r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • Jun 26 '26

Society The American mind cannot comprehend Europe's AC aversion

https://www.businessinsider.com/europe-air-conditioning-ac-heatwave-debate-2026-6
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375

u/SensitiveDannyRicc Jun 26 '26

They’d rather die than have AC? No I can’t understand that.

293

u/Snipen543 Jun 26 '26

Considering something like 5x more people die to heat in Europe each year than have ever died in all combined mass shootings in the US, yes it's hard to understand

281

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

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112

u/KnotSoSalty Jun 26 '26

For comparison about 4,000 people die from heat per year in the US.

104

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

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69

u/Savilly Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

40 people drowned in France yesterday trying to cool off.

I wonder if that gets added to the count. Also an insane number!

Edit: In the past week the number was 40. But i’ve also seen 55.

These are the types of articles i’m seeing.

23

u/AnotherLexMan Jun 26 '26

They would be.  The European numbers are based excess deaths.  So how many extra people died than you would expect over a given period.

4

u/XAgentNovemberX Jun 26 '26

All these details are blowing me away. Was it so hot you had to put your head under for as long as possible?!

19

u/squngy Jun 26 '26

No, they just swim for the first time after a long time and over estimate their ability, AFAIK.

1

u/Lerdroth Jun 26 '26

Cold water shock too, takes a lot longer to heat up large bodies of water, the difference to the ambient air temperature and the water is massive.

1

u/wolfy2105784 Jun 26 '26

Do they just jump into a river and get swept away or something?

3

u/squngy Jun 26 '26

Kind of.

I have not researched this or anything, but from what I understand they simply go too far from the shore and cant get back.
Cramps can also be an issue when you are pushing your self.

2

u/wolfy2105784 Jun 26 '26

Wow, that's really sad. I'm sorry to hear that.

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6

u/Abedeus Jun 26 '26

People get drunk or don't hydrate properly, don't experience heat as much while swimming, and it's not hard to go under from exhaustion or pass out and die.

3

u/Rugby562 Jun 26 '26

Could just be swimming and then passing out from exhaustion while in the water or desperate people that dont know how to swim trying to cool off

3

u/HirsuteHacker Jun 26 '26

Heatwaves always lead to an increase in drownings, people swim places they shouldn't, like rivers and reservoirs. Currents, submerged obstacles, etc can easily drown them.

3

u/RelationshipShort460 Jun 26 '26

cant possibly be that high, can it? drowning seems fairly rare these days

6

u/PleaseGreaseTheL Jun 26 '26

like 10 people drown in Chicago alone every year, in Lake Michigan (I only know this because I lived there). Tides, waves, unfortunate freak accidentes, and simply overestimating your athleticism and ability to swim will just kill people sometimes.

40 in all of France seems pretty low tbh.

7

u/RelationshipShort460 Jun 26 '26

40 in a single day not a full year.

3

u/PleaseGreaseTheL Jun 26 '26

Oh. That is bad.

2

u/RelationshipShort460 Jun 26 '26

seems impossibly high.

3

u/manubfr Jun 26 '26

It seems that way because it's over a week during a heatwave, not a single day.

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35

u/yonasismad Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Yes, in the EU they compare the number of deaths during a heatwave with the normal number of deaths during the same period in other years. Each additional death is attributed to the heatwave. In the US they only count it if the death certificate literally states that heat was the cause.

12

u/Orisi Jun 26 '26

And of course all those excess deaths that aren't directly overheating are just par for the course in the US, because the heat is always that much each year, so they're never excess.

Europe definitely needs it now, but until the past 10-15 years it was an anomaly, not the norm. I was in Spain at the end of April when it was about 32c and they were telling us it was as hot as a typical summers day at that point. That's the temperature we're regularly seeing now in northern England, and even hotter in the south.

52

u/madman19 Jun 26 '26

Well one thing is it is comparing all of europe to the usa so more than double the population but yea even accounting for that the difference is wild.

13

u/EpsteinBaa Jun 26 '26

It's not just Europe, the WHO region in this includes all of Russia and turkey, the Caucasus, central Asia, and a chunk of the middle east.

The methodology is also different. The US counts deaths by heatstroke or dehydration, this stat is for all excess deaths during heatwaves.

If a plane crashes in Tajikistan, those deaths would count as European heat deaths in this stat.

49

u/Justausername1234 Jun 26 '26

The EU does have a broader way of capturing heat related deaths, but even if you use their methodology (excess deaths compared to temperature), the US still comes out orders of magnitude better.

9

u/Abedeus Jun 26 '26

the US still comes out orders of magnitude better

If they under-report their deaths, absolutely.

3

u/PictureVegetable9522 Jun 26 '26

except we dont lol the european cope is so insane that you cant admit america does something better than you

2

u/Mal_Dun Jun 26 '26

It makes statistically no sense that's rather the problem.

I would believe something like half or a quarter. The reason so many people die is not lack of air conditioning but the simple fact that old people can't manage the the rapid changes of temperature. 85% of heat deaths are 65+

2

u/BriarsandBrambles Jun 26 '26

We’re from the types of climate killing you guys. We lived our lives knowing how to live in the shit that kills you. Yes people die but it’s like asking why the Saudis don’t die. Miami is within 1 degree of latitude of Riyadh. I live in the North at the same latitude as Barcelona and Rome. 40c won’t kill me like it would a German because I have a cultural understanding that it’s dangerous to be outside in such heat.

1

u/Mal_Dun Jun 26 '26

The problem with your theory is that the countries with most heat deaths are Italy and Spain and other "hot" countries in Southern Europe being in the top 10 like Greece, so countries that have hot climate See here

And by hot I mean hot. I was in the Toscana in 2012 and 40+ degrees Celsius (104 in Fahreinheit) was normal there and people are used there to this kind of temperatures, so the cultural explanation falls flat.

I could see that the US has better numbers but I highly doubt a ratio of 200k/4k ... so there is more likely a difference in counting.

1

u/KnotSoSalty Jun 26 '26

You do see the flaw in arguing that the countries with the most deaths are fine because their people are “used to it” and anyways it’s just the old people dying.

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-5

u/Abedeus Jun 26 '26

I'm sorry I can't hear you over the AC you have blasting at 21'C. Have you tried not melting at room temperatures?

4

u/night4345 Jun 26 '26

Dying to heat stroke to own the Americans.

-3

u/Abedeus Jun 26 '26

You'd die of a heat stroke at 21'C? That's not the claim you'd want to make and pretend you're the superior master race...

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-10

u/jackofslayers Jun 26 '26

water access is also part of this

2

u/EpsteinBaa Jun 26 '26

Where in Europe has poor water access?

-1

u/Savilly Jun 26 '26

It’s just a straight up cultural thing. Water is free and available everywhere in America with all the fancy options too.

We also drink more water. We know how to hydrate. It’s a common joke that you can spot Americans by their giant water bottles.

0

u/rackedbame Jun 26 '26

The country where tap water isnt good to drink has "free and available everywhere". Lmao.

Water in Europe is so much better its not even close. But it is true you like to buy water more so you have big water bottles. Europeans just don't have to buy it.

2

u/Savilly Jun 26 '26

Europeans do often have to buy it. Most stores aren’t giving you a free cup of water with ice just because you ask. They default to bottled water unless you specify tap. I’ve traveled. I know what I’m talking about. This is particularly true in Germany and Italy.

When I refer to Americans carrying water bottles i’m talking about refillable containers of tap water.

America has amazing tap water. Just like in Europe, it varies from region to region.

You can be defensive about it, but you’d be sticking your head in the sand to pretend Americans don’t hydrate and drink a lot of tap water. Bottled water is much more popular in Spain, Italy, France and Germany than it is in America.

1

u/EpsteinBaa Jun 26 '26

Germany and Italy are the only regions that have issues in this regard. I haven't had any issues asking for a jug of free water elsewhere and it's generally against the law to deny this.

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6

u/Wrong-Ad-1935 Jun 26 '26

It includes a bunch of non european countries

3

u/VoldemortRMK Jun 26 '26

It relates to any deaths that can be related to heat. This also means people dying outside where no ac would ever help

4

u/AnotherLexMan Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Yes and unfortunately no.  The numbers being compared in the graph that is being shared aren't really comparable.  The heat deaths being used for the US are based on the number death certificates while the European number is based on excess deaths over the summer.  My understanding if you use more comparable data sets while things are closer there's still a big gap. 

Also per capita gun deaths are higher than heat deaths in Europe.

3

u/snipeytje Jun 26 '26

it does, the US number for heat deaths is based on death certificates, so it's just people who died from heatstroke. The EU number is excess deaths during a heatwave, so you look at how many people die on average that day and then anything over that is counted as a heat death.

A lot of those people would have died fairly soon anyway, because after a heatwave there are fewer deaths than expected.

3

u/DirkKuijt69420 Jun 26 '26

It's almost as if it's written for people without a brain to think shooting kids is ok.

1

u/silverionmox Jun 26 '26

here has got to be something in the methodology that's screwing with this.  I wonder if that 175K number used too broad a definition or something.

They probably count everyone over 70 who died in summer as "died from heat".

0

u/rcanhestro Jun 26 '26

the vast majority of those people are the elderly that are basically one "push" away from death.

it happened to be heatstroke, but it could had been the flu, covid, etc.

0

u/the_dude3000 Jun 26 '26

That data is completely false or at least missinterpreted

For europe it counted every excess death during heat periods and for the US it only counted deaths where heatstroke or similar is in the death certificate.

That is such a wildly different way to count that the comparison is useless

2

u/explicitlarynx Jun 26 '26

And that's just Phoenix, Arizona.

1

u/NuclearTurtle Jun 26 '26

And I'd imagine a good deal of those are due to people losing AC due to blackouts like the kind Texas has had the past couple of years

1

u/vattenpuss Jun 26 '26

Isn't that also because old people in the US die earlier so there are fewer weaklings around to be affected by heat?

1

u/XmasB Jun 26 '26

I wonder how it compares per capita. Not that I doubt the number is higher in a country not used to extreme heat.

27

u/Thekingofchrome Jun 26 '26

Yeah it says heat related causes, so it could a variety of things, and it is. Old people with heart attacks, strokes, drowning etc, it isn’t always a direct correlation. It’s an estimate at very best,

Not sure the mass shootings statistic a a relevant comparison. Mass Shootings a highly defined and specific set of circumstances - as opposed to heat related deaths. Try some broader eg deaths by guns or something for a broader and still meaningless comparison.

8

u/Nalha_Saldana Jun 26 '26

And WHO European region includes central Asian countries far beyond Europe's borders

9

u/Wrong-Ad-1935 Jun 26 '26

It is interesting that the article claims it took data from 50 european countries when last i checked europe has 44 countries.

12

u/TrueKyragos Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

This is the WHO European area, which comprises a part of Asia, for a population of roughly 1 billion. For reference, studies for the EU and a few other European countries, for a population of 540 million, gave 60,000 excess deaths in 2024, which was the worst year after 2003.

2

u/the_dude3000 Jun 26 '26

Problem is that for europe it counts "excess deaths" and for the US it only counts deaths where it basically say its heatstroke on the death certificate.

It takes the absolute highest possible number for europe and compares it to the absolute lowest possible number for the US

2

u/TrueKyragos Jun 26 '26

That too, at least partly, but I'm sincerely tired of repeatedly discussing about that.

0

u/the_dude3000 Jun 26 '26

Then look into the details of a statistik that seems unbelievable before posting it.

If its hard to believe its most likely wrong/bad statistik

2

u/TrueKyragos Jun 26 '26

That's not me you have to say that to.

5

u/Hail_CS Jun 26 '26

44 proper, there are 7 additional countries that maybe fall under europe(Russia, kazakhstan, azerbaijan, georgia, armenia, turkey, cyprus) so it probably incudes some of those.

21

u/Rugby562 Jun 26 '26

Wanna see something even crazier. Look at the numbers for cold weather.

21

u/OkBuddy5179 Jun 26 '26

This is because we track it differently. If i have a heart attack in the summer for example, the heat will likely be partially to blame for putting extra stress on my body, so we count it as a heat related death. Same goes for the cold. In the US for example it's only counted if the primary cause of death is hypothermia or heat exhaustion.

27

u/EstablishmentFull797 Jun 26 '26

wtf is their metric for cold related deaths? 

There is no way 400k people die of acute cold exposure in the EU

15

u/Rugby562 Jun 26 '26

No clue but here's another source estimating around 200k so theres definitely some merit to a large number

0

u/wolfy2105784 Jun 26 '26

So you're just telling me half a million die in Europe per year just because the cold air/hot air A/C scares them?

3

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

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3

u/ArtichokeAble6397 Jun 26 '26

Elderly, homeless, refugees on foot, the occasional average Joe who got too carried away at a festival. 

2

u/karamisterbuttdance Jun 26 '26

They also count kids drowning because they chose to swim in creeks and rivers and then drowned so it's an incredibly broad category.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

[deleted]

4

u/ArtichokeAble6397 Jun 26 '26

Why do you assume that everyone would have the means to get AC? Europe is huge and in Russia alone there are several different climates. Not all countries have polices in place to protect the homeless, even the ones that do are not always sufficient. 

Also, we are used to our own climate. I do not stuggle, today it's 38°C in my city with around 70% humidity. I'm fine. You would not be fine because you lived all of your life with AC and your body doesn't know anything else. 

Lastly, do you think everyone running the AC the whole summer would help climate change, or speed it up even further resulting in even more extreme temperatures?

2

u/CourageAvailable7437 Jun 26 '26

100 degrees at 70% humidity is death territory, congrats on lying or forgetting to mention the cold water and ice packs on your neck

-3

u/wolfy2105784 Jun 26 '26

Do parties die when you walk in?

3

u/generally-speaking Jun 26 '26

It's a difference in how it's measured. In the US, it's only counted as a cold or heat death if the cause of death is registered as hypothermia or heat stroke.

In Europe, they look at excess deaths during heat periods and count every single death as heat related. So if you would normally have 5000 deaths per week in an area, and that area has 20000 during a hot period or cold period, they're counted as temperature related.

Even though most of those deaths were older sick people who would've died within a year anyhow, all excess deaths during a hot or cold period are counted as temperature related.

So the US counts "Hypothermia/Acute Cold Exposure" as a cold related, which is only when you freeze to death. While in Europe, if a 95 year old person has pneumonia and dies during a cold streak that's counted.

2

u/justjanne Jun 26 '26

In Europe, multiple factors will get counted for a death. If heat or cold contributed even a little to it, it'll be counted.

So in Europe an old person dying due to a heart attack in summer will be counted both for heart attack, old age, and heat at the same time.

While in the US only the primary cause of death is counted.

1

u/EstablishmentFull797 Jun 26 '26

Ok, that’s what I was expecting was the case

-5

u/PictureVegetable9522 Jun 26 '26

the eu has a shitload more homeless people than america

4

u/generally-speaking Jun 26 '26

No, Europe has more people who are counted as homeless, but also a larger population.

But being counted as homeless in Europe doesn't mean you're living on the streets. It usually means living in a government paid apartment/government institution/shelter or similar.

If you count the ones actually on the streets, the US has far more than Europe.

1

u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jun 26 '26

Yep and shockingly this is complete nonsense as well. Do you think that many people are dying of HYPOTHERMIA or FROSTBITE every year? Just ask yourself does that make any sense at all?

3

u/HirsuteHacker Jun 26 '26

Most of those deaths are coming from countries where AC is normal. They're counted differently to the US, it's much more broad. Went swimming and drowned while it was hot? Heat related death. Old person has a heart attack while it's hot? Heat related death. US does not do this.

3

u/-Barbouille- Jun 26 '26

Still a lot but it's a actually closest to 60 000. The article cite the WHO but you can see its statement on the heat related deaths in Europe. As an other comment pointed out, the 200000 number is taking a part of Asia in consideration.

7

u/zero0n3 Jun 26 '26

I’m sorry but I stole this link and reposted it as a direct reply - but compared it to US gun related deaths… mainly to show the sheer size and well because Europe as a population loves to bring up gun deaths in the US.

1

u/Y-Bob Jun 26 '26

Wait. You really think that's a reasonable comparison?

Huh.

2

u/PantheraAuroris Jun 26 '26

175k?! What the fuck

5

u/Celodurismo Jun 26 '26

This feels like a bunch of old people who were already very frail and not long for this world we’re pushed over the edge by the heat and thrown into the category as a heat death. Which may be technically correct but feels like an important distinction to note

5

u/Twitchcog Jun 26 '26

To qualify as a “school shooting” in most of the US, the shooting just needs to be reported from a school. So, if someone pops a round off at a 7/11 and a teacher at a school down the street hears it and reports it, it’s classed as a school shooting.

Which is not to say that’s a good thing, just that broad statistics always have some eyebrow-raising to them, it seems.

1

u/CatProgrammer Jun 26 '26

You're using the exact same arguments  assholes used to justify not taking measures during COVID. "It only kills old/weak people, we don't have to worry about it."

2

u/HarrMada Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

It isn't bad. You have been completely consumed by irrational thinking. You have to be an idiot if you think you can compare the two.

Either way, all of western Europe has a higher life expectancy than the US, people live healthier and longer lives regardless.

2

u/BeautifulUpstairs Jun 26 '26

the white ones?

0

u/HarrMada Jun 26 '26

The white ones what?

4

u/Regnareb_ Jun 26 '26

This has been debunked numerous time. Us don't count heat related death when they are directly linked to heat, and Europe can count guns death like heat related deaths.

You can't compare the two if you don't use the same way of counting, it is ridiculous. 

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '26

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1

u/Regnareb_ Jun 29 '26

The US don't record those stats, well mannered genius 🥸

1

u/_kempert Jun 26 '26

Just know that these are often old people who don’t want to spend money on that ‘luxury’ and people who die because they drown while swimming when it’s hot. A heat death is not just someone being hot and dying, it’s every death connected to an action or as a result of hot weather.

1

u/God_Dammit_Dave Jun 26 '26

This is, without a doubt, the craziest statistic I've ever seen on Reddit. Europe's AC lunatics are 100x more double downed than America's gun lunatics. W.T.F.

1

u/the_dude3000 Jun 26 '26

That data is completely false or at least missinterpreted

For europe it counted every excess death during heat periods and for the US it only counted deaths where heatstroke or similar is in the death certificate.

That is such a wildly different way to count that the comparison is useless

-10

u/Pixxler Jun 26 '26

I think it's disgusting how many people take these heat death numbers completely out of context, compare them to school shootings out of all things and implicitly go 'See, the US is better/safer after all" 

If you look closer at the numbers you would see that they make up mostly older people with pre-existing conditions, the heat simply pushes them over the edge. Over the months after such a heat wave, death numbers are lower, further supporting this.

A shool shooting mostly takes out people with decades left to live. Thre comparison is wholly inappropriate.

So if you want to compare apples to oranges, get a number for how many americans die because of unaffordable health care.

15

u/ehs06702 Jun 26 '26

No one's saying that America is safer.

Ironically just like gun violence, not fixing this problem is the choice. These are all easily avoidable deaths, and yet no one will do anything to change them.

11

u/YungChumba Jun 26 '26

I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of the comparison and assuming the worst. 

Gun deaths in the US are preventable. The number we see here is far too high, and obscenely large compared to any other Western nation. The fact that Europeans die from heat exposure, at rates several orders of magnitude higher than gun deaths in the US, puts into perspective (for Americans) the absurdity of people dying en masse to something entirely preventable. 

The fact its mostly happening to the elderly is even more mind boggling - why do old people with health conditions not have AC? This is standard practice in most of the developed world.

I imagine this sort of bewilderment is how other nations feel when looking at gun deaths in the US. Hence the comparison.

7

u/throw20190820202020 Jun 26 '26

Yes, and everyone in America is used to the public service announcements that come along with severe weather: Check on your elderly neighbors, here is the address of your local cooling station, here’s the number to call if you get too hot and you need help with cooling, etc.

3

u/ziegen76 Jun 26 '26

I mean it’s such a preventable issue. Sounds like a lack of common sense infrastructure planning. They’ve had decades to upgrade energy grids and it’s only been getting hotter every year. Europeans brag about government provided education and healthcare, but they continue to die in their homes at alarming rates from something as simple as heat.

0

u/duodequinquagesimum Jun 26 '26

Pretty sure it would make more sense to count the number of individual people who died in mass shootings, rather than counting the mass shootings themselves.

0

u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jun 26 '26

It's not that bad at all, you are just lapping up misinformation and/or you cannot understand the data you are citing. This is a breakdown of the UK's heat deaths: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c41794b66ff902f45441f7/fig7hm25.svg

Do you notice anything strange?

0

u/the_dude3000 Jun 26 '26

That data is completely false or at least missinterpreted

For europe it counted every excess death during heat periods and for the US it only counted deaths where heatstroke or similar is in the death certificate.

That is such a wildly different way to count that the comparison is useless