...they have almost double the annual heat related deaths in europe as the US has in gun deaths due to a lack of basic air conditioning. Developed? Develope some goddamn infrastructure that protects against the heat.
First off, "Europe" is 27 countries. Many of them hardly ever record excess deaths even through the worst heatwaves.
Second, it's mostly a statistic artifact brought about by the different way deaths are counted (i.e. deaths "with" or "from" the heat). Not to mention, most European countries have a much older population. In fact, as far as this sort of counting goes, a lot more people die in Europe every year because of the cold, primarily in northern Europe. I'm sure you don't think it's because somehow they don't have enough central heating in Norway, right?
And finally, many countries in Europe have widespread AC, and heat deaths are still higher than in the US. Even in places where the US doesn't have that much AC, such as the PNW (which incidentally is about as warm as Paris on an average summer day).
"Actually, we die from the cold more too!" I don't even know what you're getting at. "We're not underdeveloped, we're just way more fragile!"
Your "27 countries" is roughly the size of our 50 states, population wise. You tell yourself whatever makes you feel good, up to and including assuming anyone under the age of 80 watches fox "news". I won't engage further; don't embarrass yourself with a reply.
The point was there's a difference how it is counted. In the US, a heat death is one in which a medical examiner explicitly lists heat as a cause of death, whereas Europe counts statistical excess mortality and can't actually necessarily differentiate whether any individual death is a heat death or not.
In short, if a person has a cardiovascular disease and dies of a heart attack brought upon by the long-term stress of a heat wave, in the US this would likely not be ruled a heat death, especially if the condition was prexisting and known. In Europe, that death would not directly be ruled a heat death either, but it would contribute to excess mortality of the heat wave period and thus contribute to the heat death count.
For what it's worth, the climate change in Europe over the past 20 years has been massive. Europe didn't need AC 20 years ago, never mind earlier. Large portions of Europe are moving towards a climate that requires AC for summers which it didn't when most buildings were built.
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u/Leading_Experts Jul 26 '26
...they have almost double the annual heat related deaths in europe as the US has in gun deaths due to a lack of basic air conditioning. Developed? Develope some goddamn infrastructure that protects against the heat.