It’s so hot in Europe right now that unvetted African and Middle Eastern migrants have filed for asylum at Santa’s workshop. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 1,000 people have died in Europe as a brutal early-summer heat wave travels through the region. The weather has turned into political theater for outsiders. One side insists this is an example of climate change, and only Greta Thunberg can save us. The other argues these deaths could have been prevented if European countries had ended their war on air conditioners.
War on Air Conditioners
During the extreme heat wave, the European Commission shut off its air conditioning system on the first seven floors of its 13-story headquarters in Brussels. The upper floors, where Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the bloc’s 26 commissioners work, were exempted from the shutdown.
Good Morning Britain recently aired a segment questioning whether it is selfish to install an air conditioner during a heat wave. French Minister of Ecology Monique Barbut is worried that air conditioners will cause animals to die. Germany ran public service announcements discouraging the use of AC because of global warming.
Suffice it to say, all the hot air emanating from Europe’s war on air conditioners is a case study in the Theater of the Absurd.
While scores of European nations do not have outright bans on AC units, they have instituted numerous regulations that effectively limit their use. Germany’s strict building codes, Belgium’s environmental rules, and the United Kingdom’s tight controls for AC installation in new homes. These measures do not necessarily prohibit the device’s usage, but leftists have erected obstacles to reduce the technology’s presence in homes or public places.
Setting aside the regulatory nature, the government’s attitude toward air conditioning is irrational. The primary reason for the anti-AC stance? The environment.
They argue that AC bolsters electricity demand, uses high-impact refrigerants, and that the continent’s infrastructure is not designed for air conditioning. But a deeper dive into the data suggests that European leaders may be more focused on exerting control than on listening to the science.
Air conditioning accounts for less than 3% of CO2 emissions (data centers represent 0.5%!). Industry? Twenty-four percent. Transportation? Twenty-two percent. Buildings? Eight percent. Space heating also uses 100 times more energy than air conditioning, and yet nobody is trying to outlaw staying warm in the winter.
AC Saves Lives – and More!
The number of heat stress days in Europe is rising. Armchair scientists can debate whether this is attributable to climate change, and politicians can impose taxes and pledge allegiance to the Net Zero flag. But climate adaptation will be critical moving forward.
In 2022, Europe had the lowest AC penetration rate but the highest heat-death rate. Conversely, North American households had the highest level of AC units, but the lowest heat-related death rate. A similar correlation can be observed in the Asia-Pacific region.
Researchers estimate that if Europe emulated the United States in terms of the number of AC units, the continent could prevent about 26,000 deaths per year. Other papers are more generous, estimating as many as 100,000.
Various metrics for measuring quality of life – sleep duration, work productivity, and school learning – also nosedive as temperatures rise. In fact, for every degree above 77 degrees Fahrenheit, cognitive performance declines by about 2%. Air conditioners reverse all of this.
Former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said this about AC:
“Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning, you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency.”
In AC We Trust
Have climate alarmists been wrong about everything? So far, their track record has been abysmal, and the only thing they can be depended on to do is to make humanity suffer. Carbon taxes, appliance standards, and now the war on air conditioners – is there anything they can do that improves the quality of living?
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