have A.C., mostly because northern Europe “rarely got hot enough to justify” the technology until recently, and electricity is “way more expensive” than in the United States. The air conditioning divide also “reflects deep cultural differences” highlighted by the warming climate.
‘Vast amounts of suffering’
Americans and Europeans have “very different ideas about physical suffering and sacrifice,” said Thomas Chatterton Williams at The Atlantic. Americans are “scandalized” by European reluctance to cool down, but Europeans are “much more willing” to see discomfort as “part of life.” The result is “far too much air-conditioning on one side” of the Atlantic Ocean and “not remotely enough on the other.”
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Air conditioning can “save your life” but also “drain your bank account and accelerate the apocalypse,” said Jonn Elledge at The New World. Running A.C. “adds to your carbon emissions,” especially if you are using “cheap portable air conditioning units” that people tend to panic-buy during a heat wave. The flip side is that most British homes overheat during the summer, with terrible effects on “health, productivity, hydration levels.” The electricity bills to cool your home will be high, but death or extreme discomfort is “also likely to impact your household finances.”
Europe’s resistance to air conditioning is “driving it insane,” Noah Smith said at Noahpinion. The lack of A.C. is causing “vast amounts of suffering” and death as “punishing, brutal heat waves” become more frequent. The continent’s elites are reluctant to adopt air conditioning, partly from fears that doing so would “change European culture in strange and unacceptable ways.” But climate change is causing a “rise in preventable death” on the continent. If you think U.S. gun culture is a problem, “you should think that heat in Europe is an even bigger emergency.”
‘Friviolous sideshow’
Adding more air conditioning to Europe’s grid could create a “vicious cycle,” said Deutsche Welle. The electricity to power those devices is substantially “generated by polluting, planet-warming fossil fuels.” That “only makes the problem worse.”
The debate may seem a “frivolous sideshow,” but it actually reflects Europe’s inability to make “quick, effective, wholesale transformation even in the face of vital threats,” said Rym Momtaz at Carnegie Europe. The climate emergency has been coming for decades, and the continent’s governments are not ready. “Why trust them to manage defense if they can’t properly manage a heatwave?”
