[aaronbrethorst]

The buried lede:

What does all this mean for global temperatures? Because global temperature lags ENSO by around three to five months, most of this event’s warming will land in 2027, which is now shaping up to be a genuinely alarming year and the warmest on record by a sizable margin

I’m certainly no climate scientist, but if I lived in Europe, I would absolutely be looking into how to get a solar energy system set up and at least one window air-conditioning unit if not a heat pump before next summer

[bcoughlan]

I don't mean to be divisive, but this meme-like stream of news articles and comments about Europeans being silly about air conditioning, from the drill-baby-drill nation that refused to even try to do anything about climate change, really grates on me.

[tshaddox]

I didn’t see anything meme-like in the comment you responded to. Or even anything related to environmentalism. To me, it just looked like good health advice.

[otherme123]

In case you don't know, there is a meme in the US that Europe don't know/don't have A/C. We do, but in some coutries there are laws banning A/C below 25°C (77°F) in public places, so (US) tourist don't get the cold air hit when entering a building like a musseum, leaving with the impression we don't know A/C.

No general A/C might be the case in regions that never needed it before (mild summers, cold winters), but their presence is increasing.

[Tadpole9181]

Something like 90% of US residential buildings have AC. For Europe, it's around 20% (for good reason, mind you). It's not a meme if it's an actual fact that many European homes are not prepared for these kinds of increasingly common heat waves, and I got the impression that the parent was showing genuine concern.

[thenthenthen]

House build after WW2 are terrible. I miss my ancient Berlin house with 80cm thick walls. Cool in summer, warm in winter.

[21asdffdsa12]

Room roofs as high as 3.5 m.. altbau

[ValleZ]

It was fairly impossible to find a restaurant in Paris that had an AC not so long time ago. It’s totally not an issue in states.

[xtiansimon]

Heck. The San Francisco Bay Area was largely AC free in my youth (except maybe Walnut Creek).

[puttycat]

There are still hardly any, Paris, July '26.

[cromka]

That's because Europeans are more of nonconformists and could deal with some 7 to 10 super hot days in a year. It's now weeks in a row.

[rayiner]

Europe could never "handle" it. Even in 1990-2001, Europe averaged about 3 heat-related deaths per 100,000: https://www.statista.com/chart/36367/average-annual-heat-rel..., compared to about 1 per 100,000 in the Americas at the time.

3 per 100,000 is a lot. That's higher than the homicide rates in New England and the upper midwest of the U.S.

[throw-the-towel]

Europeans? Nonconformist? That was funny.

If anything, the AC train wreck is caused by the society being incredibly conformist and conservative, trying to cling to the world of the 20th century that no longer exists.

[wyclif]

Europeans are more accepting of being sweaty during the day.

[ricardobayes]

I just toured Europe and none of the lodgings (private dwellings) had AC. It was not fun when it was 35C out. South of Spain is actually one of the most comfiest places to be in summer despite being hotter on average, because many homes have AC due to it being cheap to install (and to my knowledge being run on near complete renewable energy).Some European countries' stance on this is bizarre, like Switzerland outright not allowing residential ACs.

[obruchez]

"Switzerland outright not allowing residential ACs": That's not completely true, though. First, mobile/portable ACs are allowed pretty much everywhere in Switzerland, I think. Then, for fixed ACs, it depends in which canton you live. Geneva is the strictest, but in most cantons, fixed ACs are allowed under some conditions. Where I live, 50% of the AC energy must come from renewables (which is pretty easy if you have solar panels). Anyway, with all those recent heat waves, I'm pretty sure those rules will soon be relaxed in all cantons.

[whatevaa]

Great when mobile ACs are mostly terrible, if-nothing-else choice. They can only cool a small room temporarily.

[tshaddox]

I'm well aware of the memes and discourse on Twitter (although I don't seek it out). My point is that that original comment had none of that. No calling people "europoor." Just important advice delivered unsensationally.

[otherme123]

To me, it sounded a bit "euro-A/C-ignorant" meme, but maybe I am on the receiving end and thus slightly oversensitive, because El Niño is not scientifically linked to any climate effect in Europe. It is known to cause effects in North America from Canada to Mexico, whole South America, Australia, South and East Asia, and South of Africa. Why it might sound as an attack to an european? Europe is "first world" and has money to buy A/C (and in fact we are doing it). There will be regions that will suffer a lot more than Europe due to this El Niño event.

The problem with Europe is not El Niño. Our problem is that we are the worse region in the world in how fast the temperature is rising, as you can see in this image/page:

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/NMAPS/tmp_GHCNv4_ERSS...

We could live without A/C, and many thought that the increase would be bearable. But then we received a slap in the face, with +7ºC (+12ºF) in the western half, +4ºC (7ºF) in the eastern and north. Deaths by heat don't usually happen at someone's house without A/C: they primarily happen either to people in elderly homes without A/C and maybe even impaired to ask for help or to hydrate properly, or people working outside in sun hours. Putting A/C in every room of every home in Europe would do little if elderly homes, many of them public, are not properly adapted.

Statistics in France show that 75% of the heat related deaths happen in people 75 and older, over 90% in people 65 and older. As sad as is might sound, it is seen as a new "natural cause" of death. Hopefully those buildings will adapt.

[ricardobayes]

It's an extreme taboo topic to discuss but I suspect it's going to be a slow fix if at all: society kind of stops functioning at its best when people live until 90 or 100, and spend decades on pension, disrupting inheritance chains when people "need" them: most Europeans inherit apartments but what good does it do if you inherit in your late 60s? The reality is for most of European history, people inherited in their 40s and got their "big, family apartment" that way.

Also, healthcare spend is really spent mostly on elderly: if you look in any given doctors waiting room, people tend to be old.

[konart]

>but in some coutries there are laws banning A/C below 25°C (77°F) in public places, so (US) tourist don't get the cold air hit

To be fair - cold air hit (I'm talking about big gaps betweet temperatures) is pretty bad for you.

Ideally you don't want the temperature in a room to be (immediately) lower than T-5°C or so.

[amalter]

Do you have a citation for that? I was under the impression that was an "old wives tale". Human's often face huge temperature swings in winter.

In fact we go out of our way to experience these swings with saunas and cold plunges. I have put this up in the same category of "wet hair gives you pneumonia", but I am open to learning one way or another.

[whatevaa]

I think these T- rules haven't really been thought through at temperatures reaching and exceeding 40C.

[tpm]

but that's tough when the outside temp is 40°C

[stasomatic]

I've only heard of this "meme" on this forum.

[jordanb]

It's clearly an op by people who don't want the story to be about a historic heatwave ravaging Europe, so instead they make it about dum Europeans without air conditioning (which they didn't need before).

[mhitza]

That's an uncharitable interpretation of the initial comment.

It can also be read as health-sensible reminder given the climate warnings. AC units demand is already up 26% year over year in my country (according to our biggest online retailer, a month ago). Will be a highly profitable year for manufacturers.

[arw0n]

That's how I read it as well. It really sucks that one of the ways we will have to cope with climate change is to build a lot of energy intensive, expensive infrastructure, but it seems pretty much inevitable at this point. The silver lining is that solar is cheap and accessible, and produces the most energy at the time where we will want to run AC as well.

[ndsipa_pomu]

The problem with AC units is that they end up producing yet more heat, so whilst it may be "health-sensible" for the people inside, it's not so good for the people outside.

[jordanb]

Yes, ACs are loud and put out more heat than they absorb. They are actually fairly antisocial and I can understand that a country that cares so much about its streetscape and its "outdoor rooms" in its cities does not want a wall of rattling machines dripping condensate from the six floors of every building.

It also makes perfect sense that the country would put thermostat limits in place. In America we have "coldness wars" in public places where companies crank the thermostat down lower and lower until you have a situation where everyone's sitting around an office or mall wearing sweaters because it's so cold inside the buildings.

None of this is about "ideology" it's about preserving a particular culture. A culture that maybe is being killed by the climate crisis that is rendering the outside uninhabitable, but again the redirection from talking about global warming to talking about the Silly Frogs is quite intentional and in bad faith. And it's not just from OP it's a coordinated media campaign.

[puttycat]

The thing is that both sides have a point. European countries (notably France) have known for at least 30 years that this was coming, but was ideologically insisting not to install proper AC or even ventilation in public spaces and transport. This does not contradict the wider angle about Americans ignoring climate change.

[jordanb]

> ideologically insisting not to install proper AC or even ventilation

This is not supported by facts. People won't spend money on equipment they don't need. Most places in France do not need air conditioning (or did not need it).

It makes no sense that a building owner or transit agency would spend limited funds on something that they do not need.

One may argue that the government of France should have imposed some mandate that people install air conditioning, similar to how Texas failed to mandate insulation for its natural gas infrastructure.

Such mandates would not have been popular unless they were funded. And even then I doubt they would have been popular but they also would have come with considerable cost to the taxpayer.

There is additionally a cultural feeling in some parts of Europe (Germany) that conditioned air is stale and unhealthy. This is not "ideology" but it will certainly contribute to the idea that mass spending on rarely used equipment is wasteful.

Finally, the entire world is unprepared for global warning, Including the USA.

If the next massive climate disaster hits the US, say a drought or mega storm will the message be that "US climate denial ideology caused this" or will it be "nobody could have predicted this; random act of God; thoughts and prayers; nothing to be learned?"

[mancerayder]

It's not just that France isn't installing them. It's that laws prevent installing them, and laws keep offices and schools warm on purpose.

The prevention comes to play with massive restrictions around visibility of the units on facades in order to preserve character of apartment buildings and beauty. In some cases these can apply to private homes, too. Additionally you have the copropriété, where you need the majority of the building to grant you the right to install AC. The cities have rigid enforcement of all these and can mandate clawbacks and of course fines. And we didn't get into what you're even allowed to install - the things installed in the US won't cut it.

Offices and schools. Laws don't mandate AC, but they prevent it from being put too strong. 27C, I believe is as cold as you're going to get.

French people have a sort of cultural revulsion to AC - forget climate change and American influence, it'll make you sick and you'll hurting your health.

Just stating the facts, not defending the US. The US has a religious opposition to climate change actions as strong as the French religious opposition to AC.

And for older people, France sucks. For younger people, arguably the whole situation really sucks.

[ricardobayes]

Ah yeah, my grandparents never used AC even in the car. They just cruised with windows down even in the height of summer: they had the most bizarre ideas that it was somehow "bad for the heart". But cooking with lard was okay for them and it was "healthy".

At least in Germany you have a right to install an AC and the community can't say no. Even if they do the courts can overturn that decision.

[Retric]

> something they do not need

Except France very much does need AC. They may keep it off 99% of the time, but anyplace that experiences 38C+ temperatures should have AC systems installed for public safety. The cost benefit ratio is extremely in favor of having AC in France even if they don’t fully cool indoor temperatures to 22C, there’s a huge advantage to limiting temperatures to below 30C.

Paris has hit 42+C before, in places without AC those temperatures result in deaths.

[throw-the-towel]

The mortuaries in Paris are already being overwhelmed by heat-related deaths, and it's barely past midsummer.

[Saline9515]

It is totally a fact, many people and officials in France believe that AC is a major contributor to climate change. The public (and very well funded) ecology body, the ADEME, has been at war with AC for a long time now[1].

You can see the same dolorism in the national media[2]. While using coal-powered AC is indeed polluting and not the only solution, it's not the case in France due to the nuclear and hydro share in the mix.

[1]: https://www.ademe.fr/presse/communique-national/avis-de-lade...

[2]: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/podcasts/le-18-20-un-...

[rented_mule]

On top of everything you mention, AC makes the climate problems worse. Solar reduces the negative impact, but does not eliminate it.

I live in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. 15 years ago, typical summer daily highs made it into the 80s for a week or two, and in 10+ years of being here before that I never saw it hit 90°F. Now we're 90°F almost all summer and we hit 106°F last summer (the forecast says over 100°F by the end of this week). Overnight lows have seen a similar increase. I'm getting older and fans no longer keep me cool enough to function well. As a compromise, I installed evaporative cooling 5 years ago. In our climate (very dry air when it's hot) it works well and takes ~25% of the energy of AC to run (power is only consumed by a large fan motor and a small water pump). But it does consume water, increasing our total water usage in warm months by ~50%. We have plenty of water in our area, but that's been trending in the wrong direction as well, even in wetter years.

[ricardobayes]

It's not the gist of your comment just mentioning that if you never open your windows for fresh air, CO2 levels can quickly rise and impair cognitive functions including ones for strategical decisions.

[puttycat]

It is very much so supported by facts, see sister comment.

[yostrovs]

It would be one thing if Europe immediately stopped using coal, drastically reduced airline usage, quit building gasoline cars, but if anything it is only marginally better than the US. Europe mostly shifted their dirty work to Asia and North America, while restricting themselves from using air conditioning as some kind of virtue signaling. That's the problem as I see it.

[bcoughlan]

There's a lot to criticise of every country, but we're trying. The US is not trying (*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement#/media/File:Pa...

* Not aimed at all the wonderful, sane and reasonable people of the USA.

[robmusial]

> The US is not trying

https://usclimatealliance.org/

I don't expect people outside of the U.S. to keep up on state level politics but it is worth noting that many in the U.S. are trying and given our form of government state level action isn't anything to sneeze at.

[pibaker]

Go stand in your local Walmart parking lot and ask ten people if they know what the climate alliance is or if their state is in it. I'll wire you ten fresh bucks if you find one person who has an idea what that is,

[CoastalCoder]

> There's a lot to criticise of every country, but we're trying. The US is not trying (*)

I'd argue that it's a bit misleading to treat the US as a single entity for this topic.

The population is deeply divided on issues like this one.

[21asdffdsa12]

Its basically the wealth divide, mapped to a politics divide. It easy being green- when you are rich or some rich persons descendant. Its a matter of being starved out and deprecated socially if you are poor.

The inability to perceive that ones politics is destroying ones societies poorer members and thus in retaliation they destroy the societies structure is monstrous

[bcoughlan]

Hence why I said "Not aimed at all the wonderful, sane and reasonable people of the USA." I know it's not a Europe vs USA divide, just that it pisses me off that the American news and social media is talking about air conditioners instead of climate change.

[aeve890]

>The population is deeply divided on issues like this one.

The politicians they population elect are not deeply divided, and thus can be considered a single entity that refuses to even try to do something.

[nozzlegear]

Even if the US isn't part of any climate agreements, it has still made substantial progress toward achieving climate goals – yes, even under the Trump admin and much to his chagrin. You need only compare the country's emissions and green energy output from 2016 to 2026 to see it.

[protocolture]

>* Not aimed at all the wonderful, sane and reasonable people of the USA.

I am sure both of them appreciate the exception

[_DeadFred_]

There is no such thing as a binding 'agreement' like this in the USA system of government. We have treaties. That have to be ratified by the Senate. The governments of the world understood this, and understood that the Paris climate agreement was an attempt by the US executive branch at the time to bluff to a hollow 'deal' (instead of creating a true binding treaty) hoping future politicians would be too embarrassed to go against it. It was incredibly disingenuous/misleading of the United States Executive branch at the time to do play politics this way outside of the actual US system of treaties. It was part of the breaking of American laws/norms by the executive that led us to where we are today (with chaos, tribalism instead of a legal system, and a breakdown of our government).

[tacomonstrous]

Hmm... If only there were a tangible reason why a treaty would have been impossible to get through the US Congress as currently constituted.

[_DeadFred_]

'we couldn't follow the law because the law's hard, instead we started the gateway for Trump by bending the rules, destroying norms, pretending the meaningless has meaning and creating pretext Conservatives could use for ignoring (first) these fake rules, but later under Trump huge amounts of the the real rules.'.

It was a bullshit agreement, and everyone knew it was, and were knowing in that what they were doing would weaken/damage politics in the USA and adherence to the rules. And they did it anyways. To no productive end but lots and lots and lots of damage.

[kakacik]

We literally destroyed our car industry to try to steer the incoming catastrophe a bit, what the fuck do you want more. Germany tried to be the leader of solar but that was stolen err migrated to China, whole world profits now.

While US, China and rest of the world did nothing similar, just stood and let shit hit the fan hard. Gotta milk those petrodollars till the last cent because thats all that counts, fuck our children right. Yeah we are not going to burn ourselves further to the cinder to prove some anonymous yostrovs something he anyway refuses to see.

[stinkbeetle]

You destroyed your auto industry by ceding it to countries with higher emission intensity of production. USA, China, Japan have higher intensity than even Germany which is on the upper end of Western European countries. That's not steering anywhere except more sharply into the wall!

You've been lied to by your own ruling class. What else have they been lying to you about, I wonder?

[yostrovs]

You also turned off nuclear power and stayed with lignite, the dirtiest of coals. Soon you'll stop using coal since you won't have much industry left to power. Germany seems confused.

[cromka]

Agreed, but then there's also Norway, the absolute champ of hypocrisy.

[tpm]

> if Europe immediately stopped using coal, drastically reduced airline usage, quit building gasoline cars

we (the EU, not Europe) are indeed phasing out coal (most countries are already done) and EVs are at 24% of the market (June 26) which is about 4x the US EV marketshare and rising fast.

> Europe mostly shifted their dirty work to Asia and North America

There is a carbon tariff (CBAM) for some imports, will be gradually expanded in the next few years.

That' not marginally better, that's way way better.

[puttycat]

This. Add to the list: consuming huge amounts of meat while depriving themselves of AC "for the planet".

[omnimus]

In terms of greenhouse it also depends on type of meat. Very acidental but europeans eat much less beef and eat pork/chicken instead. Chicken protein for example is in many cases better than cheese emission wise.

Also i don't think europeans don't use AC to save the planet. It's just expensive and it didn't use to be a problem.

[Danox]

Paris didn’t have air-conditioning because they sit at a latitude of 49 where in the past you might have a week maybe two of sustained high temperatures above 90°, since Paris sits at a latitude of 49 which is north of the United States-Canadian border all the way from Vancouver to the lake of the woods Minnesota.

Which is hardly air-conditioning country above latitude 49 although obviously climate change may change that, but there was no point having air-conditioning that far north in the past for two weeks of possible hot weather, a resident living in the American southwest who will never have a white Christmas ever and air conditioning was always a must.

[puttycat]

As mentioned in other comments, what you call the past has been known for at least 30-40 years to be soon obsolete. They had enough time to prepare to this.

[throw-the-towel]

I wonder if pork is better than beef for the environment.

[fragmede]

Pork, by a bunch. Lower land use, lower greenhouse gas emissions, less water use.

[xtiansimon]

> “…Europeans being silly about air conditioning, from the drill-baby-drill nation…”

Sounds like a ‘mixed-meme’. I appreciate your concern, but confused thinking bringing heightened emotions is counterproductive.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/mixed...

[sn9]

It should be more grating that Europe's refusal to adopt air conditioning is murdering their most vulnerable at rates comparable to American gun deaths and (unlike climate change or gun violence) there's a trivial solution that would prevent this immediately instead of waiting decades.

[wlecometo]

These "most vulnerable ones" are the ones who don't want airco or that believe that climate change does not exist because it's summer of course it's hot.

[wlecometo]

it's the 2026 version of the "are they starving? give them croissant".

"is it warm due to climate change? just install airco"

[21asdffdsa12]

What should they have done differently? They de-industrialized and did the out of sight and out of mind thing europe does now before europe?

[sdeframond]

So we've been stupid "solar oven" buildings for 50 years while climate scientists were warning against extreme weather events and, now that said extreme event arrives, the best we find is to rush to aircon.

Seems pretty short-sighted to me.

[OptionOfT]

Yup. Built a house in 2016 in Belgium. Perfectly insulated. You didn't have to run heating in winter. Kept it all inside.

Also, it overheated instantly.

[sdeframond]

Insulation is actually helpul against heat too!

But since modern buildings usually have huge windows, we're letting in about 1kw of heat from sunlight per square meter of window. That's 6kw for a 3x2m bay window, or about the equivalent of 6 electric heaters at full power.

Block that heat ouside of your house with all kind of shade you can get: trees, blinds, adjustable shades, rolling shutters...

Also, close every openings during the day, vent at night.

[OptionOfT]

> Insulation is actually helpul against heat too!

Yes, until you reach that tipping point where once warmed up, you can't cool down anymore.

[scarecrowbob]

I don't know your situation but surely you've tried ventilating at night and then closing up the house at a specific time in the day?

I only ask because when I moved from the US south to the high desert in NM (about 2KM) I had to learn how to time that transition.

Very few folks here run A/Cs, we generally have homes designed to stay warm and during the summer usually fans go on about bed time and off in the morning, and that's enough to keep things cool because of insulation.

It was not obvious to me how that worked and I spent one very sweaty summer before I got the timing correct.

Of course, if the nights are hot (which sometimes happens) then that doesn't work so well.

[whatevaa]

Ventilating at night doesn't work at all when nights are hot. And now it happens oftenly, not sometimes. That is a bigger problem than hot days.

Also, all the activity you do inside your insulated home also increases temperature. Human body itself is a small space heater. At some point, you gotta get that energy out somehow, and if nights are hot, there is no way to do that except via a heat pump.

[gib444]

(UK here)

This is all the usual advice, which works for a few days, but during a period of over a week of high temperatures, there's nothing you can do.

The sun will eventually heat up every part of the house and turn it into a radiator.

Even when night time temperatures drop to 17c, I have my have windows open at 10pm with a decent cross-wind, my bedroom temperature may drop from 26c to 24c after 2-3 hours, but if I close the windows, it jumps to 25c in ~30 minutes...

The streets probably don't help either - no trees, just asphalt, front yards with paving slabs etc

[sdeframond]

> Even when night time temperatures drop to 17c

That's pretty nice actually!

I am in a brand new rooftop apartment, so pretty exposed to heat. I can keep 28-29C indoors when it's 38C outdoors. That's hot but workable with a ceiling fan.

At night we open all windows and have a ceiling fan above the bed. We've got about 24C indoor in the morning, with nightime outdoor temperature at about 21C.

Obviously I keep physical activity to early morning and late night.

[gib444]

17c outside just to be clear, highlighting that that it doesn't serve much purpose in cooling inside the house

We also have high humidity which makes 25c to 30c at night very uncomfortable for us Brits.

People often forget about humidity when telling people they don't need AC

And you have to remember we're a country of people used to max summer heat mostly being around 20-22c and many people will sleep with the window partly open in the depths of winter

[arethuza]

Scotland here - have heard people from London talking about moving here for the weather.. which isn't something I ever expected to hear!

Was 10C this morning when I went out to walk my dog, in a t-shirt and shorts!

[ndsipa_pomu]

I'm surprised you need to put clothes on your dog

[gib444]

> Was 10C this morning when I went out to walk my dog

I hope you didn't get heatstroke ! XD

[yossarian88]

That's a bit high. 1kw is pretty much the peak per M2 when the sun is directly overhead and normal to the surface. Coming through a window obliquely it will both be less at the source and trig reduces it too, along with what's rejected by the window too. But I agree with the general point!

[tarsinge]

One way insulation does not exist. If your house is insulated to keep the heat inside, it is also very good at keeping the heat outside / cold inside.

Also tangentially many Europeans seem to be confusing insulation with inertia, saying their house is correctly insulated against the heat when in fact it’s just a stone building that is taking more time to heat up. At the extreme you have European churches buildings that are very badly insulated but stay cold most of summer because of all the stone mass.

One thing Europeans have yet to realize is that good insulation only works when the nights are cold enough to evacuate the heat before it reaches the inside, and that during a strong heatwave there is no adaptation possible, AC is needed.

[sdeframond]

> many Europeans seem to be confusing insulation with inertia

That is true. I heard that many times...

> during a strong heatwave there is no adaptation possible, AC is needed.

At some point, yes, obviously. But in many cases I see people installing an AC without actually trying anything else. And then it is an energy orgy: AC set to 16C with sunlight hitting straight to the middle of the room...

[cucumber3732842]

>So we've been stupid "solar oven" buildings for 50 years while climate scientists were warning against extreme weather events and, now that said extreme event arrives, the best we find is to rush to aircon.

>Seems pretty short-sighted to me.

The same industries that got rich over those 50yr selling BS we didn't need because the government mandated it are gonna get rich over the next 50 installing smart ventilation and heat pump A/Cs and whatnot when the next pile of mandates to undo the ills of the prior ones gets written into the building code.

Seems pretty long sighted to me.

[bamboozled]

I feel every comment section related to weather and climate seems to have the same winging about buildings. Cold? Europe has amazing buildings, hot? Europe has been building ovens... it's interesting psychology.

Edit: We cannot blame people for buildings things that worked when we had a stable climate but are no long suitable for all these extremes. We needed to fix the emissions issue 30-50 year ago to avoid this. We knew it and we collectively ignored it. I get your point, we could've "planned ahead" but if you build something that wasn't suitable / cost effective for the time it was built, you'd be out of business.

50 years ago no one was going to pay extra for a building that might be important in 100 years because we didn't stop burning fossil fuels in time.

[sdeframond]

> you'd be out of business.

Correct. And we'd be "out of business" too as a country if we decided alone to fix emissions. Other economies would have passed ours because burning oil is so damn useful.

Thing is, I don't feel we are changing much in this respect. Now the best idea we come up with is burning more fuel for aircon...

[queenkjuul]

> Now the best idea we come up with is burning more fuel for aircon...

I mean really what else is there? We can't undo the warming, we can't rebuild every building in Europe (even if we could, would it work? Winter will still happen too). We can install solar panels and air conditioners, though.

[sdeframond]

We can install adjustable shades and ceiling fans. Cheap and efficient. It practically pays for itself in saved energy bills if we decide to add an aircon anyway. Plus the saved energy saves carbon emissions too.

We can update building regulations so that new building are better.

We can plant trees. It brings shade in summer but lets sun through in winter.

We can stop taking the plane.

I mean, there really are tons of things to do!

[stavros]

The one thing I want is for everyone to tick the box on their power company's website that says "only give me electricity from renewables".

If everyone does this, hopefully the problem will be fixed quickly, plus you can enjoy all the guilt-free AC you want!

[throw-the-towel]

It's 38 degrees this Wednesday again, and you're talking ceiling fans. This is just ridiculously out of touch.

[3eb7988a1663]

I live in SoCal and am continually shaking my head at the architecture. So my floor-to-ceiling glass buildings in a climate known for sunny weather. So much extra air-conditioning will be spent to cool those buildings compared to if they had been built more reflective.

[euroderf]

I'd try hanging long sheets of aluminum foil in too-large windows. I imagine someone in academia has studied this.

[sdeframond]

That works. A lot of people do that in their home when they have no other choice (renting the place, typically).

It'd be better to block the sun before it hits the window though, so that the window itself does not get hot and heat the inside.

Edit: people generally use emergency blankets, fyi. You can stick them to the glass with water.

[Timon3]

I've read a few times now that applying reflective foil to the inside using water can lead to broken windows - though I can't remember any linking to statistics or studies, so it could also be false or very rare.

[sdeframond]

I didn't know! Google agrees with you so it must be true.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

Also windows that go down to the floor has been considered bad architecture for decades.

Wall-to-wall windows are great.

Floor-to-ceiling windows are stunning when you walk into an empty place that you're thinking about buying or renting, but when you're actually living there, windows that go down to the floor create a few feet of dead space. You can't really put any furniture there without feeling guilty about blocking the view you're paying for, and it's uncomfortable to walk up to the edge and look down - it makes you feel uneasy like you're standing on a cliff with your toes at the edge. It's much better for the window to end around waist high.

They're psychologically fine if both the floor and the ceiling extend beyond the window (e.g. it's on the ground floor, and the roof overhangs), but when they're used on every floor in a high rise apartment building, killing limited square footage and driving up energy bills, it's absolute madness.

[Danox]

Obviously, Mediterranean, Spanish or Adobe type buildings would have been better, and not the northern European style of architecture.

[amluto]

I stayed in an otherwise lovely flat in northwestern Europe in the summer in an area where the minor heat wave at the time gave daytime temperatures in the mid to high seventies (F) and lows in the sixties. No usable A/C.

If there had been screened windows that opened wide and faced in different directions, it would have been very comfortable by just leaving some windows open for cross-ventilation. Instead it had unscreened high-end “European” windows that could either crack open a bit at the top or could open wide, swinging inward and banging into obstacles (like the bed or anyone’s head who was trying to sleep!). And bugs would come in while the windows were open.

I found this to be rather disappointing.

[tokai]

Don't worry it will even out when the Gulf Stream chokes out /s

[cassepipe]

...or not ? As el Nino would say: Porque no los dos ?

[sdeframond]

> I would absolutely be looking into how to get [...] at least one window air-conditioning unit if not a heat pump before next summer

Before you do that, do the cost effective thing: shadow and wind. Then you can add an aircon iff thats not enough.

For shadow, reftrofitting adjustable sunshade is pretty effective. Sunlight brings about 1kw per square meter of window. That like having your heater at full power when its already hot.

For wind: fans, preferably ceiling fans. Lowers perceived temperature by about 3.5 °C.

[carlosjobim]

Uncomfortable heat has nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with air humidity. Only an AC can lower the humidity, by conditioning the air.

[sdeframond]

> Uncomfortable heat has nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with air humidity

That is not correct. Heat, wind and humidity all contribute.

In a dry air with no wind, your body creates a "hot and humid" bubble around it if you are not moving. A fan helps.

Humid but neither cold nor hot air may not feel great, but not that bad.

Hot and humid air with no wind, now that's bad.

Edit: I know because I added shades and fans.

[carlosjobim]

27 centigrade with 80% humidity is a lot more uncomfortable for the human body than 33 degrees with 40% humidity. Likewise if the temperature is low, it's worse with high humidity and vice versa. The worst heat is the humid heat, and shade and fans cannot do much about it.

[sdeframond]

Shades will bring your 27C to 24C so yeah, it would do much about it. I don't even get your logic here.

Edit: you can still use an AC or dehumidifier on top of it. You will consume less energy with shades.

Letting the sun in is like letting your heaters on. You would not turn on both heaters and aircon in summer, would you?

[delusional]

I live in Europe. We have in fact invented air conditioning here too, but I am not concerned with what we should be doing next year. That's a trivial matter. I'm concerned about what will happen if this trend continues another 5-10 years. How do we make sure that doesn't happen?

[spwa4]

> How do we make sure that doesn't happen?

That's the neat part, you don't.

Europe has saved on CO2 emissions by moving production to China, and more recently to India and Southern Asia, moving energy generation for factories onto coal power, significantly INCREASING the rate at which climate change occurs.

China and India have made it very clear that, first, they will continue to do this. Also adding solar power, but not lowering coal power. They added that it is "inappropriate" to even ask them to do so (that was China).

Oh and thanks to reliance on Russian gas, and the Ukraine war, the EU is forced to move to coal and LNG supplies, which are even worse than coal. Plus, of course, that means that it's not just coal plants getting worse for climate change but almost all power plants in Europe.

To do something about it, due to Jevon's paradox the only countries that can lower CO2 emissions are the ones digging up fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, US, Norway, the Netherlands, Britain. You have zero chance to convince any of them to stop doing it, burning and selling oil, not even Norway is doing that. And any oil or gas dug up and sold will be burned.

There never was any serious intent, not even on the part of the greens (at least not in Germany, I mean, they even published an article on the subject: eliminating nuclear power was more important than climate change in 2003). And if even they weren't willing to make it a priority, who exactly are you supposing will do it?

Even in 2026, even Germany, increased it's reliance on coal (they're keeping 10GW of additional coal power at the ready, on top of the 20% of Germany's power that's constantly using coal), similar measures have been taken in Japan, Italy, and India has even delayed maintenance on existing coal power plants to increase electricity production from them.

And of course, there's the basic physics part. Aside from a small rounding error climate change is cumulative. Which means once fossil fuels are burned the temperature will rise accordingly. Even if we stopped burning it won't get better.

To merely stop climate change from getting worse, just that, nothing more, we have to cut CO2 emissions worldwide by 99.7 (and some models say 99.97%, there's a surprising range there). That will just stop it from getting worse. It won't make it better. Anything less is not "a good effort" it simply makes things worse.

All policies taken so far to stop climate change have not just made things worse, but increased the rate at which it's getting worse. Doing nothing at all would have been a lot better (because it would have kept factories in the EU going, on much cleaner power).

Oh, and by the way, this was all perfectly clear and known 10 years ago, and nobody changed course. So ...

There is no remotely realistic solution in the current policy directions.

And geoengineering ... is not really allowed to be discussed. Or this argument is being put forward at the UN. Any (successful) geoengineering will have dramatic negative consequences for some states and people. And since that is considered unacceptable, because large portions of the human race are currently dependent on global warming continuing. We won't do that either. People's lives, jobs, work and so on depend on things continuing and we cannot demand they change.

So yeah, I'd get some solar panels and an air conditioner.

[oezi]

Your take is too fatalistic because any reduction in Co2 emissions is helpful. It isn't an all or nothing thing.

The cost estimates for eliminating Co2 emissions are also not very high. In the range of 1-2x total GDP. Would be doable if 3-5% of GDP is spent over the next 20-30 years.

I agree that all oil will be dug up and sold but there is a caveat: not at any price. If solar and wind continue their trajectory their dominance is inevitable.

[spwa4]

At this point I'd suggest big investments in research into geoengineering. For example, I can find research stating that aerosols will work, BUT that will have costs.

But which costs? I can only find a few studies about the truly stupid ideas (spreading sulphuric acid in the stratosphere will cool the earth ... then rain down. Yes I can understand why that would be bad. But any aerosol will work, of course. What goes wrong when spreading Lithium? Phosphate? Natrium? Magnesium?)

[sdeframond]

Would please install adjustable shades and ceiling fans first? And also plant a few trees if you can?

[quickthrowman]

That does nothing to remove the moisture in the air; an air conditioner removes water from the air which makes the apparent temperature much cooler than relying on sweat evaporating. I just spent an entire weekend in 100F/38C weather and it would’ve been dangerous without an air conditioned space to cool down in.

[sdeframond]

Letting the sun in is like turning your heaters on. You wouldn't turn on both heaters and aircon in summer, would you ?

Please bring some shade and save energy.

Edit: also, without wind there is a hot and humid bubble around our own body. Fans help a lot with that by bringing fresh dry air right onto the sweat so it can evaporate.

Have an AC if you need to. But please dont have only an AC. Shading and fans pay for themselve in energy savings.

[usrnm]

> if not a heat pump

Most heat pump installations in Europe are air-to-water systems fitted to use the existing piping in old homes and is used only for heating. Such installations can, in theory, be used for cooling, but very inefficiently.

[aaronbrethorst]

Seems like a good thing for them to reconsider between now and next summer!

[KaiserPro]

> Most heat pump installations in Europe are air-to-water systems

I'm not sure thats true.

Most aircon in "warm" europe is standard split aircon

The "heatpump" shit that the UK is sorta looking at is as you describe. However its half the price to install "aircon" over heatpumps (because grants, amongst other things)

Like most recently refurbished offices will use normal aircon (certainly all the one I have worked in)

[dom96]

The annoying thing is that UK at least has a bigger grant for air-to-water systems.

I've been doing some research into this, because I would ideally like to get this system so I can make use of the existing radiators in my old house, but I do also want to have the option of cooling my home. It does seem like Fan Coil Units (FCUs) are an option for this. Anyone have experience with these? Are they really inefficient compared to standard air-to-air units?

[thyristan]

The problem is, if you feed cold water into your normal heating pipes, all the piping and radiators will get wet from condensation. So you would have to have a regulator that measures air moisture and temperature in all your rooms and only feeds water with a temperature above the dew point. This is possible, but inefficient and (especially on hot+wet days) doesn't cool very well.

The possible real fixes are either to section off your water circuits in summer, and only run the properly cold water through FCUs, wall or ceiling loops.

Or to get a multisplit heat pump, use a normal refrigerant-air indoor unit to cool and a refrigerant-water indoor unit to heat the water loops.

[dom96]

Yeah, I wasn't planning to run the cold loops through the existing radiator piping. I just want the ability to cool at least 1 room by reusing the air-to-water system, even if that means the FPU requires its own piping from the outside.

In that scenario, are FPUs a good option? Are there other drawbacks?

[thyristan]

Yes, they are a good option, provided you get one that has a condensate drain. Always use a piped drain, never just a tray that you have to empty, make the hose wide enough and clean it every few months, because algae will clog it if you don't, and then you'll have your own privat lake. But that's basically the same as for any air conditioning.

Insulate all piping properly, the outdoor part will freeze in winter, and the indoor part will drip in summer if you don't. The best products for this are foamed rubber based. Make the insulation seamless with the right glue or tape, every opening will drip.

Add manual or automatic valves to shut off the heating loops in summer, so you don't accidentally get cold water in there. Your cold water loop might also need an extra circulation pump, depending on how you run your piping, but that's hard to say without a lot more detail.

FCUs are available in the same form factors as indoor units for refrigerant-based systems, including a thermostat remote control, e.g. https://www.sinclair-solutions.com/files/user-manual-en/fan-... . But get one from the manufacturer of your outdoor unit, so the communication lines work, e.g. so the indoor unit can instruct the outdoor unit to start/stop/regulate.

[spockz]

Most Francoils I know don’t have a way to get rid of any condensation that happens in the unit like internal air conditioning units do. So even if you run the piping outside of the house you have condensation in the unit and the floors, not to mention the walls.

Even then, there is a fair limit in cooling and efficiency you can get from them because of the lack of phase changes occurring.

If you have a balanced mechanical ventilation (both inlet and outlet) that would be one of the best options to condition the whole house without putting air conditioning units everywhere. Having said that, we turn on the air conditioning in the attic during hot days which removes the biggest heat and moisture from the house. Next up is installing more sun blinds to prevent the heat from entering in the first place.

[quickthrowman]

Fan coil units work just fine, you’ll need to install a condensate drain but other than that it works like a mini-split evaporator/fan air handler.

You just have the added equipment and maintenance for the water/glycol loop vs an air to air system that only pipes refrigerant around. Fan coil units or VAV boxes are the usual terminal units for commercial HVAC systems that have a chilled and hot water loop, VAVs are used in a system with ducted AHUs and FCUs are used for apartments (stacked FCUs with vertical supply/return risers) or spaces not served by ducted air handlers for whatever reason.

[trentor]

El Nino mostly affects temperature in winter. It can raise the baseline a little in summer but that's not the problem with the heat waves we have this year. There is no buried lede but there is a lot of misunderstanding about El Nino on your side.

[inigyou]

And by a sizable margin they mean maybe 4 degrees Celsius.

Remember that 1.5 degrees Celsius is a nearly end-of-the-world scenario and we're currently about 1.1 degrees.

All that warming that we caused but didn't actually happen? Turns out the ocean saves it up.

[cogman10]

> Remember that 1.5 degrees Celsius is a nearly end-of-the-world scenario

No, it's not end of the world. 3C is where things start getting bad. 1.5C is the target for the 2015 Paris climate agreement to try and avoid hitting 2C.

We are looking at more severe droughts, flash floods, and rising oceans where we are at, but not the worst of it like mass 40C wet bulb heat domes which wipe out all life underneath them.

[jakebol]

This is an incorrect way to frame the impacts of temperature increases. 1.5, 2, 3C makes extreme events like the one you stated significantly more likely in a probabilistic sense. The ability of adapt is in part driven by frequency of extreme events as much as it is adaptability to specific thresholds. We are already experiencing deadly heat bulb events at current warming levels, the impacted areas and frequency of these events will strictly increase.

[cogman10]

I agree, but what we aren't currently really seeing (at least I've not seen it) is a heat dome killing off a herd of cattle or a crop.

That's the sort of event that becomes much more likely if not inevitable as the temperatures increase.

[micro2588]

Heat domes are already killing off cattle and reducing crop yields, even in western countries? There was significant cattle die off in the US during 2022/2023. Europe just experienced 10,000 excess deaths due to heat impacts and a reduced grain yield by almost 8-10%. There have not been correlated heat dome events over multiple regional bread baskets (yet) but those are going to get increasingly more probable. We have a lot of adaptability on the food side though as reducing meat consumption is an easy behavioral change. Climate change impacts is one reason why beef is currently so expensive in the US.

[inigyou]

Weren't there widespread crop failures in 2026 already?

[xyzsparetimexyz]

Bad? Things are already fucking bad.

[mort96]

The 1.5C target (which, as others pointed out, is not an end-of-the-world scenario) is about average temperature above pre-industrial baseline across 20 years. The temperature anomaly of a single year has nothing to do with that; 2028 will likely be colder again.

Average temperature moves in cycles. By confusing single-year temperatures with the 1.5C target, you're just going to make people think "crisis averted" once 2028 turns out to be cold.

[spwa4]

Does that matter? The only thing that can be done, is for oil producers to stop digging up fossil fuels. And not even Norway is willing to do that, to say nothing about Russia or China, even this year. And that, not digging up the fossil fuel is the only way. If it's dug up, it will be burned. Guaranteed.

Oh and it effectively doesn't matter: to merely stop global warming we need 99.7% less fossil fuel production (and that needs to include everything from Saudi oil to Japanese coal)

So why would it matter? Because we feel it? We are not willing to implement real policy when we feel it. We are not willing to implement real policy when we don't feel it.

And geoengineering ... while it at least has the possibility for someone to just do that without the agreement of everyone ... so at least there's the realistic option to do something, so many nations, so many people, have their lives utterly dependent on climate change continuing. So nobody's making serious plans for that either (because, realistically, it'll mean war if something like that is implemented. Which is still better than doing nothing imho)

[mort96]

Yes, accuracy matters in this discussion. Not conflating numbers which have no relation to each other matters. We haven't "surpassed the 1.5C target" just because one year is abnormally hot. When we finally do officially surpass it, we don't want a lot of people to be confused and ask, "wait didn't we already surpass it in 2026?".

[spwa4]

Neither side cares about accuracy, and both will prevent you from getting your message out. The discussion has 2 sides:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVlRompc1yE

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcxQZ8ub54Y

These are the conversations that get translated into policy. They are literally about directly satisfying people's emotions. No detours. Accuracy? I hope you're joking.

AND there's the problem that the policy the "pro-global-warming" camp wants will not even help. Global CO2 emission reduction is not realistic.

I'm working in AI and hoping that will help. If I had the realistic option (I have a family to support), I'd love to work in Chemistry to make it at least possible, maybe even easy, to do something about that (of course, even Chemistry products are being designed with AI, so ...). Achieving anything in policy seems to me beyond absurd. In fact I find it very hard to defend the viewpoint that even the policymakers pushing global warming action even want to help. Technological solutions at least might achieve something.

[inigyou]

Chemistry to remove CO2 from the atmosphere? The problem is that it costs as much energy as you received by putting it there. You have to unburn the fuel. Did you know each molecule of chlorophyll only processes three molecules of CO2 per second? The limiting factor is energy input.

[mort96]

I care about accuracy, so I'm gonna call out inaccuracy when I see it.

[fredski42]

Does anyone knows how much more the oceans can absorb heat?

[inigyou]

Well they seem to have switched to releasing stored heat. Isn't that basically the El Nino / La Nina cycle?

Metaphorically relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limnic_eruption

[delichon]

To vaporize 10^21 kg of seawater from ~4 °C to 100 °C would require ~10^27 joules, around 16 trillion Hiroshimas or ~2.5 seconds of the sun's output.

[metalman]

the oceans can adsorb a great deal more heat, but all the ice will melt, while the deap ocean water expands, from it's rather odd temperature ,that keeps it at the highest density possible, about .5% more than if it were just a bit warmer, so more warming will cause very significsnt sea level rise through several different mechanisms related to heat.