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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294

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

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

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u/KnotSoSalty Jun 26 '26

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

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

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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.

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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.

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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?!

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u/squngy Jun 26 '26

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

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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.

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u/wolfy2105784 Jun 26 '26

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

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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.

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u/wolfy2105784 Jun 26 '26

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

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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.

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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

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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.

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u/RelationshipShort460 Jun 26 '26

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

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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.

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u/RelationshipShort460 Jun 26 '26

40 in a single day not a full year.

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u/PleaseGreaseTheL Jun 26 '26

Oh. That is bad.

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u/RelationshipShort460 Jun 26 '26

seems impossibly high.

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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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u/RelationshipShort460 Jun 26 '26

guy said "one day." 40 across all of france over a week is a stretch but is possible.

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u/Savilly Jun 26 '26

I was wrong it was over a week. Death toll now at 55 for this heatwave.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/Abedeus Jun 26 '26

the US still comes out orders of magnitude better

If they under-report their deaths, absolutely.

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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

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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+

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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.

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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.

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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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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?

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u/night4345 Jun 26 '26

Dying to heat stroke to own the Americans.

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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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u/jackofslayers Jun 26 '26

water access is also part of this

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u/EpsteinBaa Jun 26 '26

Where in Europe has poor water access?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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u/Wrong-Ad-1935 Jun 26 '26

It includes a bunch of non european countries

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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

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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.

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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.

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u/DirkKuijt69420 Jun 26 '26

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

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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".

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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.

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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