Europe's resistance to AC is driving it insane

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Europe's resistance to AC is driving it insane<br>A timely repost, with some updates.

Noah Smith<br>Jun 28, 2026

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I usually wait until at least 2 years have past to re-up a post, but events this week are just getting so crazy that I felt like I had to rerun this post I wrote about Europe and air conditioning last summer:

Europe's crusade against air conditioning is insane<br>Noah Smith<br>August 23, 2025

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Europe is at a very high latitude, and people think of it as a cold place that doesn’t need AC. But climate change is increasing the frequency of punishing, brutal heat waves all across Europe, and the region’s lack of AC is causing huge numbers of deaths and vast amounts of suffering. This year things are worse than ever before, as Beth Gardiner reports:<br>Already this summer, two major heat waves have broiled Europe. During the first, Ireland, France, and the United Kingdom sweated through their hottest-ever May temperatures. A month later, France notched its two hottest days and its hottest night since records began: Thermometers soared past 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the west and 104 degrees in Paris. Spain reported its two hottest June days since at least 1950, and Britain, where temperatures reached 99 degrees, recorded its three hottest June days. The temperature in Basel, Switzerland, hit 100 degrees. Germany and Austria are enduring heat in the 90s, and braced for worse as the weather moves east. Temperatures this high can be life-threatening: More than 200,000 people have died because of heat in Europe in just the past four years, the World Health Organization estimates.

Robinson Meyer has some great statistics about how few Europeans have AC:<br>@robinsonmeyer post that's literally just facts about air conditioning in europe heatmap.news/daily/europe-a… ","username":"MattZeitlin","name":"Matthew Zeitlin","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/1710414226064314368/5AhSWZHk_normal.jpg","date":"2026-06-27T12:32:37.000Z","photos":[{"img_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/media/HL0hEVTXYAAI6a0.jpg","link_url":"https://t.co/DduqtMgtIP"}],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":12,"retweet_count":36,"like_count":155,"impression_count":61445,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":null,"belowTheFold":false}" class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-flexDirection-column pc-gap-12 pc-padding-16 pc-reset bg-primary-zk6FDl outline-detail-vcQLyr pc-borderRadius-md sizing-border-box-DggLA4 pressable-lg-kV7yq8 font-text-qe4AeH tweet-fWkQfo twitter-embed">

Matthew Zeitlin@MattZeitlin

Very useful @robinsonmeyer post that's literally just facts about air conditioning in europe heatmap.news/daily/europe-a…

12:32 PM · Jun 27, 2026 · 61.4K Views

12 Replies · 36 Reposts · 155 Likes

Even many hospitals lack AC, leaving patients lying in pools of their own sweat (and dying in droves).<br>Regular Europeans are hitting the breaking point. 8 out of 10 people in France — the country hardest hit by the most recent heat wave — want their country to install AC in houses, schools, and public transit. Parisians are rushing out to buy AC units as fast as they can:

And fights are even breaking out as supplies run short.<br>But even as regular Europeans desperately scramble for the life-saving relief of air conditioning technology, European elites have been trying to keep their people from getting the relief they need. Germany’s public broadcaster is running a campaign to dissuade its citizens from getting AC, on the grounds that AC’s energy use exacerbates climate change:

Clash Report@clashreport

German public broadcaster ARD is running anti-AC campaign with an infographic titled "Air conditioners: what cools us down, heats up the Earth."

The graphic notes AC use could add about +0.05°C to global warming by 2050 under current fossil-fuel-heavy electricity.

1:09 PM · Jun 26, 2026 · 217K Views

124 Replies · 94 Reposts · 574 Likes

Meanwhile, some people at Germany’s Federal Environmental Ministry claimed (falsely) that portable air conditioners don’t work.1 In the UK, a “Professor of Sustainable and Resilient Cities” went on TV to claim (falsely) that air conditioning can’t beat a heat wave. Last year a “senior lecturer in healthy buildings” told British citizens to try applying yogurt to the outsides of their windows to cool their houses. A British news program told British citizens that using AC is “selfish”:

Good Morning Britain@GMB

Is it selfish to get air con in the heat wave?

Air conditioner units are selling out as Brits struggle with the soaring temperatures, but with around 4% of total global greenhouse gas emissions attributed to air con, should we be using them when we know they're heating the

8:55 AM · Jun 25, 2026 · 1.38M Views

1.03K Replies · 42 Reposts · 473 Likes

There are innumerable similar episodes of European elites spreading blatant disinformation about AC, actively interfering with AC installation, or...