Take schools for example. We do know that high temperatures really keep people from learning. Try some math in 30°C+ weather. We know that grades on exams are worse when the temperatures are higher. We are keeping our children 10+ years in school. We are investing a lot in them, are building schools, paying teachers, providing school busses and so on. And then they are sitting in the heat unable to learn anything
True. During the most recent heat wave a few days ago, I spent one day working from home where I use a lot of passive cooling measures, keeping the temperature down to below 24°C, and one day in the office where the air got so bad that we had to open the windows so that temperatures rose to 28°C.
It’s just 4°C more, but my productivity, motivation and concentration plummeted hard. It’s a entirety different game.
Exactly, the kids are yearning for the mines /s
I hate this headline. “Why are you stupid peasants whining about the destruction of the ecosystem instead of simply spending more on stopgap measures?”
Give more money to the companies that helped create this problem! That’ll fix everything!
On the other side I’m hearing the AMOC might collapse and Europe enters an ice age. Not sure about the timeline though.
It can potentially happen, but the current estimates go by decades, if not a whole century
Answer: denial
What is their beef with air conditioning?
Here in Germany, most people live in rented apartments, which makes it hard to properly install an AC unit - you’d have to get consent from your landlord, and then drop a lot of money into a space you don’t own, and if instead you get one of those inefficient monoblock AC units, you’re wasting a lot of electricity which is quite expensive in Germany. Also, before recent decades, it truly wasn’t necessary; IIRC, heat days about tripled since 1990, and those 40°C heatwaves practically didn’t exist.
It didn’t use to be necessary.
With well-insulated homes and temperatures cooling down during the night even in summer, you could just open your windows for a while in the morning and the house would stay cool during the day.
Now Europe has warmed up by 4°C on average due to climate change and that doesn’t work anymore.
But retro-fitting every house in Europe, building the necessary energy infrastructure and above all, for people to change their habits takes a lot of time.Sure, with a two story house you can mimic a whole house fan and it can work. But even so. The option to slap a unit into a window is still there.
Granted, the new ones are kinds shitty. The old ones from the 80s and 90s would last decades, just hose them out every so often and make sure the dust filter is cleaned.
The option to slap a unit into a window is still there.
AFAIK, slapping a unit into a window only works when the window is of the sliding sort. But in Europe, especially north of the alps, windows usually have hinges at the side and open like a door. You can’t easily “slap a unit into a window” with that, the next best option is monoblock AC units with an exhaust tube and it’s a bitch to somewhat isolate the input/exhaust stream(s). Even harder for people living in attics.
Replace the window? I’m forever in 100yo houses (ik, that’s cute relative to you guys) and there’s typically a spot or 3 adapted for window units if it’s never been set up for central air.
It may suck, but you’re probably at that point, especially for your night shifters. Day sleeping isn’t easy in this.
Lots of people in Europe rent rather than own, in some countries like Germany it’s the majority. Good luck trying to convince your landlord of letting you install sliding windows. Plus it’s probably cheaper to just install the AC properly, anyway.
Air conditioning makes it worse in the long term
Idk, I’m lying in an air conditioned bedroom right now. Makes for easy sleeping, every time.
The “beef” is that most people don’t need any air conditioning as they live in actual insulated houses build of stone, brick and concrete that keep temperature stable very well. It needs basically more than a week of extreme heat here for room temperatures to accumulate to the point that it’s crossing the mid-20s… and only if it’s also not cooling down at night. And I’m living in a relatively badly insulated apartment in an old building. And those whole weeks with scorching temperatures did simply not happen in the past, and barely happen now.
The other aspect is that those with air conditioning seem to somehow all develop the same brain damage firmly believing that they have one, so it needs to run on full power all the time. Which for example simply means I won’t visit the one local super market with air conditioning when it’s hot outside as I don’t need the shock of going from 35°C down to 15°C when entering and then runnign against a wall of heat 15 minutes later when leaving.
Would air conditioning be useful in some cases, like hospitals or retirement homes where people are actually sensitive to heat (if used sensibly that is)? Sure. Go for it! But then in reality they will be the last ones to get air conditioning because if it wasn’t about saving money like crazy they could have actually build those properly in the first place to not heat up like an oven in no time…
It needs basically more than a week of extreme heat here for room temperatures to accumulate to the point that it’s crossing the mid-20s…
That hasn’t been my experience. Extreme heat will do it in a couple of days, fewer if the extreme heat follows a period of normal summer heat. And that’s true for well-insulated single family homes with blinders that are on the outside of windows, most of the apartment buildings I’ve lived in didn’t have any blinders and would heat up on the first day of all-day summer sun that’s followed by a mild night.
Houses in NL, including my very well insulated one, do not stay stable at mid 20s in the Summer anymore even if it cools down a bit at night (and it doesn’t always).
I work from home and can tell you that trying to work in my home office when it’s 27C is no good.
Just use even more energy and accelerate climate change even more, i don’t get it.
While personal responsibility is good, the little shit working class engages in isn’t what is accelerating things.
And we are here now. Point of no return and hot enough to kill you. Now is not the time to dispute grandmas AC unit.
The UK still barely believes in insulation.
The use of heat pumps should help a bit here.
