[adventured]

Europe is so backwards when it comes to annual heat deaths that they manage to have more heat deaths per year than the US has gun deaths + heat deaths combined. You won't hear about that from Europeans though, it'd make them seem barbaric. 175,000 heat deaths per year in Europe according to the WHO. It's a staggering genocide of technological primitiveness. Imagine having millions of people die because you can't be bothered to adopt 1950s technology (and of course I'm aware of the things the US is backwards on).

[laurencerowe]

I think it is simply because in most of Europe air conditioning is unnecessary for comfort 95% of the year. Here in San Francisco most homes don't have air conditioning either, but there might be a week or two where it gets very hot and we just put up with the barbaric technological primitiveness.

Much of the US is extremely unpleasant without air-conditioning for a substantial portion of the year so of course everyone living in those parts installs it.

[SoftTalker]

Yes in many parts of the US it's not just the heat but the humidity. One summer I tried going without AC as much as possible to see how much it would change my electric bill. I could handle the temperature most of the time but the humidity especially at night started giving me mold problems in the house. Cleaned that up and went back to using the AC and no more mold. Not sure how people controlled this back in the pre-AC days, maybe just a lot more cleaning.

[asdff]

My parents still don’t use AC. The windows stay open all summer unless there is a rainstorm. Whole house fan is turned on at night to draw in cooler air. Much time spent in the cooler basement if you are going to be hanging at home. At night you are basically sleeping naked on top of your fitted sheet with one or two window unit fans circulating air. Maybe another fan pointed directly at you. Basement had some dehumidifiers and afaik that was the only problem moisture area.

[tzs]

If you are OK with the heat maybe a dehumidifier would be able to address the humidity problem while still saving electricity compare to the AC.

[SoftTalker]

A dehumidifier is basically an air conditioner that exhausts its heat back into the room. It will make the air warmer (but dryer).

[rpdillon]

You sent me to the books because this is such a fascinating stat. It's true! Heat deaths in the US: 5 per million people. Italy: 500+ per million people. I had no idea.

[laurencerowe]

Figures based on coroners reports are somewhat suspect.

> In September 2022, a vicious heat wave enveloped much of the western U.S., placing tens of millions of people under heat advisories. Temperatures across California soared into the triple digits. Sacramento broke its heat record by more than 6 degrees Fahrenheit when the temperature hit 116 degrees.

> California death certificates showed that 20 people died as a result of heat-related illness from Aug. 31, 2022 to Sept. 9, 2022.

> But a study last year by California’s Department of Public Health found that death rates increased by about 5 percent statewide during the heat wave, causing 395 additional deaths.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-deaths-from-h...

Excess mortality studies seem to show about 24 per 100,000 excess deaths from heat in Europe vs 6 in US/Canada.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34245712/

[guerby]

Thanks for the paper link, very different figures from the random USA newspaper article :)

I'd love to see an age adjusted figure as well as it's likely Europe has likely more very old people and my guess is that heat/cold mortality is concentrated in the very old people.

[laurencerowe]

I suspect age distributions are part of the story. Also the Eastern US (where most of the population lives) experiences much larger swings in temperature between winter and summer so maybe people are just more prepared for it.

[Zigurd]

It's not the most convenient format because of their idea of what constitutes a region, but yeah, the US has a pyramid shaped population pyramid, while European regions have a big bulge of old people: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/references/population...

[CorrectHorseBat]

I do think we'll need to change our view on airconditioning, every home should have airconditioning just like it has heating.

But I'm very sceptical of those numbers. They are apparently even worse for cold, and you can't attribute that to lack of airconditioning. I still think the huge difference can only be attributed to a difference in reporting.

[irishcoffee]

Which way? For all we know the numbers are much worse and under-reported by Europe. China made the playbook for that a long time ago.

Cuts both ways.

[CorrectHorseBat]

What has China to do with this?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence doesn't cut both ways.

[irishcoffee]

I think it’s common knowledge China never reports numbers that cast them in an unfavorable light, to the point where analysts generally disregard them.

For example: https://www.nber.org/digest/aug19/official-statistics-overst...

[endoblast]

The temperature a few metres below ground level is consistently cool (approx. 15 celcius) year round.

Could this be made the basis of an efficient cooling system?

[hippo22]

It's not as simple as it might seem at first glance. People often go into their basement and think "wow, it's cool down here. If only I could make my house this cool." But, as soon as you moved the air from your basement to your house, the air in your basement would be replaced by ambient air and would take time to be cooled by the Earth. And so you quickly realize you need a lot of thermal mass and an efficient way to move heat in order to keep up with removing the heat from your house.

[7952]

Yes, but it needs to work both ways. Heat needs to be extracted during the winter. Otherwise the ground would just be heated up to much. That is what a ground source heat pump does.

[hylaride]

It's not so easy in dense urban environments where power cables are buried, along with ancient sewer systems, subways/metros, etc.

You are starting to see a lot more external AC (heat pump?) units jerry-rigged into the sides of multi-unit dwellings, though.

[microtonal]

I think there wasn't a culture of buying ACs, because in most of Europe the climate was much more moderate. The summers are much hotter now than when I was a kid and heat waves are more regular. Many more people are buying air conditioning now.

Much of the US already had warmer summers than Europe when the impact of climate change was smaller, so AC is far more common.

[rdn]

Can their pension system afford A/C?