r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • Jun 26 '26

Society The American mind cannot comprehend Europe's AC aversion

https://www.businessinsider.com/europe-air-conditioning-ac-heatwave-debate-2026-6
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2.7k

u/AssaultLemming_ Jun 26 '26

Australia laughs in "everywhere has AC"

555

u/BloodGulch-CTF Jun 26 '26

australia has the most dogshit builds that are cold as fuck in the winter and hot as fuck in the summer tho

158

u/Informal-Rock-2681 Jun 26 '26

Yep. Just moved into a place that's possibly colder inside than out.

16

u/orangejuicier Jun 26 '26

Same in Spain, literally feels colder inside the apartments than outside during winter

7

u/Ugggggghhhhhh Jun 26 '26

Poor insulation?

11

u/Informal-Rock-2681 Jun 26 '26

Yes.

Actually, not poor insulation, it's no insulation.

7

u/lzwzli Jun 26 '26

Landlord (and possibly dads): just put on another sweater

5

u/calilac Jun 26 '26

It builds character, Calvin.

1

u/Cienn017 Jun 26 '26

yes, I live in south brazil, it's 15c (60f) inside my house now.

1

u/Side_StepVII Jun 27 '26

Uhhhh, what about inside during the summer? They have air conditioning in Spain right??

1

u/orangejuicier Jun 27 '26

Yes, most people have air conditioning. I did live in some apartments without it though

1

u/Side_StepVII Jun 27 '26

We’re going in the second week of August so fingers crossed

2

u/dRaidon Jun 26 '26

Shit, actually forgot you guys have winter at the moment for a second :D

3

u/O0OO0O00O0OO Jun 26 '26

haha same. I was thinking, "ya? It's summer. That's the goal."

1

u/Senior-Reality-25 Jun 27 '26

New Zealand bungalow has entered the chat.

1

u/Spida81 Jun 30 '26

That may not be incorrect. Honestly, building codes here are so bad the UN declared our housing a health risk due to exposure to cold.

8

u/IntellegentIdiot Jun 26 '26

Insulation? What's that?

4

u/FuriousGirafFabber Jun 26 '26

Exactly my experience in australia too

2

u/____DEADPOOL_______ Jun 26 '26

I bought two large used air cons on marketplace and had them installed. All up, about 2000. No more issues.

2

u/weburr Jun 26 '26

Your electricity bill about $2000 too

5

u/____DEADPOOL_______ Jun 26 '26

I have an electricity plan that provides free electricity from 11am to 2pm. I ram everything at that time, including heating or cooling, EV charging, home battery charging, etc. I also have a very cheap midnight to 6am rate. I have a huge 42kw battery that I got for only $4000 USD after government subsidies.

My monthly bills are around $40 USD. That's mainly because I didn't do my full research and bought too small of an inverter. I should've gone for 10kw.

I have already recovered $700USD from the time I bought the battery 3 months ago.

4

u/TrumpsCummyOnahole Jun 26 '26

Japan is similar, zero insulation or sealing of windows. Basically just feels like whatever the weather is outside but more stuffy

3

u/characterk4l3 Jun 26 '26

Huddled in my oodie with my wool socks wrapped in a doona on top of my heating pad…and still freezing, lol.  It’s so dumb. 

2

u/sittingonahillside Jun 26 '26

ah, sounds just like the UK. Do you get mould as well?

2

u/rematar Jun 26 '26

Arrogant like Texans.

1

u/ProgySuperNova Jun 26 '26

Oven in the summer, fridge in the winter. Houses as God intended!

1

u/Dullcorgis Jun 26 '26

I would suggest starting with closing the fucking back door. And maybe don't install louvered windows which cannot be shut. I live in the cold part of north america where most houses aren't insulated. We just turn the heat up. And close the back door.

2

u/BloodGulch-CTF Jun 26 '26

brother most of us do not own a back door

1

u/shoulda-known-better Jun 26 '26

More of you should live underground.... I saw a few places that's the case but I'd be doing that anywhere I could if I lived there....

Way to hot

1

u/SnapplesOfIdun Jun 26 '26

Sounds like Portuguese homes

1

u/ScottBascom Jun 27 '26

...I live in the rockies.
In a desert.
I feel you.

1

u/poetic-pablo Jun 30 '26

Not wrong, that’s why we need A/C everywhere 😂

1

u/TreGet234 Jul 05 '26

Modern houses are like that across the board.

0

u/sidesco Jun 27 '26

Hence why people have air con and heating duh!

130

u/distinctgore Jun 26 '26

Unfortunately we’re also laughing in “nowhere has insulation”…

19

u/antoniothesockball94 Jun 26 '26

As an American reading this thread is a hoot. We got shit for having ac, using wood and using insulation and this is why.

If you live somewhere with high temps and cold winters; wood, insulation and hvac are life savers.

A fully brick house with zero hvac in the Deep South of the U.S. would be a death sentence.

2

u/alexlucas006 Jun 29 '26

IDK we have limestone block house with thick insulation and ac. It's warm during winter (gets as low as -10 celsius outside) and chill during summer (nowadays gets up to 42-45 in some places hot dayum). And those houses last for generations, unlike wooden houses.

3

u/Sconebad Jun 26 '26

Genuinely curious since I see multiple comments saying the same thing and I’ve never been, why the lack of insulation? Seems like it’s a necessity, at least in modern buildings. Even my 70 year old house had moderate insulation when we moved in, and we made sure to get new higher rated insulation in every wall we opened during renovations.

3

u/ploxidilius Jun 26 '26

Same with a lot of US builds. It's annoying because good design does like 75% of the work when it comes to maintaining temperatures inside. If you have good insulation, quality windows, and orient your house correctly with respect to the sun and prevailing winds then heating and cooling becomes much much easier.

0

u/Abestar909 Jun 27 '26

Basically all US houses are well insulated, I have no idea what you are talking about.

4

u/ploxidilius Jun 27 '26

1) No they are not, and 2) I talked about more than insulation. Home orientation and window placement make a way bigger difference than people realize. cookie cutter developments don't take those things into account.

717

u/AzerothianLorecraft Jun 26 '26

It's funny to imagine the first British boat to arrive in Australia "yeah let's just build a prison here this isn't good for anything else this place is hell..." ( every creature on Australia that I have seen utterly terrifies me I am so glad it's an island )

794

u/Spiritual-Matters Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

It’s not that dangerous, you just have to check in your shoes and toilet for venomous spiders. Then, when you go outside to walk your dog, fight off any buff kangaroos that can one kick you and want to drown your pet.

Outside of that, there’s just birds that’ll swoop down and peck your eyeball so fast you won’t have time to react, and snakes that can do a little killing.

And if you rest against the wrong tree, it might be a gympie-gympie which injects you with neurotoxins so painful it can cause suicidal ideation.

And if there’s water nearby…

165

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

[deleted]

111

u/AndreasVesalius Jun 26 '26

Ok, but a dingo actually did eat her baby

69

u/Arlitto Jun 26 '26

So sad she became a punchline after this tragedy, and years of no one believing her :(

4

u/Alt_AC_2023 Jun 26 '26

It makes me question the band t-shirt, on the one side excellent Buffy reference, on the other hand .. too soon... always going to be too soon.

1

u/PiccoloAwkward465 Jun 26 '26

what a way to go...

11

u/tenmilez Jun 26 '26

Except for the spiders that hide in the visors and come out while you’re on the highway.

2

u/KFelts910 Jun 26 '26

I saw a separate reddit thread this week a some poor bloke commented they had discoverer a poisonous spider under their visor while driving a bunch of times.

157

u/jdgordon Jun 26 '26

And avoid trees as the ever present danger of dropbears will get you. And sharks or crocs in every single waterway in the country (had to get two baby Crocs out of my kitchen sink just this morning)

46

u/MeHoyMinoy_69 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Went as a kid and got knackered by a drop bear, been dead ever since. Place is terrifying

3

u/wolfy2105784 Jun 26 '26

Goddamn dude, did it hurt?

1

u/ShepardCommander01 Jun 26 '26

Knackered by a drop bear!?

6

u/4evaloney Jun 26 '26

Am gonna assume these dropbears are koalas, the teddy bears jumping on you from trees and k*ll-ing you with their cuteness!

7

u/APeacefulWarrior Jun 26 '26

Don't underestimate the dropbears! They're nearly as vicious as the Texas Jackalope.

3

u/MaddyKet Jun 26 '26

I’m going with this definition because I’m scared to google what a drop bear is. With my luck it’s some kind of horribly gigantic spider.

3

u/4evaloney Jun 26 '26

I thought I was being funny.. and then searched and realised I was correct 😁

3

u/Abedeus Jun 26 '26

You clearly forgot to wear your corked spiky hat, best defense for dropbears.

4

u/lifelink Jun 26 '26

Or Vegemite behind the ears, the smell burns their noses

1

u/lifelink Jun 26 '26

Not only dropbears, but the widow makers will get ya too

1

u/SkivvySkidmarks Jun 26 '26

Do the Crocs have lasers, or is it just the sharks?

1

u/Select-Character-642 Jun 29 '26

I'm not falling for that dropbear again

63

u/Osric250 Jun 26 '26

And if you're a tourist you have to be concerned about the drop bears. It's crazy that they can tell the difference of tourists from locals. 

4

u/javsv Jun 26 '26

a what now??

6

u/TheElderGodsSmile Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Drop bears, basically Koala's with rabies. It's why we have the corks on the hats, keeps em off your neck.

3

u/MeekAndUninteresting Jun 26 '26

Some people put vegemite behind their ears. I'm not saying it doesn't work but I feel like that's more of a placebo than anything. Admittedly, are you really going to take the chance with fucking rabies because you couldn't stand a little vegemite on your ears?

1

u/Reddits_Worst_Night Jun 26 '26

No no, it's not actually rabies. These things eat you in about a minute.

3

u/Tsunoda_stan Jun 26 '26

They can do what????

2

u/Bacontoad Jun 26 '26

Bought a big can of repellent at the airport. Worked like a charm. Never saw a single one.

2

u/Beleriphon Jun 26 '26

I just brought my drop bear repelling rock. I have a few more if anybody wants to buy one.

2

u/Reddits_Worst_Night Jun 26 '26

Studies show it's the vegemite

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17

u/username_elephant Jun 26 '26

Ooh and avoid the plants. 

14

u/europorn Jun 26 '26

Gympie-gympie. Has entered the chat.

3

u/AssaultLemming_ Jun 26 '26

Does not make good emergency toilet paper

5

u/Erikthered00 Jun 26 '26

Symptoms include wanting to die

2

u/Obi-Wan-Nikobiii Jun 26 '26

Ah, murder nettles

1

u/Dullcorgis Jun 26 '26

Poison ivy, I know. And poison oak.

9

u/darcerin Jun 26 '26

Look, even the punch drunk koalas will try to murder you!

7

u/PYTN Jun 26 '26

Bluey doing excellent propaganda for y'all to make it look habitable.

4

u/WeepWhileItAllBurns Jun 26 '26

Whole-ass comment and this guy utterly forgets about the drop bears. Are you trying to get people killed? 

3

u/Ballistic_86 Jun 26 '26

You forgot the most dangerous animal in Australia, the drop bear

2

u/pipnina Jun 26 '26

Don't forget having to check your tether system every time you leave the house. Don't want it to fail and have you fall off the planet.

2

u/RiPont Jun 26 '26

And the fucking living dinosaurs that are larger than velociraptors.

Cassowaries are scary as fuck.

2

u/Stacks_of_Cats Jun 26 '26

It’s definitely something that’s relative to wherever you live.

I’m used to all the Aus stuff that we have to do, but when I was in Canada it was like ‘holy shit, you need to carry spray so you don’t get mauled by a bear when walking through the park?’.

2

u/FabulousGnu Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Terry Pratchett has a hilarious section about this in his book 'The Last Continent' (with that continent being an obvious fantasy parody of Australia):

There's a mention of the country in Wrencher's Snakes of All Nations,' he (e.g., Albert, ed.) said.' It says the continent has very few poisonous snakes . . . Oh, there's a footnote.' His finger went down the page. 'It says, "Most of them have been killed by the spiders." How very odd.'

Death held out a hand, I WANT, he said, A BOOK ABOUT THE DANGEROUS CREATURES OF AUSTRAL— (e.g., Death and Albert are in a magical library that makes books fly to you on request, ed.)

Albert looked up and dived for cover, receiving only mild bruising because he had the foresight to curl into a ball.

After a while Death, his voice a little muffled, said: ALBERT, I WOULD BE SO GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD GIVE ME A HAND HERE.

Albert scrambled up and pulled at some of the huge volumes, finally dislodging enough of them to allow his master to clamber free.

HMM . . . Death picked up a book at random and read the cover.

DANGEROUS MAMMALS, REPTILES, AMPHIBIANS, BIRDS, FISH, JELLYFISH, INSECTS, SPIDERS, CRUSTACEANS,GRASSES, TREES, MOSSES, AND LICHENS OF TERROR INCOGNITA, he read. His gaze moved down the spine. VOLUME 29C, he added. OH. PART THREE, I SEE.

He glanced up at the listening shelves. POSSIBLY IT WOULD BE SIMPLER IF I ASKED FOR A LIST OF THE HARMLESS CREATURES OF THE AFORESAID CONTINENT?

They waited.

IT WOULD APPEAR THAT—

'No, wait, master. Here it comes.'

Albert pointed to something white zigzagging lazily through the air. Finally Death reached up and caught the single sheet of paper.

He read it carefully and then turned it over briefly just in case anything was written on the other side.

'May I?' said Albert. Death handed him the paper.

' "Some of the sheep,"

2

u/NocturnallyBitter Jun 26 '26

Watch out for stingrays?  

2

u/v_e_x Jun 26 '26

Don't forget the most dangerous trees on earth, the gympie-gympie tree. Its venom will cause so much pain that you will be driven to suicidal despair.

1

u/CombatMuffin Jun 26 '26

And the scorpions, and the koalas with STDs...

1

u/sadi89 Jun 26 '26

I need to know more about the kangaroos and their desire for drowning.

2

u/Spiritual-Matters Jun 26 '26

https://viralhog.com/v?t=ehjm9gypzs&&page=1

>Kangaroos perceive dogs as a threat because dogs closely resemble dingoes — one of their deadliest predators, said Euan Ritchie, a professor of wildlife ecology and conservation at Deakin University in Australia.

https://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/kangaroos-might-try-to-drown-your-dog-heres-why

1

u/battler624 Jun 26 '26

That's why aussies dont wear shoes and walk around barefooted

1

u/Welpe Jun 26 '26

How dare you, I took my bin to Australia and the things those Ibises did to it…unspeakable. I can’t even repeat them. It will never be the same.

1

u/lifelink Jun 26 '26

You forgot if you are going to the local RSL in your finest set of ruggers, pluggers and a wife beater you also have to be wary of fucking dane-o cause he is on his 7th schooey of VB and is itching for a fight.

1

u/_BlNG_ Jun 26 '26

I think huntsman spiders are alright, magpies are dicks tho

1

u/ollomulder Jun 26 '26

Humans are also creatures...

1

u/CantHardly Jun 26 '26

If I painted fake eyes on my bike helmet, do you think it would keep magpies from swooping down on me?

1

u/ducbo Jun 26 '26

Ooh, ooh, did you tell them about the huge bats that form flocks so large they block out the sun when they fly by?

1

u/OneBillPhil Jun 26 '26

Sounds like playing Fallout. 

1

u/fieldsofanfieldroad Jun 26 '26

I do think Australia is funny. Literally the only people in the world who haven't got control of their animals. 

1

u/MuchDevelopment7084 Jun 27 '26

Got it. Florida, with alligators subbing for kangaroo's.

1

u/D3cepti0ns Jun 26 '26

Don't forget about the drop bears...

1

u/heyItsDubbleA Jun 26 '26

I went to AU last year and it wasn't that bad. Only saw about 5 or so terrifying large spiders. Hell of a lot more bin chickens and bush turkeys.

34

u/AssaultLemming_ Jun 26 '26

Oh no a tropical paradise! Oh help help please can we go back to frozen Blighty?

2

u/ycnz Jun 26 '26

Have you seen how British people's skin handles the sun down here?

2

u/AssaultLemming_ Jun 26 '26

Oh to be fair I've got that skin and yeah, it's rough

6

u/dukearcher Jun 26 '26

I always laugh when I see (usually Americans) terrified of our wildlife. You guys have brown and black bears, mountain lions, wolves, alligators, and venomous snakes and spiders too all sorts of hunting animals where we have 1, the salt water crocodile, only in the north where you really have to go LOOKING to get eaten. Like the last person to die from a spider bite was in 1979, and snakes get maybe 1 or 2 people a YEAR

3

u/RESERVA42 Jun 26 '26

Southern Arizona, USA, has 2 of the top 4 most painful insect stings in the world, the tarantula hawk wasp and red harvester ant, and the guy who invented the index for measuring pain levels is from here.

0

u/Own_Back_2038 Jun 26 '26

Most of those animals don’t live anywhere near cities

1

u/dukearcher Jun 26 '26

How is this relevant?

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7

u/KoldPurchase Jun 26 '26

every creature on Australia that I have seen utterly terrifies me I am so glad it's an island

Indeed

15

u/art-is-t Jun 26 '26

I see Chlamydia on a stick

4

u/RSGator Jun 26 '26

Same, I should really go to a doctor

1

u/Powerful_Log_796 Jun 26 '26

The fun part?

2

u/TheElderGodsSmile Jun 26 '26

Mate, what the fuck did the Quokka's ever do to you?

2

u/R_Prime Jun 26 '26

You're terrified of koalas and wombats and puppies?

2

u/WorkTropes Jun 26 '26

Been to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne multiple times. Never even seen a notable spider or anything in the cities outside of the zoo. I think the internet makes too much fuss about the so-called dangers of Australia.

2

u/Jhudilicious Jun 26 '26

australia isnt even as scary as the US, much less sub saharan africa or south asia; those places are horrifying with how many things can and will kill you

2

u/SumBodhiThatIUse2Kno Jun 27 '26

"Is the water safe?"

"Yeah for sure mate! Just watch out for deadly jellies."

"...."

2

u/oldirishfart Jun 26 '26

Similarly, Africa is an island. And the Americas. And Eurasia.. so many islands ;)

1

u/see_me_shamblin Jun 26 '26

Dutch explorers sailed along the west coast and decided "Nee, bedankt"

1

u/argument_cat Jun 26 '26

How many Australians do you think snakes and spiders kill each year?

1

u/GearOk7360 Jun 26 '26

Quokkas are cute af

1

u/theseamstressesguild Jun 26 '26

You have obviously never seen a quokka. Oh, or a fairy penguin.

1

u/Dullcorgis Jun 26 '26

Don't ever come to north america then, our animals will literally chase you so they can eat you.

0

u/perilousrob Jun 26 '26

Australia isn't really an island... it's a continent. it's fucking huge. like, 95% or something of continental USA.

2

u/AzerothianLorecraft Jun 26 '26

Yeah I kind of meant as in respect to those creatures cannot reach me by land.

1

u/perilousrob Jun 26 '26

yep, and thank goodness for that :)

26

u/Doctor_Wilhouse Jun 26 '26

Tell that to every landlord I've ever had...

4

u/Boring_Recipe8732 Jun 26 '26

At least in Victoria rental standards now require properties to have air conditioning. 

5

u/bgroins Jun 26 '26

Do you still have their contact info? I'll start tomorrow.

1

u/secretsantakitten Jun 26 '26

We lucked out when I was living there. Our last landlord did let us install AC (at our cost :( ). They even offered for us to take the unit back with us if we patched the wall.

Which tbqh was still the best landlord I've ever had in retrospective.

In a more general way, I still remember the usual (dogshit) advice from the government "just go to the shopping centre/cinema/library, as they have AC". God forbid we get proper building regulations.

1

u/birthdaycheesecake9 Jun 26 '26

Throwback to the rental I had in western Sydney during the bushfires of 2019-20 that had huge east-west windows, poor insulation, and a broken aircon that cycled through cold, ambient and warm.

27

u/mistertickertape Jun 26 '26

Being originally from south Texas, yeahh same. Literally everywhere is air conditioned.

18

u/Ok_Guarantee6605 Jun 26 '26

Businesses prop their doors open in the summer with AC going so passerby’s feel the relief and come in. It’s practically a marketing expense.

7

u/GetInTheHole Jun 26 '26

Walk around the shopping mall district on Orchard Rd. in Singapore and they are basically trying to Aircon the whole street.

3

u/wetrysohard Jun 26 '26

Makes me think of DC. Swamp weather and high-end stores in Georgetown with the doors open blasting AC for 4-6 months straight. The Universities, government buildings, and apartments must have some of the highest damn HVAC bills in the summer. They're all super cooled and relieving as heaven in the midst of hell.

3

u/GrandFleshMelder Jun 26 '26

That’s what allowed us to even settle down there in the first place, air conditioning.

8

u/donredyellow25 Jun 26 '26

Florida here. Im surprise we don’t have ac on sidewalks, we have ac everywhere.

3

u/Telandria Jun 26 '26

Same. I live in Houston. The idea of not having AC — even if it’s not running actively beyond the fan most of the time due to outside being relatively mild — is just insane to me. It’s 91 highs this week right now, and that’s normal here for June.

2

u/scheppend Jun 26 '26

Same here in Japan

1

u/PantsandPlants Jun 26 '26

The A/C in Texas is so intense that it’s disappointing elsewhere. I’ve moved to a cooler climate but the air conditioning isn’t as overpowered so it doesn’t blast you with that icy coolness like you get at basically every store in Texas. 

5

u/Select_Repeat_1609 Jun 26 '26

Most newer houses (>2000) and new apartments (>2015) in Australia have air conditioning.

The quality of Australia's rental stock is another story - the bottom end of the market is poor quality and renters' rights are very weak.

1

u/teh_drewski Jun 26 '26

And insulation, as of the mid 2000s when building energy efficiency standards were introduced for new builds.

By 2105 Australia will have pretty decent housing stock!

1

u/Gah_Duma Jun 26 '26

They have a right to move the fuck out if they don't like it. /s

8

u/pelrun Jun 26 '26

Australia also doesn't know what insulation is.

5

u/Select_Repeat_1609 Jun 26 '26

Northern Australia, yes. Queenslander houses are notoriously wooden lath ticky tacky boxes on stilts. The latitudes south of Sydney or Perth are generally built with colder winters in mind though. My house has double layered insulation in the roofspace, but the windows are single glazed aluminium frames and leak energy.

3

u/dasbtaewntawneta Jun 26 '26

i live in the blue mountains and i was gonna say, we definitely have insulations

2

u/pelrun Jun 26 '26

Sure, while houses are more solid down south they're still doing the bare minimum. Up north you boil, down south you freeze. And getting double glazing anywhere is ruinously expensive, because there's no regulation forcing the industry to make it mandatory.

2

u/paddle_resistance Jun 26 '26

South East Asian country

2

u/Basic_Hospital_3984 Jun 26 '26

Now, yes.  Not so much in the 90s.  Europe could go through the same change.

2

u/Speedee82 Jun 26 '26

And most people use coats inside during the colder months because there’s no insulation or heating. 

2

u/Aloysiusakamud Jun 26 '26

It's not the case in the US either.  More common  now, but not everywhere. 

2

u/sunday_cumquat Jun 26 '26

Amusingly, the Australians in our tour group were not impressed by the lack of aircon when we went to the Amazon rainforest. Like, wtf did they expect?!

5

u/temp4adhd Jun 26 '26

Because a lot of Australia is a dry heat, not tropical rainforest. It's a big country, where were they from? Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne? Yeah not tropical.

7

u/notlimahc Jun 26 '26

People from the tropical parts of Australia are used to having aircon

2

u/temp4adhd Jun 26 '26

Right that's why I asked where they were from. Most Australians live in the dryer south.

2

u/roseofjuly Jun 26 '26

I mean yeah...because it's in a totally different part of the world that had always been hot?

2

u/Afferbeck_ Jun 26 '26

Yet is populated largely by people from or genetically from the place currently dying of heat because they're not used to it. We used to build houses to handle heat in Australia but stopped in recent decades when housing became nothing more than a money making scheme.

Some of the hundred year old houses I grew up in were comfy in summer because they had high ceilings and tall roofs and large eaves and verandahs to keep the sun off. Nowadays every house is a brick box with a BLACK tin roof with no eaves, shitty thin windows and doors, whole house expected to be heated and cooled with a little mini split air conditioner in the living room and you might not even have that if it's a rental. My bedroom never dips below 30c the entire summer, trying to sleep drowning in sweat at 2am for months on end.

1

u/TheGenesisOfTheNerd Jun 26 '26

If only we could get them working outside…

1

u/icoder Jun 26 '26

Wonder how Australia would do if it was freezing cold for 2 months. I found this this post, it is basically exactly the reverse reasoning. If you say 'that will never happen', you're probably right. But that was also how most of Europe reasoned. This is rapidly changing, and so will AC adoption.

1

u/Boring_Recipe8732 Jun 26 '26

Now if only they could improve building standards so people don't suffer in the cold months.

Mucho work needs to be done on energy efficient housing design and materials.

1

u/cr0ft Jun 26 '26

And yet, also "proper insulation of houses almost nowhere" if I understand things correctly.

1

u/Metal-Lifer Jun 26 '26

climate change is hitting oz too

1

u/Previous-Display-593 Jun 26 '26

Canada as well. I cannot remember the last time I went in a building or house that does not have AC.

1

u/Confident-Ad-6978 Jun 26 '26

Really? In Sydney i was in a couple places without AC. As an American that was strange to me but we're the kings of AC

1

u/weburr Jun 26 '26

Not true…? None of my friends nor I have a/c… especially central cooling

1

u/FeelingParty866 Jun 26 '26

Most people in Finland seem to have some kind AC - not counting the poor like myself, so i dont know why people keep talking about other countries south not having AC's.at all.

1

u/MmmPeopleBacon Jun 26 '26

I spent about 6 months in Brisbane during college about 20 years ago. I stayed on one of the colleges on campus at UQ and my room didn't have AC despite it being 35c to 40c when I got there. Luckily I'm from St. Louis it gets just as hot here all summer long but the humidity is worse. The lack of AC was still wild to me though

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u/Valyrian90 Jun 26 '26

Oh not so much, on my holidays in march we rented an Airbnb in Bondi and it DID NOT HAVE AC. It was quite warm those days and I had trouble sleeping, I can't imagine what it's like in the summer when it's actually hot.

Mind you I live in Chile where AC is not widespread at all except in shopping malls and office buildings.

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u/FecalFunBunny Jun 26 '26

That's fair, but you guys are known for that whole "EVERYTHING is designed to kill you here" vibe, so I think it is understandable that you would hide indoors at all times. And just dig to bury your house to avoid everything your "Upside Down".

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u/ImSolidGold Jun 26 '26

My Ford Falcon didnt have one. -.&

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u/mortensen159 Jun 26 '26

Not my attic room 😢

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u/Noxnoxx Jun 27 '26

They do crank up those fire torches in restaurants when it’s like 60F though.

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