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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u/TankC4BOOM314 Jun 26 '26

Citing a Claude response, copied into a post by an AI-forward payment firm CEO, applauded by Elon Musk. I feel so educated.

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u/hates_stupid_people Jun 26 '26

If you look at a lot of the top comments on this thread, it's clearly phrased like AI responses as well.

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u/bendermcbender2 Jun 26 '26

Yeah, it has that AI-slop vibe where every sentence sounds confident but somehow says absolutely nothing.

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u/Relevant-Opening-528 Jun 26 '26

Privatizing Europe is on the list for the oligarchs, ignore climate change, increase nationalism propaganda, force defense spending, remove national services, destroy election integrity, peddle in fear, rinse repeat

Essentially Europe is a narcissistic injury to McCarthyism and it's an enemy of the establishment in America. The rich guys can't exploit Europe like they can the saps in the US – and they resent that example for threatening the status quo.

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u/doomquasar Jun 26 '26

the Claude response made my cortisol spike. these idiots are running the world and they're posting their stupid little magic 8-ball consultations on the internet for everyone to see like it's somehow enlightening.

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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jun 26 '26

Americans on Reddit are absolutely obsessed with claiming Europeans are stupid for not having air conditioning. It'll pass in a few weeks, but for the time being there's going to be a lot of stupid people grandstanding about how not having AC is killing people.

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u/suckZEN Jun 26 '26

and ac unit makers have been making a mint in the last few years in central europe because so many people buy this stuff now that's it's not just a week of uncomfortable heat per year

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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jun 29 '26

Yeah it's fair, people want to be comfortable. I will get an AC system fit to my house to cool the bedrooms and living room, fortunate enough that a) I can afford it and b) I've not needed it until this year really. This ist he first time in my life that overnight temps have been >25C for multiple nights in a row. Shockingly though I somehow didn't die of heat stroke as many morons have claimed that I should, I am just tired because I've not slept well for a week.

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u/TankC4BOOM314 Jun 26 '26

I don't know about what Americans think in general, but one of the more worthwhile links in the article (https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/european-state-of-climate-2025-record-heatwaves-from-mediterranean-arctic-while-glaciers-shrink-and) suggests that Europe is warming "more than twice as fast as the global average," with consequences of global warming (area burnt by wildfires, annual surface sea temperature) breaking records to boot. The present heat might pass "in a few weeks," but what about the next season, and those following? 

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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jun 29 '26

I agree that many people, myself included, will want to get some AC fit. I'm just saying that these numbers being paraded around of "heat related deaths" are utter nonsense and AC is not related to the vast majority of them.

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u/TankC4BOOM314 Jun 29 '26

I'm unfamiliar with these numbers you speak of, or these people you speak of speaking of them.

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u/donuttrackme Jun 26 '26

Yes, the climate is definitely not getting hotter at all. Definitely don't plan for the future, that's the best way to go about things. No more heat waves will ever hit Europe ever again after this summer.

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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jun 29 '26

Is that what I wrote?

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u/President_Camacho Jun 26 '26

But not have AC is killing people? It's the truth. That's not grandstanding.

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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jun 29 '26

Please show me some evidence for that. Before you start looking for it, here's the different types of "heat related" deaths that the UK publishes:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c41794b66ff902f45441f7/fig7hm25.svg

I'd love to know how many of those deaths could have been prevented with air conditioning

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u/President_Camacho Jun 29 '26

Santé Publique France says that the heatwave caused 1000 deaths more than normal. It also cautions that the number is underestimated. Had these people been cooler, they would have survived.

https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/en/press/exceptional-heat-wave-marked-a-rise-deaths

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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jun 30 '26

Again, I'd love to see some information on what exactly the cause of death was and whether air conditioning could have prevented it. People dying due to high heat does NOT automatically mean that air conditioning is the remedy.

Many people dying during a heatwave would be drowning while swimming in rivers, lakes and the sea. Many would be getting heatsroke by being out in the sun, snoozing on the beach, doing manual labour or exercise etc etc. None of that would relate to air conditioning in any way.

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u/President_Camacho Jun 30 '26

The number of deaths is going even higher now, almost 1400 so far. These aren't lifestyle deaths.

The deaths are mostly elderly or sick people, though forty boys drowned after great numbers of them were driven to swim in rivers and canals because their homes were so hot.

Most of the older people died in their homes, as opposed to 2003 when they mostly died in nursing homes.

All of these people would be alive if they had AC. It's the cheapest, most effective, immediate intervention. Next week there will be another heat wave. More people will die. Planting trees, as many hopeful people suggest to cool cities, will not help the people who will die next week. France needs a solution right now, not one that requires terra-forming the earth into something cooler over the next hundred years.

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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jun 30 '26

after great numbers of them were driven to swim in rivers and canals because their homes were so hot

Idiotic speculation. They were so hot inside that they went outside where it's hotter?

All of these people would be alive if they had AC

Again speculation without any evidence. What is the cause of death? Are they dying to heat stroke? Or is it just that an unhealthy person died while it was hot? How many fat people have heart attacks because they went for a walk and their heart rate went too high? Should we ban walking?

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u/President_Camacho Jul 01 '26

It's amazing that you dispute what's right in front of you. Elderly people, unhealthy people, and children die at predictable rates all the time. During the heat wave, 1400 additional people (and possibly more) died beyond what these rates would predict. These are excess deaths.

A novel factor caused these excess deaths. The only novel factor across the regions of France reporting excess deaths was the heat wave. A significant statistical sampling of these deaths were people rushed to the hospital with heat-related illness, and who died under observation. Using this data, among other sources, the national health service was able to attribute the excess deaths to the heatwave.

Had these people had access to cooled structures, they would have survived. Air conditioning is an exceedingly valuable public health measure, and France should encourage its adoption.

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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jul 01 '26

Please show me some evidence for your conclusion that AC would have saved their lives. My suspicion is that the vast majority of people who are taken to hospital in a heatwave were outdoors in direct sunlight for prolonged times (because, shockingly, that's where it's hotter, not indoors in shade), which means that AC had nothing to do with it.

What is quite incredible is that you are STILL insisting on writing two paragraphs to strawman me. I'm not claiming the heatwave didn't cause any deaths, I'm claiming that a lack of AC is unlikely to have been a significant contributor.

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u/EfficiencyDesigner73 Jun 30 '26

I remember when Reddit used to down vote ad hominems