âEuropoors canât afford AC. They couldnât survive a week of Texasâs heat waveâ Okay, yeah, thatâs cool and funny. Can we please talk about the fact that global warming is so bad that the heat is literally killing people that far north.
I get that some people are annoyed hearing about Europeans talk about the rise of heat. What constitutes a heat wave in Europe is a pleasant spring day for some people and to be someone watching entire countries moan and groan about the heat while itâs ten degrees hotter can be annoying. But some of yâall gotta stop pointing and laughing and look at the bigger issue.
It should not be that hot that far north.
Buildings and traffic lights are melting, I can only imagine what the power grids must look like in some cities considering the hoards of people hooking up AC units to their home, and most importantly, people are dying.
We canât keep making the same âEuropean heat waveâ joke every year. Letâs look at the bigger issue. The bigger issue being global warming.
I promised myself I wouldnât get involved in this, but alas, here we are.
These two posts sum it up perfectly. The problem is not the heat in measured degrees, Fahrenheit or Celsius. The problem is that it is that hot in areas where neither fauna, flora or architecture are made for that type of heat, because it shouldnât be that hot in that area.
Yes, Iâve included fauna and flora. Because yes, it affects the vegetation and our wild animals as well, and yes, theyâre suffering and dying as well. They just canât talk about it on Tumblr.
Frankly, the number of posts Iâve seen where the motivation seems to be sheer pettiness, usually along the lines of âpeople canât take a little heat, hahaâ or âwhy donât Europeans just build AC, so stupidâ is silly. If you want to get back at Europeans for some real or perceived slight in the past, make it about something that isnât a global problem for all of humanity, and, might I remind users on the website where many pride themselves on standing up for minorities and oppressed populations, disproportionally affects people in areas that are traditionally struggling with poverty:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479725034097
Very few people with common sense are not aware that itâs much hotter in other places on the planet than it is in Europe at present. Iâm actually not talking about the US, thank you. Try the African continent, India or any place located around the equator for that â and guess what: these areas are also being affected by increased frequency in heat waves. Theyâre also struggling. Except thereâs probably a much smaller percentage of them on Tumblr, where the people gleefully making fun of Europeans are hanging out. Just because you donât see it doesnât mean it isnât happening.
Until very recently, Europeans have not needed AC. Because the temperatures, yes, even in Spain and Greece, were rarely so high for so long that it would have made sense to plan for it. Since the industrialisation, Europeâs infrastructure has been designed to deal and handle with the range of temperatures that are normal for Europe. This includes housing, transportation, agriculture and power supplies. AC would be, as US citizens would say, âputting a bandaid on a broken boneâ. It addresses the problem on a temporary basis and does not do anything to solve the problems Europe is now facing.
And that, I would like to believe, is also common sense, that if you live in a place where heat isnât an issue, you do not design your infrastructure and houses around heat. You design them to deal with the climate that is normal for that area.
Maybe go and read some research papers on how it affects humanity globally it instead of turning it into a game of pettiness. But I guess that is too much to hope for, considering how little traction these posts have been getting as opposed to some of the other âfunâ ones Iâve seen going around.
Great addition and I would also like to add that while we talk a lot about the infrastructures of European cities not built for the heats, it's also important to note that their bodies are also not built for this heat. The human body is made to adapt to the climate you live in. Meaning if you live in an area where it's usually warmer, your pores open up more and it's easier to sweat/regulate heat. If you've never needed to do that before, it's harder for your body to do which makes it feel even hotter.
(Talking as a privileged West European / France)
About AC: The thing is, AC is terrible for the environment. The political debate here takes that in account, the French far-right party RN proposing a 20 BILLIONS ⏠âPlan Climââ to equip schools, hospitals and renting homes with AC, + a further 20 BILLIONS for housing. Like, wtf. The left is livid. The right is like, eh why not.
What we need is a very, VERY ambitious renovation programme, starting with schools and hospitals and renting homes, AND implement strict building standards - some <5 yo schools were bloody kettles (as we took to call them in French) - because we focused on low temperatures until then.
It could be so, so cool. Building with stone, with earth, with sustainable materials; experimenting new forms and functions; accepting nature back in our cities (and not by planting three trees in a street); finding creative ways to make existing constructions liveable. But we (French) people love our narrow minded building norms, and the construction industry is one of the most powerful lobby. So thereâs that.
But at this point, massive AC deployment is the stupidest idea. For once, itâs not the Global South thatâs told âoh you shouldnât do that technology we have since decades in the North, itâs bad for the environment :((((â. We have to be better than what weâre used to be.
