[lwansbrough]

Europeans don’t get scolded enough for their resistance to air conditioning. In terms of accounting for preventable deaths, Greece has 2x more heat-related deaths per capita annually than Mississippi has gun deaths.

By comparison, the worst US state for heat related deaths, Nevada - a literal desert - has >10x fewer deaths per capita than Greece.

[alexhans]

Living in London and Dublin, what I've observed is that we get the following contradictory statements:

- "We don't need AC, It's only hot a few times during the year." - "Oh what a terrible heat, global warming is getting worse every year."

Pair to that the fact that in many places windows don't open all the way due to bureocratic regulations and many interior designs are very questionable in terms of air flow and you get some unpleasant scenarios.

[Gigachad]

For the wind out ones with the chain at the bottom, you can open up the box and remove the limiter that stops it opening all the way. They make the same opener for ground level and highrises with just a limiter keeping it mostly closed when installed high up.

[dylanz]

I live in Las Vegas and one year at the start of summer my AC went out. It took a week to order the part needed and make the fix. I lived out of casinos for that week (using HotelTonight to get a different place each night) and it was pretty fun. I gained 10lbs. That said, AC's are a necessity out here.

[oceanplexian]

I live a few hours outside Las Vegas and it's a lot more survivable than you would think given primitive technology and some knowledge.

I have one of those portable evaporative coolers and they don't need much power (50-100W). I have one and measured ~110F input and 78F on the output side using nothing more than water and a fan, pretty remarkable. The trick is staying out of direct sunlight, and the body can cool itself well with the same mechanism. Sweating is extremely effective due to the low humidity.

[pinkgolem]

I mean... I need ~120 watt an hour to keep the house between 20-23 C.

[barbazoo]

I'd probably invest in a secondary AC and a generator/battery to power it. That heat is brutal.

[ericd]

Absolutely. In the northeast US we have triple redundancy on heat, because it’s potentially life-threatening to have the heat go out in a blizzard with subzero temps. I’d treat cooling redundancy as similarly important in Nevada, especially if not very mobile.

[1970-01-01]

Absolutely this. Arrogance isn't going to hold against the sun. It's very stupid of EU to ignore the fact this is how hot it will be from now on, and 1000 year old dwellings using only windows to cool are no longer acceptable living standards.

[antonvs]

> Arrogance isn't going to hold against the sun.

You mean against human-induced global warming.

[wiseowise]

Keep dying from the heat while the oligarchs live their lives in villas near expensive lakes.

[1970-01-01]

No, I mean against the sun. Humans can try and engineer a way out of this in 100 years, but they can't stop the sun.

[jackyinger]

Sure the sun is a proximal cause…

But are you really going to tell me that you me that tho evidence that temperatures are getting warmer is bunk? For starters check out the top diagram here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change#

Would you argue against the physics of greenhouse gases? https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-pinpoint-the-quant...

Are you too young to have noticed climate changes over time in your life?

Edit: And the accumulation of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_the_atmosphe...

[oceanplexian]

> But are you really going to tell me that you me that tho evidence that temperatures are getting warmer is bunk?

It's not bunk but there is a lot of lying by omission and lying with statistics. In the worst cases politicians use Climate Change to make very specific and incorrect predictions that aren't substantiated by the science (i.e. the ridiculous prediction that the polar ice cap would melt by 2014).

You can just pick up a book or an old newspaper to realize that hot weather has happened before. I live right outside the hottest place on the planet Earth and nearby Death Valley recorded 134F (57C) in 1913.

[1970-01-01]

The sun is the source of global warming and has been since the Precambrian. No, I would not argue against the science of the greenhouse effect and I'm older than you are. What are you even trying to state?

[_ihaque]

This is an uncharitable take on the original comment which literally said:

> the fact this is how hot it will be from now on

That sounds to me like an acknowledgement that, in fact, the climate has changed.

[greenavocado]

"Climate Change" is a term loaded with implication that humans are solely responsible

[defrost]

It's certainly legitimate to question the role of solar variability in climate change, and it's absolutely something that has been looked at seriously.

The consensus, with increasing solidarity, from the 1990s through until now is that the sun is much the same as it has ever been for the majority of modern human civilised life and has contributed minor amounts to the observed changes of the past century; those changes primarily driven by human caused change to the insulation properties of the atmosphere.

  \1 Jack Eddy overcame this with a 1976 study that demonstrated that irregular variations in solar surface activity, a few centuries long, were connected with major climate shifts. The mechanism was uncertain, but plausible candidates emerged. The next crucial question was whether a rise in the Sun's activity could explain the global warming seen in the 20th century?

  By the 1990s, there was a tentative answer: minor solar variations could indeed have been partly responsible for some past fluctuations... but future warming from the rise in greenhouse gases far outweighed any solar effects.

~ https://history.aip.org/climate/solar.htm

  \2 Couldn't the Sun be the cause of global warming?

  If the Sun were to intensify its energy output then, yes, it would warm our world. Indeed, sunspot data indicate there was a small increase in the amount of incoming sunlight between the late 1800s and the mid-1900s that experts estimate contributed to at most up to 0.1°C of the 1.0°C (1.8°F) of warming observed since the pre-industrial era.

  However, there has been no significant net change in the Sun’s energy output from the late 1970s to the present, which is when we have observed the most rapid global warming.

~ https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/couldnt-sun...

  \3 The Basics of Climate Change: https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/basics-of-climate-change/

[mylifeandtimes]

Air conditioning only works for things inside of buildings. Not so good for the plants and animals our lives depend on.

And it raises the heat outside of buildings. Not so good for people who have to be outside, think first responders etc.

"just turn on the AC and keep burning the world down" isn't really the answer.

[xoa]

>And it raises the heat outside of buildings.

No it doesn't. Seriously, where does this meme even come from? It should be pretty obvious just from a solar insolation map that AC is just noise vs the sun. The energy usage is tiny vs vehicles or non-heat pump heating and only electric. What changes temperature overall is the balance of thermal retention by the atmosphere vs radiation into space, hence why net increases in GHG are so dangerous. And at the ground level similarly how heat is dumped to atmosphere. Greenery, whites, shade etc is good, asphalt, mass standard glass is bad (hence many cities being heat islands). Old, leaky units sure, we absolutely should work to reduce that. But it's astonishing how people claim AC makes the outdoors hotter so consistently.

[verteu]

This simulation claims otherwise (though I agree it's hard to believe):

> A significant degradation of external thermal comfort can also be seen in the simulations, as heat released by AC systems warms the outside air (see figure 3). The temperature increases due to AC depend on the time of day and on the characteristics of the heat wave, mainly its intensity. On average, the duration spent under high heat stress conditions in the streets is increased by about 20 min per day because of AC.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6a24#...

[Noaidi]

> No it doesn't.

Yes, it does. It may be small temperature increase but AC use increases outside temperatures. It is just physics.

Here is a simple diagram: https://www.lozierheatingcooling.com/filesimages/heatPump.jp...

[chmod775]

This effect is temporary. Otherwise one could run their AC once for a few minutes and then it'd be cold inside your home for the rest of the year until you turn up heating.

In reality equilibrium is restored quickly (and the thermal mass we're cooling/heating here is insignificant anyhow).

[jackyinger]

That heat goes out into the world, it doesn’t just disappear

[ssl-3]

The house being cooled by aircon is within the same world as everything else is.

This doesn't mean that there's zero heat added locally (as many seem fond of suggesting): The compressors and circulation blowers and fans don't run for free, and every Joule of electricity they consume is ultimately converted to a Joule of heat in a process that wouldn't occur in the absence of aircon. That's not zero.

But in very broad strokes, it's not very significant. It's somewhat akin to running a refrigerator inside of a kitchen.

With aircon, the refrigerator is the size a whole house. That certainly sounds huge, and it is huge. But that refrigerated building is inside of a room that is the size of the Earth's atmosphere, which is very obviously vast in ways that kitchens simply are not.

It doesn't really matter. Millions of homes with aircon don't mean much when the atmosphere is millions of times bigger than they are.

[ericd]

Eventually radiates out into space ;-) It doesn’t disappear, but we don’t need to care much about infrared passing Alpha Centauri.

[Larrikin]

Give a chart with actual numbers on the increase in temperature versus the sun. Not a diagram from an elementary science textbook on how air conditioners work.

[Noaidi]

I’m not debating that the sun is stronger heating source. I’m just saying air-conditioning increases climate change because it uses fossil fuels and also the law of thermodynamics dictates that he will be created in this instance.

[robhlt]

Air conditioners don't need to use fossil fuels. Solar power and AC work really well together because peak solar energy is exactly when you need AC the most.

No heat is created either, that would explicitly violate the first law of thermodynamics. An air conditioner powered by solar energy (or anything solar powered) ends up releasing the exact same amount of "excess" heat as the sunlight would have if it hadn't been absorbed by the panels.

[hn_throwaway_99]

> I’m just saying air-conditioning increases climate change because it uses fossil fuels

It would actually be a much better global warming mitigation strategy to install bidirectional heat pumps (A/C in the summer, heat in the winter) that runs on electricity (which is increasingly produced using renewables) and then get rid of fossil-fuel burning furnaces.

[wiseowise]

> it’s just physics

> provides diagram with zero evidence that AC meaningfully influences temperature

Clap, clap.

[brigandish]

It does on my balcony where the fan pumps to, which has made doing any gardening difficult, but to the overall outside temperature it's just a drop in the ocean.

[brookst]

Sure. And each car is just a drop in the ocean of CO2. And each plane flight. And smoking one cigarette.

Humans have a really hard time understanding compounding risk. But there are billions of us. How many billions of drops can you handwave away?

[ericd]

> "just turn on the AC and keep burning the world down" isn't really the answer.

This is an outdated attitude. PV solar panel output correlates really well with air conditioning demand, no need for storage. Overcool your thick-walled masonry buildings during the day as a form of energy storage.

[AstroNutt]

It's just a heat transfer. Refrigerant inside the evaporator picks up heat and transfers it to the condensing unit outside.

They don't create heat. It was there in the first place, just a different location.

[MobiusHorizons]

Yes heat pumps move heat that already existed from the cold side to the hot side, but they also consume some energy to fight entropy, meaning they pump more heat to the hot side than they remove from the cold side. This is a net heat gain, equivalent to the energy consumed in running the AC. The value may be considered negligible compared to other sources, but it can still be on the order of 500w per room, which adds up quickly if everyone is doing it.

Of course air conditioning is reasonably well suited to be a solar load during peak hours, but in most parts of the world if everyone just installed AC units like are common in many parts of the US it would mean a huge amount of extra fossil fuels burnt.

[epgui]

They don’t create energy, but they do create heat. It’s entropy, can’t avoid it.

[brookst]

Wait so they’re perfectly efficient?

[jdkoeck]

That kind of thinking kills more people each year in Europe than guns do in the USA. Let that sink in.

[bandrami]

I have a proposal to place a small, intelligent demon in every windowsill in the UK...

[lazide]

Weirdest argument to keep letting 100k grandmas die from heat every summer I’ve ever heard.

[bad_haircut72]

They're not saying dont do it, just that its not really a total solution

[zeusdclxvi]

They are saying not to do it though and their arguments are awful

[Noaidi]

100k grandmas die from heat every summer because of our ignorance of climate change and a propaganda machine that denies that it is real.

[Larrikin]

Is this an argument to do nothing and let people die because there exist awful people in the world that want to profit from climate change? You can do walk and chew bubble gum in this fight.

[yieldcrv]

Europeans are so unpatched, I hope they never fix this

[eisa01]

Agree

Especially as air conditioning are heat pumps.

Would have helped solve the large dependency on natural gas heating for free as a byproduct!

[basisword]

In the UK my understanding is there are large subsidies for installing heat pumps in new builds - but you lose the subsidy if you include the cooling part.

NB: a friend in construction explained this to me so I could be wrong but it would explain why even pretty fancy new apartments with heat pumps have no cooling.

[jdkoeck]

Same in France. The trick is to wait for a control visit, and then turn on the cooling.

[zarzavat]

As a European I agree, at least for Western Europe.

It's not just the resistance but the price. There is tremendous price gouging in the AC industry. The real cost of a mini split system is the low hundreds of dollars but good luck finding one for that price in Europe. If it were regulated as a life critical technology and not as a luxury then it could be substantially cheaper.

[barbazoo]

Went to Germany during the recent heat wave and few of the public buildings and none of the private ones had AC. I found the whole endeavor much more very stressful because of the heat.

[Aeolun]

I think it's more that air conditioning is (currently) prohibitively expensive. The few people I know that have it spent several thousands of euros on their installations. That's not something most people have lying around.

You'd think the government could subsidize aircon like they did solar for years, and both of those things combined would translate to very pleasant summers spent in energy neutral air conditioned homes.

[stevage]

It's strange what people think is expensive. Double glazing is very expensive but no one in Europe would go without it. Aircon is not expensive within the context of a house's construction costs.

[basisword]

>> Double glazing is very expensive but no one in Europe would go without it.

This isn’t true. I’ve lived in 3 places in London with single glazing. They’re surprisingly common. All new properties come with it but the majority of our housing stock is old.

There’s also little comparison between air con and double glazing. One will be helpful for 4-6 months of the year and reduce my energy bills. The other will be necessary at most 1-2 weeks a year and will cost me thousands of pounds up front. Most people simply can’t afford that.

[jdkoeck]

Unless the aircon is a heat pump, in which case it’s also useful in the winter, it’s more efficient and carbon neutral if your electricity grid is decarbonised.

If most people can’t afford a heat pump, why do we entertain the idea of making them pay an order of magnitude more to better insulate their home, which doesn’t even work in the end?

You’ve been misinformed by European media. Please do your research, it’s all online.

[basisword]

I don't think you have any conception of how little money most people have. Why would I spend £15-20k I don't have on a heat pump so I can get 'free' air con when my house is already heated via another method? Most people don't have £500 spare for a portable air con unit.

On top of that, until a few months ago, government subsidies for heat pumps didn't apply to the versions that include air con so anyone who did get a heat pump didn't get that version.

>> why do we entertain the idea of making them pay an order of magnitude more to better insulate their home

We don't. There have been various schemes over the last couple of decades where people could have this done for free or at very low cost.

>> You’ve been misinformed by European media. Please do your research, it’s all online.

I suggest you do the same.

[jdkoeck]

Something needs to be done with the heat. The common euro talking point: aircon doesn’t solve the problem, let’s insulate instead (an order of magnitude more expensive). Apparently you entertain an even more absurd idea: let’s just do nothing, because everyone is too poor. That’s just wrong, plenty of home owners or real estate owners have the means to foot the bills, especially if regulation mandates or subsidises heat pumps.

Besides that, just know you’re participating in a system of belief that needlessly kills thousands each year (and many more to come, if you believe as I hope that climate change is real). Just dwell on it a little. Thousands dead because of ideological comfort and resistance to change, which in and of itself is a weird form of climate skepticism.

If you answer this, please address each of my points from both comments. You have adressed none so far.

[TulliusCicero]

A basic window AC unit costs a few hundred bucks.

[trollbridge]

I recently bought a window unit AC for $10 at a yard sale.

[d3Xt3r]

You don't even need an expensive AC. If you can't afford one, you can just get an evaporative cooler[1] for $100 or lesser[2]. Possibly even cheaper if you don't mind buying a second-hand unit.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler

[2] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Evaporative+cooler

[alamortsubite]

Those really only work in very dry climates. So some of Europe, but not places like the UK where the conference was cancelled.

[mc32]

You don't need to get central A/C or mini splits. You can use an efficient Window unit (not those single ducted portable units that are just barely better than nothing. if portable do dual ducted for efficiency) Those window units are available at Walmart in the US for a couple hundred apiece. Presumably hypermarts like Carrefour would carry them or some places that serve home improvement.

[Retr0id]

For some reason it's very hard to find window units for sale in the UK, single-duct portables are the only thing available for cheap (although it's a fairly easy mod to convert one to dual-duct).

[lrae]

Probably because the UK - similar to most of Europe - does not use the US vertically sliding sash window type, does it? The typical "walmart window AC" does just not really exist in (most of) Europe, because the windows for it don't exist, afaik.

Edit: Turns out, sash windows are more commonly found in the UK (compared to other European countries), but still not as common as in the US. So, UK = not as hot (so far), thus still probably not worth it (yet) as a market.

[nemomarx]

Why are the windows different, actually? They don't seem to be smaller overall, just skinnier and taller?

But you should still be able to get two tubes fitted into any kind of window with the right seals. If you were really up for renovations you could get closeable exhaust holes punched through your brick or something maybe.

[lrae]

Sash windows are just not as common. Seems like they are in the UK somewhat, though numbers I found vary, but overall in Europe they're pretty uncommon.

And yes, there are options for tubes/ducts for the more common window types. Like tilt-and-turn windows, horizontally sliding or all the other kinds of inward or outward opening windows - but most of them are the ducted portable units the original comment was speaking of, which aren't great. There are also some better portable split units, but those are pricier and the install is not as easy. (They're great though.)

[antonvs]

> For some reason

The reason would most likely be low demand.

[rcvassallo83]

Efficient window unit?

Best of the best is about 15-16 SEER

That's entry level central HVAC efficiency

Minisplits are far higher, 20+

[mc32]

If I don't have $30K to $50K to invest in an HVAC for the home, the next best is a relatively efficient Window unit that costs low hundreds and will help me stay alive in the heat. However enticing the price of a single duct portable unit is, do not buy it. It's a complete waste. If you go portable, go with the dual ducted one --but it's still not as good as a Window unit (which I would hope is obviously less efficient than a properly specced HVAC unit.

[fc417fc802]

> It's a complete waste.

That's completely false. They work just fine despite not being terribly efficient at least provided you install them correctly (but that caveat naturally applies to any window unit).

In fact despite the low efficiency using only one in a single room is likely far cheaper than cooling the entire house. It's the same principle as an electric space heater versus a whole home heat pump.

Of course running a minisplit only in the one room would be substantially better but for a 1 kW unit the difference is less than $1 per day (unless you're subject to the California electric grid I guess).

[dgacmu]

You can do a perfectly good, very efficient mini split for USD $5k. Avoids the leaks of window of portable units. And if you're feeling fancy you can get it as a cold climate heat pump. They're great options for retrofitting - can do multiple indoor air handlers, etc., for far less than $50k

[sneak]

I’m extremely happy with my single duct unit for cooling my bedroom in Berlin for the 3-6 weeks a year it is required.

[manwithopinions]

There are practical reasons why it isn’t widespread:

1. Energy is very expensive relative to the U.S. 2. Houses are old old and retrofitting air conditioning is very difficult 3. Houses are more than 1 story with many small rooms making portable and window mounted units unsuitable for a whole house

All modern apartment buildings in London are built with air conditioning because a central air system and district power make it cost efficient.

If you visit a hot place like Dubai or Bangkok, there are endless indoor malls with air conditioning that serve as a place to shop and a third space. Much of Europe doesn’t have that.

The U.S. specifically is also very car-centric. You walk out of your air conditioned house into your air conditioned car and drive to your air conditioned mall. Much of Europe… isn’t. People walk, you can’t avoid the heat.

Yes, certainly, there is a cultural resistance to air conditioning but adding air conditioning to homes isn’t going to stop people dying, homes are the least consequential part of heat in day to day life. Health advice in a heatwave is pretty much: don't go outside.

[JadeNB]

I don't mean to pick on an irrelevant detail, but I genuinely don't know how to parse ">10x fewer deaths per capita." Does it mean "fewer than 1/10 as many deaths per capita," i.e., the ratio (heat related deaths in Nevada per capita)/(heat related deaths in Greece per capita) is less than 1/10?

[anthk]

Some buildings in Southern Europe have thick as hell walls which isolate from both heat and cold (the North can be really chilly near the Atlantic, and freezing away from the Mediterranean).

[coryrc]

That's a misconception. They are poor insulators, but they moderate temperature well. If the temperature outside is cold but sunny, the walls absorb heat from the sun during the day and retain it during the night. However, when you require heat input (cloudy days, average temperature less than desired interior temperature), the stone conducts it very well to the outside and you need much more power input than even crappy US stick-built houses with R-15 insulation. It's just that Southern Europe's climate is usually so mild it doesn't seem like it's more comfortable, but this situation demonstrates its inferiority well.

[gonzo41]

I think there's a bit of a definitional skew happening here. The data isn't that good around this stuff.

Heat as the primary factor, vs heat related deaths is significant.

Heat is a system stressor. There's plenty of people having heart attacks and dying from weight related issues that probably got pushed over the edge by a hot day in Nevada that are missed in official stats.

[Ferret7446]

I can't imagine this is significant unless there is a demonstrated reporting bias between the US and Europe. Otherwise I'd assume it's a wash

[IneffablePigeon]

There was a good More Or Less (uk radio programme) episode about this last week. Essentially, the European statistics on this tend to be based on excess mortality during hot periods, while US stats currently are much more about what words are used on death certificates. Very different measures and hard to compare.

[Filligree]

There is. In Texas, if a field worker has a heart attack on a hot day it’ll be reported as a heart attack.

In France, the same exact situation would be reported as a heat casualty leading to heart attack.

[g-b-r]

Had the US not used air conditioning so much we probably wouldn't have this heatwave right now.

Oh but what's the problem, just add more air conditioning! :facepalm:

[stronglikedan]

> Had the US not used air conditioning so much we probably wouldn't have this heatwave right now.

Sure we would, since AC has nothing to do with it.

[g-b-r]

I don't know, for example... https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2024/08/28/air-conditionin...

But climate change is bullshit, right?

[Noaidi]

If we were more exposed to the hot weather with no way to escape it maybe we would actually do something about climate change.

By creating and artificial climate in all or our homes we are so disconnected from the world that we think technology will fix it.

Just wait fro the wildfires to blow up this week in the western US. AC will not help.

[lazide]

I think they’re arguing we’d be doing something about global warming instead of rage baiting each other from the comfort of our cool houses on social media while ignoring it, like we’re doing.

Well, not really ignoring it, more like making it worse while setting giant piles of bills on fire.

[cm2012]

No, its almost negligible

[g-b-r]

What do you consider almost negligible?

[Grimblewald]

Aicon is reasonable for areas where it's required, but "solving" things in areas where for millenia it wasnt required simply removes the pressure to act. This would be the opposite of what's required right now, which is decisive and heavy action on something we've been inactive on for way too long.

[skybrian]

Letting people suffer to get political advantage isn't right, even if it's for a good cause.

[antonvs]

We don’t need to make that choice, since collectively people inflict these things on themselves anyway. It’ll be interesting to see whether it leads to any sensible action. The cynical narrator in me says “it won’t.”

[nradov]

Nothing that European countries can do will remove the need for more air conditioning.

[PaulKeeble]

I completely agree. Historically AC has not been necessary for the one to two days a year it was needed, but that world is gone now and the situation has changed and the widespread adoption of AC is now necessary.

Its going to be a huge challenge because the buildings are not designed with that in mind, many buildings are hundreds of years old making these sorts of renovations notoriously difficult and expensive, but it has to start because climate change is only going to get worse and worse.

[ericd]

Is it that hard to drill an 8cm hole to run some refrigerant pipes through the wall?

[miki123211]

Yes!

Most of Europe has a "registered building" system, where buildings above a certain age are considered historic. Renovating those buildings is an extremely difficult, expensive, and bureaucratic process. You generally need to preserve the period-appropriate look and materials. An AC unit sticking out of a wall won't pass muster.

Even newer buildings are problematic. an acquaintance of mine lives in an upper-middle-class apartment complex that was finished two or three years ago, and their architect has some claim in the contract that prevents residents from installing AC units to "preserve the building's unique look."

The US is build around privately-owned housing (and hence creature comforts) a lot more than we are, so AC is a lot easier to implement there.

[Klayy]

That's not the only thing required to properly install an ac unit. Do you genuinely believe people die rather that drill a hole? Lile that's the blocker? What a weird take

[jatora]

So you are saying temperature has risen enough to warrant an AC now? Due to climate change? I thought climate change was on aggregate ~1C difference but my data is a decade old the last time i looked into it

[martinpw]

Pretty easy to look this stuff up rather than depend on decade old memory. Temperature in Europe is rising much faster than the worldwide average. Here it says +2.3C by 2022 - that is significant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_Europe

[colechristensen]

The average temperature across the entire globe averaged over a year does not mean that each day is subject to the exact average added to it.

Global warming intensifies differences in weather patterns. Hotter hots, colder colds, more intense storms, etc.

[fc417fc802]

Seeing as it's so commonly misunderstood I wonder if "catastrophic climate variance" wouldn't have been a better term in hindsight.

[miki123211]

People don't know what variance is.

Most people have an intuitive understanding of what an average is, but "distance from the average" is mystifying to them.

[colechristensen]

And if you're trying to sell the public on the numbers of what's concerning, those numbers should be able to communicate the changes they expect.

"This number is small but it means BAD THINGS" isn't a very good message

[FacelessJim]

Americans don’t get scolded enough for their abuse of AC. In terms of accounting for preventable waste of energy, US guzzles more electricity on cooling than most countries do on everything else.

[boc]

Are you going to also scold Americans for using heat in the winter?

Our continent has more extreme weather than Europe... we've adapted accordingly because we value human lives. Have you?

[Numerlor]

AC is sorely lacking in the EU, e.g. right now I have one in my office but not in my bedroom and nights are horrible, but I do read a lot about people overdoing it quite a bit with AC, aiming at 18-20°C during 30s outside which is a huge energy expenditure when a healthy human should be perfectly fine at higher temperatures

[anthk]

Spain's continental climate has both subzero Winters and scorching Summers.

[boc]

And they had 101 people die of heat-related issues last month. [1] 3,832 Spaniards died in 2025 alone from heat. In 2022, 4,789 died, the all-time high.

The entire United States had 2,325 heat-related deaths in 2023, which is the all-time high.

Do the math (US pop 340M vs Spain 49M) and it gets really ugly.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/spain-records-h...

[Klonoar]

Yes, but we’re at least not dying of sweat.

We do a lot of things wrong but AC isn’t one of them.

(Unless you’re in the PNW where they never needed it before recently, and somehow continue to build units without it)

[mcdonje]

We deserve to be scolded for a lot of things, but not that.

[bob001]

Interesting, so that's the price you put on a life? And people say Americans are heartless capitalists.

[pfdietz]

"Abuse" -- what a BS term. It's used just as desired; how can that be "abuse"? Because we do what we want rather than what you want us to want?