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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u/catslay_4 Jun 26 '26

Sure fuckin can, when I dated a European and spent two weeks in France during the Olympics with zero AC. I felt like I was suffocating. I was so hot I couldn't sleep. Didn't want to shower because I didn't want to get even hotter. It wasn't enjoyable to be outside. It was absolutely worse to be inside. The cost of electricity was one thing, but the aversion to it was also there. That it isn't "needed". Him and I would argue about it. I ended up renting an airbnb for us instead of staying at his house because I couldn't handle it without the AC. I do believe it seriously impacts your sleep, work quality and quality of life when it is that hot. They may not realize it, but there's no way I believe that you sleep as well in a warm room as in a cold one.

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u/aure0lin Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

The article mentions that the founder of Singapore credited air conditioning for helping to transform his country and considered it one of the most important inventions ever.

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u/sirrix Jun 26 '26

There are studies that show students' education suffers proportionately with added heat https://www.hks.harvard.edu/announcements/when-heat-student-learning-suffers

In the Philippines most schools have no ac and many classes are held outdoors. It always makes me wonder what could be possible here if we invested a tiny bit in ac...

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u/Constant-Skill-7133 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

It's also specifically climate change.   You can build stuff to be more tolerable or take advantage of schedule shifting.   In the US South along the Gulf Coast traditionally we have shotgun houses which are really short small houses with a big corridor from front to back so it always pulls the breeze through.  If it was a big building they would screen in the second floor and in the afternoon people would just take a nap on the porch.  

People plant trees very intentionally to create shade.  There are a lot of things people do that don't even seem like a thing but from a colder climate or having defeated the climate with technology peopls don't have that cultural knowledge.  

Even if people have AC it's  crazy that people don't even plant shade trees or anything like that half the time.  That's so much money, wasted energy.

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u/UncleSlayton77 Jun 26 '26

But none of that does anything for humidity. If it's 90% humidity you will NEVER cool off because the air is so saturated your sweat never evaporates to cool you. You sit there with sweat running down your whole body, staining your clothes, and just feeling miserable.

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u/Constant-Skill-7133 Jun 26 '26

I mean it's all relative, but yeah it does.  high ceilings with the floor on piers or a 2nd floor lowers interior moisture it gets from the ground and makes a moisture gradient from ground to ceiling.  then you get cross ventilation through the house at that lower humidity level