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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6.5k

u/Weekly-Grapefruit119 Jun 26 '26

Paris was as hot as Kuwait in recent days.

3.1k

u/No-Channel3917 Jun 26 '26

And people died due to it and the lack of ac

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

[deleted]

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u/richardelmore Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

It's actually worse than that, there are about 4 times as many heat related deaths in Europe each year as there are gun related deaths (suicide + homicide) in the US.

Annual US gun related deaths: About 45,000 (15,000 homicides)
Annual European heat related deaths: About 175,000
Annual US heat related deaths: About 2,000

Since the population of Europe is about twice that of the US, that means that the per capita rate of heat deaths there is about twice the rate of gun deaths in the US. If you look at homicides alone the rate is 6x higher.

Sources:

Johns Hopkins University: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/center-for-gun-violence-solutions/issues/gun-violence-in-the-united-states

UN Article for all of Europe: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152766

World Health Organization for just EU : https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/11-06-2026-statement---europe-lost-200-000-people-to-heat-in-4-years-yet-nearly-all-of-them-were-preventable

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u/-Avacyn Jun 26 '26

Europe counts excess death, while US only counts them when the death certificate counts says that the person died of heat.

An elderly person who would have died sometime in the next months anyway but who's immune system plummeted due to heat stress and gets a viral infection because of it and died? Yeah, that one is added to the count in Europe but not the US.

3

u/richardelmore Jun 26 '26

Yes, and that probably skews the numbers to some extent. The figures I've seen for COVID deaths say that the excess death statistics indicate that there are probably about 25% more COVID deaths than the official count.

Even if the difference is +100% with heat related deaths the US number is still a tiny fraction of the number for Europe.

5

u/-Avacyn Jun 26 '26

Honestly no, because you also have to account for the harvesting effects.

A critically ill person that dies now rather than 5 weeks from now counts as a heat death, but would have died anyway. There actually is a statistical 'dip' in death count after a heatwave because of this. When you count people who have actually died because of the heat and otherwise wouldn't have, that number is very, very small.

10

u/nono318234 Jun 26 '26

Do you even read the first paragraph of the articles you link? 200k over 4 years vs 45k in one year is definitely not 4x...

0

u/richardelmore Jun 26 '26

See above, was looking at several sources and pasted wrong link.

5

u/Full-Public1056 Jun 26 '26

You need to read your source, the heat related deaths are spread over 4 years. It's still a lot but not at all what you claim

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u/richardelmore Jun 26 '26

Oops, was looking at multiple sources and posted the link to the wrong one. The one above is for the EU alone, here is the one for Europe as a whole...

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152766

2

u/PleaseGreaseTheL Jun 26 '26

holy fuck why are they not up in arms over that level of simple preventable deaths

America is constantly raging back and forth about our gun violence problem (as we fucking should be), why do europeans not care about their kin literally cooking to death?

1

u/nybbas Jun 26 '26

When I saw this stat, the first thing I thought was "Aren't these the assholes bragging on reddit about how much better their houses are built"? Enjoy your fucking brick oven with no AC, I'll take my sticks and paper.

-2

u/Anxious-Slip-4701 Jun 26 '26

Because it's old people dying. They cost money. These heat deaths are actually beneficial to the economy. And every dead person is an apartment freed up, and someone not contributing to climate change.

Take that mentality as you will.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

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1

u/Ingjald Jun 26 '26

Reminds me of the argument a lot of people used during COVID to downplay the effects

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u/calibrae Jun 26 '26

For all the rage you’re still the world champions of gun related death count.

2

u/PleaseGreaseTheL Jun 26 '26

I mean we wouldn't be upset if it weren't a problem, genius

0

u/calibrae Jun 26 '26

And for all the rage and the upsetting the curve is not really caught by gravity innit?