Yep, and Americans answering with “we’re ok because we have AC” is a Don’t Look Up moment
It’s definitely not ok, but when treating the root cause will take decades if not centuries (which we absolutely should still do), perhaps it makes sense to look into treating the symptoms as well
I sure hope their electricity grid can handle it when everyone turns on the AC and data centers also start pulling extra because it’s so hot.
At least in my country (Netherlands) the neoliberals have decided every single fucking thing needs to turn a consistent profit and the company who handles the grid is only allowed to upgrade when there is “utility and necessity” which in essence means any time they want to upgrade in anticipation of future demand everyone involved drags their feet.
The result of that policy is that now there is a ridiculous waiting list for commercial grid connections and there are plans to also restrict new high capacity residential connections. For a country that has been run by businessmen for the past 20 years we sure seem to have an awful lack of long-term vision.
Don’t even get me started on the attitude that people here have towards A/C. We don’t live in a country that’s only hot for 1 week a year anymore but lots of ppl just won’t accept that. I guess it’s climate coping/denial combined with wanting to feel superior to Americans.
We will be cooked (literally)
The only ones saying that are the ones thinking beach weather in the Chicago winter will somehow be a good thing.
They’re idiots.
If I didn’t have AC, my very old asbestos ridden apartment would be over 110° farenheit. That’s 43° Celsius. I guess Europeans don’t give a shit about the giant corporations though. They just expect us and our pets to die.
Uhm, ok. No one is saying that AC is useless. Just that it’s not a solution to our planet boiling.
I guess Europeans don’t give a shit about the giant corporations though. They just expect us and our pets to die.
Bro what
I agree it’s not a solution but a shitty band aid. Still, fighting with each other just let’s the nazi billionaires rob everyone on earth blind and they are causing so much more warming than regular citizens
No idea why that’s such a hot take by them. So many people have AC here. Houses, establishments, public areas, and increasing for obvious reasons.
AC here are nearly always split units though. Our windows don’t slide up, so harder to install that type of AC unit that sits on the sill.
The reason that “it’s ok we have AC” is a dumbass small brain take is that the “it” that is allegedly ok in this scenario is global warming. AC won’t save most of the planet from the consequences of our choices and actions.
Still though.
In europe we average out somwhere between 3 to 4000kwh per year for a household, where in the US it’s 10k upwards, which looks like a dramatic difference.
But we haven’t really looped in the fact that in Europe we mainly rely on natural gas solutions for climate control/heating, hot water and cooking.
Ofcouse they also use gas in the US, and invariably the fact that we don’t really cool our houses in the summer still works out to a lower usage overall i’m sure, but as we also shift to heat pumps I’m sure this’ll change.
Most people don’t cool their house because they can’t, not because of some principle against it. When people start replacing their gas heaters with heatpumps they can, and i’m sure they will.
We also can’t ignore we don’t really have those Arizona climates here. Americans that complain about any lack of AC also forget that.
If I didn’t have AC, my very old asbestos ridden apartment would be over 110° farenheit. That’s 43° Celsius. I guess Europeans don’t give a shit about the giant corporations though. They just expect us and our pets to die.
Yeah blame all Americans and not the giant fucking corporations accelerating this shit ten million times more than the regular American
That is not at all what they’re implying with this
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You say that as though corporations are fucking everything up for their own amusement, rather than in the service of making sure the “regular American” gets their luxuries for cheap.
Which luxuries? I agree that America is one of the biggest baddies when it comes to overconsumption, but fighting with each other just let’s the nazi billionaires rob us all blind
Who is fighting each other? No one’s saying that climate change is the fault of American citizens using AC. Just that “Oh it’s 45°C outside, guess I’ll pump up the conditioning and stop thinking about it” is not the way forward
Don’t forget that’s also what richer asian countries think(China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia)
Don’t worry, we’re in the middle of a massive culture war at the moment, so there’s absolutely no chance we can take steps to stop it unless we find a way to bury MAGA for good
Release the Epstein files. The Nazi billionaires are doing a perfect job getting everyone to fight one another instead of them while they rob us all blind
Let me put it this way:
My grandparents built a brick house in the early 1950’s in northern Germany. My parents built on that foundation and doubled the size in the late 1980’s. Air conditioning was not a thing back then. You just didn’t need it at all.
For decades this house has kept a relatively cool 24-25°C (~75°F) during peak summer months. Just due to the way it was built.
That hasn’t been true for the past ~10 years anymore.
And it’s the same with almost all German infrastructure. Our traditional ways of building things are not fit for the frequent high heatwaves we’ve been experiencing this last decade. Even hospitals are generally not AC’d except for maybe ER and operating rooms. It’s fucking miserable
I won’t say we’re not fucked, bedause we are, royally even so. But there is a little caveat, at least for non-european parts of the world: Europe currently warms faster than any other area. We’re getting our Karma.
Don’t worry, ocean currents will change in a bit and northwest europe will freeze
Heat pump heating/cooling is the way forward. Then it can keep you going when the freeze comes.
In the south 40 was the norm for a very long time. Max recorded temperature is ~48. Now they are talking about surpassing 50 for the first time. Max temps are similar as always but heatwaves are more frequent and longer.
It’s fucked, and we were warned decades ago and did nothing but drill, baby, drill.
A lot of people will die. Which I’m pretty sure they’re fine with, less people= less expenses for social welfare programs, lower property values, and so on
“They” being the people in charge of our world-wide MegaForce economy, think JP Morgan and those who “serve” terms at The FED. (in actuality, they take turns reaming us, inflation is how central banks raise taxes without congressional approval).
The Epstein class has talked about raising the kill line for awhile. Warren Buffett stated back in 2013 that the rich were starting a war on the poor, the poor just weren’t told anything about it
Kinda crazy to catch up the Fed in this.
Yeah, some colleagues from India expressed their concern last week, because they heard how hot it was here.
Felt really weird to have that be actual concern and not just them mocking us, because they’re used to + equipped for worse temperatures.
They got hit by heatwave a lot last time, also 40+°c. At that time people doesn’t care because it’s just India.
the
planet ishumans are really fucked
For want of a more succinct meme - I swear there was one that just said “Silly humans…” | “I’ll be fine.”
I firmly believe humanity can turn earth into another venus. Some proportion of us would do it just out of spite.
This really misses the point. Humans are taking the majority of other species with us. It doesn’t matter that we are not destroying the entire planet forever, of course life will go on, but triillions of animals and plants are going to suffer and die entirely because of our actions.
Eh, from the perspective of Nature that’s kinda just how it goes. Honestly it’s pretty noble that we bother thinking about it at all. Mosquitoes don’t feel conflicted about spreading malaria, and they’ve probably killed more animals than us. Fungus doesn’t feel conflicted about killing plants. More than trillions of animals and plants have suffered and died entirely because of the actions of the rest of Nature.
Species come and go, but the overall ecosystem recovers. We aren’t the first species to wipe out other species, we won’t be the last. Trying to be better is good, but let’s not pretend Nature is some gentle shepherd.
The great oxygenation event pretty much murdered all life on earth. I don’t think the earth cares.
Humans are also genociding a lot of other species. I don’t want numbats to go extinct.
were in the sixth. mass. extinction …and we’re doing it and most of us don’t give a shit, quite bizzare really
Some extinction events wiped out 99%of species… and life came back.
That’s nice, but I want the numbats to live long happy lives with children who love them.
The earth has been hotter, sweatier, and more CO2 filled than this before. It was animal hell and bacteria heaven though. Incompatible with mammals. Crocodile purgatory 🐊
Biggest bugs you ever saw
Only the living parts.
Nice to see Europeans finally paying attention to what the American left has been saying for 3 decades.
To bad your American left did jack shit and will never address the real issue
Republicans are fascists, Democrats are just fascist lite. Vote for Democratic socialists
lmao you’re saying this as if the european left has been ignoring this. anyone paying attention to climate change knows this is happening, and has known for decades. it’s just that politics are too focussed on the culture war instead of solving real issues, just like the US
The nazi billionaires are doing a great job of getting people to fight each other instead of them, while they rob us all blind
Listen to or read the first chapter of The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.
oh, my friend, i’m sad to say that this planet has been as fucked as a toddler at a republican invite-only soiree for a long time already u.u
Our fate was sealed since the 1960s.
The timeline branch where we avoided this was the one where Nixon was executed for treason. We are, unfortunately, obviously in one of the variations of the world where that did not happen.
(edit: i know he was only sworn in by 1969 and resigned in 1974 but the prerequisites for dragging his sick bastard carcass to justice were supposed to have been laid out in JFK’s second term. … Which also didn’t happen in the timeline where we have had the misfortune to find ourselves)
We get that here in Texas but we have air conditioning. It can get super dangerous super fast.
Oh hey Texas, how’s your power grid?
I hear that the US as a whole is going to be experiencing rolling blackouts and about 60million people will be effected. I doubt Texas will fair well during that time.
The power grid operators have been warning they can’t keep up with the demand data centers and rising temperatures are creating. But when have we ever listened to experts so of course we haven’t done anything to help the situation.
texas will suffer far worst, since thier outdated grid isnt connected to the rest of the country.
Never forget that the fact it’s separate is INTENTIONAL and the fault of TEXAS
That’s not true! We told people to not go easy on the air conditioning!
*fare
*affected
Ditto Queensland. 40+ isn’t pleasant but there are well established ways to handle it here.
A home designed to insulate against Northern European winters turns into a death trap in sustained high temps like this.
That’s not how insulation works
Yes because modern Scandinavian homes have huge uncovered well insulated windows to allow the sun in as a free radiator during winter. I calculated my living room window to be somewhere between 3000W-5000W worth of radiation. Due to the high insulation this doesn’t dissipate during the night in a heatwave, so it doesn’t matter if the outside temp is 18°
Why? Because housing regulations dictated it. No one expected 2018 levels of heatwaves to be the new norm (except all the experts).
My old apartment reached temps of 35° measured at midnight for weeks in the 2018 heatwave despite the outdoor temp not rising much above 30°. Morning temps where around 28° with all windows open. If the morning baseline was lower the night temps might have been possible to sleep in but the insulation kept temps high throughout.
modern Scandinavian homes have huge uncovered well insulated windows to allow the sun in as a free radiator during winter
Which of course is why you pull down the blinds to limit heating of surfaces inside during the day and let the insulation keep heat out.
Due to the high insulation this doesn’t dissipate during the night in a heatwave, so it doesn’t matter if the outside temp is 18°
Which is why you of course open windows during the night to cool things off when temps are lower.
it’s not perfect, and helps less with high nighttime temps, but it makes the proper insulated home work with you and not against you as much as possible.
You need the blinds on the outside of the window, otherwise this helps minimally, especially if the whole southwest facing wall is glass, which turns the apartment into a greenhouse.
During the heatwave, night was the only time I could cool the room with portable AC, provided all windows were closed to not let heat in.
We have a massive south facing side filled with windows (and two double glass doors), covers about 80% of the living area, all blinds mounted inside. We still had 9°C lower temps inside compared to outside during the worst hours of the heat wave. Yes 28°C is still hot, but much better than the 37°C we had outside.
I’m Dutch and in a similar situation. There’s these stick-on sun screens with suction cups: https://huizedop.nl/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/novalux-zonwering-met-zuignappen.jpg
Works wonders, can be made to size, they’re relatively cheap. Hope it’ll help.
I live in a rental on 4th floor, unfortunately I can’t add anything to the outside of the windows… And putting anything on the inside risks trapping the heat in the glass and cracking it.
As long as there is no space for air to get trapped between the glass and a reflector, it’s no issue to put it on the inside (although its more effective when on the outside) - those foils that can be put on the window using a little bit of water do a good job. Biggest problem are dark objects when only away a few centimeters from the glass - those will crack the window in no time.
At least where i live, non-permanent modifications that use things like suction cups don’t need approval from a landlord.
It’s fine to put aluminium foil on the inside. Sunlight is reflected out without heating up the glass. That’s what worked for me anyway.
Great stuff.
Open all fucking windows during the night and close them and barrier them from the outside during the day.
Works perfectly when it’s still 35°c in the middle of the night 👍🏻
If its still 35 during the night then it will rise to that temperature inside regardless of insulation. Maybe more quickly without it. The point was insulation. If the min night temperature is 35, then you have air conditioner or you die.
This is what I do, living likewise in a well insulated northern house that sees sustained high temps.
I’d gladly take my well insulated home during any heat wave over a poorly insulated one. Anyone who thinks less insulation is the solution is misunderstanding the problem.
It’s fine to be frustrated by high temps. It sucks. But insulation is a friend in your fight against high temps, not a foe. Use insulation to resist heat rise during the day and use heavy ventilation at night to exhaust and exchange for cooler air. The alternative is to have low insulation and accept indoor temps being constantly pinned to outdoor ambient which is a recipe for discomfort.
Maybe read the last part. My current apartment is much better than my old one since I can actually create a wind tunnel, but even then it doesn’t lower it below 25°
And any apartment I’ve had didn’t allow for adding anything to the outside unfortunately. The apartments just weren’t designed for summer comfort.
I see your point. I do not see how you cannot cover the outside of thr window yet. I live on the 4th floor of an absolutrly insulated building in a much hotter region than Scandinavia. Covering window and letting air go during cooler nights keep temperature at approx -6 compared to outside temp. If outside temp doesnt go below say 26 during the night, then its air conditioning either way, regardless of insulating (but with insulation it remains cooler for longer).
It kind of is. Architecture is actually really hard.
except you don’t actually “get it” as you keep voting against anyoe that hints at a solution
Either I’m misunderstanding their comment or you are. To me, “it” meant the temperature (40°C), which they very much do get. This is why they mentioned A/C, right?
I think you’re right.
My reading of their comment (the parent comment, not the one you replied to) was that they were commiserating about the awful heat and being thankful for the fact that they have AC while also highlighting that the heat can quickly turn deadly if you’re not prepared for it.
The person you replied to on the other hand: I’m interpreting their comment as treating all of Texas (if not the US) as a singular political body (basically: who wins the election got 100% of the vote) and is blaming the commenter for the outcomes of those elections and the current heat waves. They also seem to be taking the parent commenter’s comment as an angle for attacking them as if they would attack somebody directly responsible for what’s going on.
This is unfortunately quite common online with people. Also IRL but people are less inclined IMO to be so rash and confrontational IRL than online as online you can “fire from the hip” with comments without any fears of repercussions really.
I think both are right, they do get what those temperatures are like and is why they mentioned AC. However what they don’t understand is that if its that bad for Europe imagine how much worse it will be for places like Texas.
Vote blue no matter who! That will fix it!
Like that time we elected the president who literally made a movie about how climate change is a big deal!
You ate currently killing someone. Right bow, at this moment, as you read this.
Is it yourself, or the class invested in the petroleum industry?
You’re doing one of the right now. Which is it?
Damn, heatstroke is no joke, it even shown in typed word.
cecinestopasunecommunication
Yeah, because you don’t know the language
