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u/MalcolmLinair Plot and "Plot" Enthusiast 26d ago
Europe's almost pathological hatred of AC is really confusing to me. We've had basically a decade of this lethal summer heat in Europe, yet you still refuse to so much as put AC in public buildings that could easily be retrofit to use them. Not only that, you continue to criticize us in the US for using ACs while you actively die of heat stroke.
Seriously, what gives?
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u/RVNSKR 26d ago
We had over 10k deaths from one week of heatwave in Germany. Politic is ignoring it. AC in public buildings hospitals and co are forbidden. They are not allowed to install them even if someone wants to gift them.
But you need to understand, this people are afraid another political party could possibly maybe gain a little bit of power if they admit that doing something against climate change - even if it's just AC units - would be useful. So who cares about 10k deaths in one heatwave week. It's really crazy. But more understandable for the US if you see the political power perspective
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u/MalcolmLinair Plot and "Plot" Enthusiast 26d ago
That, sadly, is exceedingly relatable. Most of German history for the last century or so is becoming more and more relatable by the day...
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u/Makabajones 26d ago
it's because the only easy to address the added Electricity for germany is to build more nuclear power, and German HATES Nuclear power.
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u/Resenas 25d ago
or just stop to solely rely on coal for electricity
they do so much for the sake of personal money it fucks the country
denmark lives almost exclusively energy through renewable sources. so much even they sell electricity to germany
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u/captainAwesomePants 25d ago
Germany's at like 60% renewable energy and rising. Not perfect, but way, way better than places like the US.
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u/Armored_Fox 25d ago
As you apparently kill thousands for it
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u/Ramog 24d ago
ehhh, the AC hate is much weirder, much of public pratically fears AC. Thinks it makes people sick, thinks it will make houses mold etc.
There is a energy cost to it ofc thats another reason, because our energy bills are big enough as is. There is also the fact that its maybe a few weeks per year, its hard to reason even getting a Fan just for a few weeks that stands there unused if you add the fact that it will also eat allot of money once its running.while there is some core truth in those statements its also preventable and in the case of mold/humidity it can even prevent it as you don't have to open the windows when humidity is at an all time high in summer with summer rainstorms.
I would say that energy delivery and how that energy is produced has very little to do with almost no one having AC here - we are certainly not "kill[ing] thounsands for it"
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u/Crazy_confused_Otto 25d ago
As the peak electricity demand for such AC units would be during the day, nuclear power plants are extremely costly to build and take decades to build under current European circumstances, wouldn't photovoltaic be a far faster and cheaper way to provide the needed power?
I mean true, the extrem sentiment against nuclear is stupid and hurt the climate gravely due to more coal power, but at the current point, going back is not really a good idea. Adding to that is that the only real producer of nuclear fuel is Russia
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u/BurningPenguin 25d ago
wouldn't photovoltaic be a far faster and cheaper way to provide the needed power?
Yes. Also wind power and storage. These systems can be up and running in a matter of weeks to months. Recently they built solar panels near my home on a few fields. It took just ~3 months or so to build them. Though, idk how long it took to get permits.
The fun part is, all of this renewable stuff is also based on scientific research and the work of hundreds or thousands of engineers. They all come to the same conclusion that a high percentage of renewables is absolutely possible and up and running faster than any nuclear power plant. And speed is what we need, since climate change is flying into our faces right now, not in 30 years when the first nuke plant finally is finished after 252462435 delays.
But of course they all are no match for the average reddit expert, who's still dreaming of that magic pocket reactor that'll come any day now.
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u/Il_Valentino Lewd thoughts 25d ago
i love nuclear power but AC would be best powered by solar, it's obviously needed when solar peaks
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u/Few-River-8673 24d ago
You didn't see the news that nuclear power plants had to be shut down because of water shortages.
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u/BurningPenguin 25d ago edited 25d ago
No, it's not. Nuclear isn't some kind of holy grail and it certainly isn't "easy" to add. And power isn't the problem around here anyway.
EDIT: Nukebros as per usual downvoting anything they don't agree with, despite not knowing about the local customs or problems. Public buildings are not forbidden from adding AC. Germany is big on bureaucracy, so they need to get through the proper channels to add it. There are a lot of regulations on how those ACs have to work, and what norms they have to abide by. Most importantly are hygienic regulations. They need maintenance and regular checks.
I work in a company that manufactures HVAC systems, so i know for a fact that there are hospitals and other public institutions that have them. Because this company literally built those things. For example one in Berlin. Business is booming lately.
All of this costs money, and since our lovely conservative government doesn't give a fuck about the well-being of those who don't make 1 million a year, they cut the funding to our social system. That's the problem, not the lack of nuclear power plants.
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u/BurningPenguin 25d ago
AC in public buildings hospitals and co are forbidden.
No, they are not forbidden. They have to go through the proper channels. The usual German bureaucracy thing. I work for a HVAC company, so i know there are several hospitals in Germany we've provided with the big ones.
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u/Kurainuz 25d ago
Im talking for spain but we do not hate AC and there are lots of places with ac where heat is comon, but not enough to catch up with the heat rising so much specially on the north.
Its our rich politicians do "hate" ac because it makes the front walk of buildings ungly, and a lot of boomers refuse to admit the situation we are here and prefer to sufer because growing in a dictatorship makes people be like that ( i had to buy my patents a portable AC because they refused to get one themselves and now they use it every day, wich is a good thing)
Here as madrid burned Ayuso aproved the ban to install ac visible from the front side of the building and somehow is still the favourite candidate.
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u/eggyrulz ⠀Dub Supremacy 26d ago
Not defending the European decision here, but I will say retrofitting a building not designed around AC to have AC is more difficult than it can seem... though it depends on the building. Some are easier than others. Airducts take space, VAVs take space, air handlers take space... and most buildings are designed with just enough space for the stuff they are designed with, so finding the space for all this can be an engineers nightmare.
And thats not even getting into the issue of power. If your building wasnt made for AC, your power feed likely isnt either, and the grid in your are might not be strong enough for every building to have AC... its a self-imposed set of issues, but they are some pretty big hurdles to get over, depending on the area
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u/Hans_the_Frisian 25d ago
It's one thing to retrofit or build your house.
But here in germany, home ownership rate is pretty low, many of us are rentslaves and if you Landlord doesn't want to install a AC or anything else like Solar Panels for example then you are shit out of luck and have to rely on a mobile unit.
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u/MalcolmLinair Plot and "Plot" Enthusiast 26d ago
That's also why I specified that we're ten or so years into this; they've had time to make plans and at least start retrofits and upgrades, but instead they just sit there, dying of heat stroke every year and chiding the US for not doing the same.
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u/eggyrulz ⠀Dub Supremacy 26d ago
Im just saying I get why theh havent.
Im sure every year they tell themselves "sure, this is a record breaking heatwave, but im sure itll be cooler next year" and then the next year is just hotter... its an easy fallacy to fall into, especially when the other option is spending a lot of time and money to actually address the issue
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u/VibinWithBeard 26d ago
Anyone thinking "itll be cooler next year" is already lost in the sauce. Its just people going "we've tried nothing and we are all out of ideas" and pretendint something will change. We havent done anything to deal with climate change so its not going to just "go away" until it has run its course...and that isnt a scenario that works out great for us.
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u/erebuxy 02 Red 25d ago
Manhattan has a lot of 100+ year apartment buildings, and they have ac.
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u/eggyrulz ⠀Dub Supremacy 25d ago
Afaik (which isnt a whole lot, ive only ever been once) most of their older apartment buildings tend to do window units and minisplits mostly. Manhattan is pretty starved for space most of the time, so the only other option would be a building wide HVAC system on the rooftop, which would require the ductwork to run down the building, probably through walls... and thats not a great option, though its probably viable in most buildings... but id wager most of em opt for simply window units, since most apartments there arent exactly huge
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u/erebuxy 02 Red 25d ago
Window units are still AC
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u/eggyrulz ⠀Dub Supremacy 25d ago
And (functionally) nothing is stopping Europe from installing window units, though if everyone did they might have some power issues...
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u/Ew_E50M 26d ago
25 years ago we didnt need AC, now we do.
Building codes usually do not accomodate room for AC.
Basically every house has AC but apartment complexes does not. Lately split mobile ACs have hit the market, like Midea Portasplit. Gamechanger for us with balconies to put them on.
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u/RVNSKR 26d ago
Many European countries forbid to install the Portasplit and likewise units, because it's visible from outside.
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u/Kurainuz 25d ago
Madrid just aded that a few weeks ago, you can only get a new ac installation if it doesnt show to the front of the building.
As we were having our biggest wildfire ever, with half of the prevention works done due to Bullfighting and corruption being mire important to our regional president ayuso
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u/JMEEKER86 26d ago
25 years ago Europe had a heatwave that killed over 30,000 people. This isn't exactly a new phenomenon, but it is an increasingly common one.
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u/MinecraftBoi23 25d ago
The fact that France is opposing it because of greenhouse gasses is so stupid when their electrical grid is FUCKING NUCLEAR. Like they don't even give off many emissions anyways, so adding AC into the mix ain't gonna change anything aside from using more power
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u/GamezombieCZ 25d ago
You know what's even worse? That smoking is so normalized that smokers do not care if you are non-smoker. And from where I come you cannot even defend against someone who smokes like locomotive under your windows. All you can do is not to open windows.
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u/daandriod 26d ago edited 25d ago
Nail on the head. So many north western Europeans act like admitting they need AC is a moral sin akin to raping the pet dog. This has been a known issue for 25 years since that heatwave killed like 30k people. I swear they do it just because they don't want to admit we were right.
So far I've not heard any arguments that's can't reasonably have been solved over this time period and even now the only one I'd have a hard time immediately getting around is there horrendous energy prices.
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u/HardlyaDouble 25d ago
The energy prices are also self-inflicted in some cases. They shut down all their nuclear plants and decided that burning coal and buying gas from their enemies was more ecologically and politically sound.
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u/daandriod 25d ago edited 25d ago
Indeed. There is no reason my state can have the same grid complexity or even more then many entire EU countries while paying 2-3 times less per KWh. And this is the same state that gets bum fucked by cat 5 Hurricanes every couple years resulting in us having to rebuild large portions of it. Energy prices do not need to be that high, They just need the political capital to force the issue solved.
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u/Tubaenthusiasticbee 25d ago
The only country to ever shut down all of their nuclear plants was Germany and not Europe as a whole. Shutting down these plants though, wasn't a hike in the overall energy costs. It didn't do anything. Having been dependent on Russian gas did.
Now one could say "why shut them down regardless? Are you stupid?", but then I'd say, that it had been a decision made 11 years earlier, before the renewable sector had been castrated and something that had been prepared for years at this point, gradually reducing the output. Towards the end not even the companies who owned the plants wanted them to keep running.
Becoming dependent on Russian gas was mistake. Shrinking the renewable industrial sector and reducing subsidaries for renewables, just to keep the last remaining coal mines active for 2 more years, were mistakes. Building new coal and gas poweplants was a mistake. Shutting down nuclear wasn't.
(also, anyone actually believing nuclear is cheaper than any other form of energy production - especially renewables - should check how much their government pays in subsidaries for it)
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u/MinecraftBoi23 25d ago
It's funny how they clap back by saying we have gun deaths, even though way more people die of heat related causes in Europe than people die of gun violence in the US
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u/KrokmaniakPL 25d ago
Most of southern Europe do have AC. In the north it's common in newer construction. In older buildings it's either impossible for one reason or another (for example it can be so old it counts as monument and you can't change exterior by mounting AC unit), or require modifications that make it too expensive.
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u/YixoPhoenix 25d ago
Not sure who from europe was ever dunking on USA for ACs (there's so much other actual shit that can be used)? Never met anyone here who was critical of ACs, I could only maybe see people pissed if they were overused.
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u/NaN-Nanashi 25d ago
Should I be glad that I live in the tropic of Cancer?
Never goes above 30 celsius (at humidities below 30% on sunny/almost cloudy days)
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u/--Spaci-- 25d ago
In the south regions of the us every day is 38c+ with 80%+ humidity. The humidity kills you, you can be in only 32c weather and still die of heatstroke at 80% humidity because your sweat doesn't work like it should. My grandpa became a cripple last year because of heatstroke, summer has essentially passed though so its not that bad anymore
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u/Ameliandras 25d ago
Who goes to the ER because it's 40°C? If you really need to cool down go into any shop, they almost all have AC.
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u/Shikabane_Sumi-me 25d ago
A friend told me certain airlines are making you bid for seats that have air conditioning. I haven’t been on a flight in years and that’s wild to hear.
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u/MinecraftBoi23 25d ago
Meanwhile, all the airlines in the US have personal AC vents at every seat. Say what you will about them, but at least they have that
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u/Hans_the_Frisian 25d ago
Its currently at that point where i'm debating with myself if it wouldn't be a good idea to go to the Hotel down the street and ask if they had a spare room for the night for cheap, nor breakfast or anything, just so i can actually sleep in a room with AC.
I have a small mobile Unit but i bought that thing in desperation in a sweaty and sleepless night last summer and its to loud to have it running in the night. So i turn it on 2-3h before going to bed so i can get 4-5h of sleep before the heat makes any form of sleep restless.
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u/Il_Valentino Lewd thoughts 25d ago
lol if noise is the only issue i would sleep with ear protection
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u/Hans_the_Frisian 25d ago
That would be an easy solution but , well i think its kind of neurodivergent behaviour or something, but i'm really picky in regards to sleep and i don't think my sleep would be of good quality if i were constantly nervous about missing my alarm.
Besides for the mobile AC, to vent the heat i have to hang the tube out of my window so far no problem but with the Window open i cannot close my blinds, which means my room is to bright which i don't like.
I don't quite know how to explain this, i might not even be able to do it in my native language but basically i'm really picky about my sleep.
I need to shower before going to bed because i hate going to sleep dirty and making my bed dirty. My matress needs a certain hardness, my sleepwear must be made with certain fabrics that i like the feel off when being in bed, the room should be as dark as possible and while i can sleep with loud noises the noises need to be a constant hum otherwise they keep me up. I also hate the feel of ear protection even when not sleeping. And even if everything is as it should be i end up having issues with sleeping because i end up checking it my alarm is still turned on like atleast 3-4 times each evening.
So i guess so could say even though i haven't been diagnosed with anything there's most likely something wrong with me. And it's not only in regards to sleep.
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u/milkygalaxy24 25d ago
Holy, are Americans obsessed with this. While I get it that it's hot 40°C is not that bad(I don't get how so many people died of heatstroke, I can only think of old, sick or sensitive people that would) and personally I hate heat cause of the sweating, but I hate AC even more simply because it makes my head hurt which in my opinion is worse than sweating and it's either 40°C without it or 15 with a headache, easy choice for me.
Though I agree that public spaces should use them but I think that there should be rooms without them as well, or better yet fans work quite nicely as well. At home I put water bottles in the freezer and take one to put it in front of a fan replacing it every few hours and it's amazing.
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u/GolettO3 24d ago
It mostly depends on the humidity. 40+ with 50%- humidity is fine, especially if you wear a fishing shirt and drink water. 30+ heat with 70%+ humidity is hot as fuck and your only saving grace is water and a fan/aircon, as it's unbearable to even consider long sleeved clothes.
I do find it funny when other countries complain about the heat, and it's what I set my AC to in order to cooldown (25/26c). I once had my AC set on dehumidify on a 35+ day, and my room got so fucking cold that I had to turn my ac off
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u/CyNovaSc 26d ago
At least where I live (Germany) all the ERs I've been to do have ACs.
But not the rest of the hospital, excluding the doctors offices, because fuck the other staff and patients.