And yet many Europeans will still argue that ACs are evil and they shouldn't have them despite an estimated 175k heat related deaths per year. Although maybe this heat wave will change some minds.
Lived in Europe all my life, never seen this, in the past 40 years. I think it’s more an American fantasy than anything else. Historically, aircon in Northern Europe was pointless except for large office blocks, so was rarely installed. It’s been common in much of Southern Europe for a while.
I think it’s still a _fairly_ hard sell in much of Northern Europe; you might be talking about a few days a year when it’s actually required, which will discourage people from putting it in. Thought about it myself when I was WFH during covid, but in Ireland in particular it really is just a few days a year, at worst.
The first response to my post was one. Last post that touched on this a couple weeks ago had a number of them as well.
It might be my bubble, but I see a lot more people complaining about anti-AC warriors than actual anti-AC warriors. Do you have an example?
I mean it also doesn't make much sense anymore does it? You turn the AC on when the sun is out and theres an energy surplus.
We got AC last year, and solar panels at the same time, so the AC climate impact is zero. All reactions from neighbours etc were either neutral or positive. (This is in the Netherlands, which frowned upon aircos until very recently)
Obviously consuming even more should never be the solution to problems caused by overconsumption. We should be figuring out ways to keep electricity use in check rather than consuming more and more, but that's a fact that people would rather not accept.
Source? Where I live (NL) the electricity prices are very low on the days/times you’d need AC because of all the solar power generated then. I think you gotta back up your claim that 50% of electricity consumed by ACs comes from burning carbon. It strikes me as very counterintuitive (or dated)
I have literally never met this straw man European (and I live here). Heat pumps are going in all over Europe at a rate of knots, and solar adoption rates in southern Europe mean that using those heat pumps to cool down in summer will be basically free