I mostly agree with the gist of the article, with a couple of caveats.
- The comparison between deaths due to heat and due to guns is very tricky. Guns affect mostly the young or very young, heat deaths affect mostly the (very) old. Not that this doesn't matter, but it's a big difference in terms of how much life years you're effectively robbed off.
- This is also one of the general issues I have with this particular heat death statistic. Most of these deaths are people of very high age. Again, obviously I want them to live longer too. But the chances that they'd die of a cardiovascular cause is very high - and if it happens during a heat phase, it's suddenly classified as a heat death, even though it's rather unlikely they'd have lived many years or decades longer with AC. It's a bit of a correlation or causation problem, statistically speaking.
- This is especially true since - despite the nominally massive gap in heat deaths - average European.lofe expectancy is way higher than that of the US, and that at almost every percentile of age or income class.
Having said all that though, I agree that it's silly and completely unnecessary to resist installing AC. It definitely improves the living conditions of many people who suffer under intense heat and we know it improves productivity and health outcomes. So in this sense it's a no-brainer.
I also agree that this is really mostly a cultural thing. Some Europeans simply don't like AC very much. Others fear (even if only unconsciously) that it might disrupt traditional and cherished architecture and ways of living (from long summer holidays to picturesque towns). Plus, the bureaucracy doesn't help. I don't think any of that needs to be the case and I think AC will become more common pretty quickly.
One final point, though: I very much disagree with Tyler Cowen and his claims.
People in Europe live well and according to their preferences. I don't have a dryer or AC because I don't and want need either - but I could easily afford both and very much support anyone who wants to have one!
I can bike to work, have a beautiful old-style building next to a park, great public transport and a car, loads of free or super affordable cultural and leisure options all around, great food, beautiful parks, buildings, and everything close nearby.
This is for *me* a way better standard of living than I personally could ever have in most of the US, Singapore, or even Japan. But that's me and down to my personal preferences. And I completely know and understand that Americans or Singaporeans or Japanese have other preferences and that's cool too.
But that's why I think Tyler Cowen’s article is wide off the mark. He wants to live an American life in Europe and it doesn't work for him. Just as I could hardly live a European life in the US (except, maybe, New York) and that wouldn't work for me either. That doesn't mean Americans live more shabby than me or vice versa.
There's nothing you say you like doing you cannot do in America. In DC I bike to work, live in a brick 100y+ building, have transit readily available, also a car if needed, world class food and leisure and parks etc etc. We also have air conditioning when it hits triple digits with humidity. I also have a washer/dryer in home.
This idea that these things are "European" in any sense is absurd. You're literally proving the point of the article about the whole philosophy being bourgeois nonsense backed by a misplaced sense of being unique via NOT having basic amenities. It's truly head scratching from across the pond. Get a dryer man. Maybe a garbage disposal while you're at it. Saves a lot of useless time.
Given enough money, one can have a mostly european lifestyle in the us, just like given enough money one can have a mostly us lifestyle in europe. At the end of the day, flying New York to Paris, Rome or whatever takes one afternoon and a few hundred dollars/euros, so to some extent you can even combine the two. It is still interesting to compare and contrast the median lifestyles which are, on average, quite different.
And of course, "life in the US" is a weird construct to begin with. In NYC I can go tk the met opera pretty much any day of the week. In small town New Mexico I have to plan a trip to Santa Fe and an overnight stay months ahead to accolplish the same, all to see an objectively worse performance.
P.S.: Also, there are many (many!) things you can get at a restaurant it Europe that are hard to impossible to find in the US (even NYC, even if you are willing to spend a lot). Coratella, Iberico ham, florentine steak, razor clams, black sea turdot (a long list of other seafood), various forms of tripe dishes, even "normal" things like good oxtail stew, non-soggy carbonara made properly al dente. The reasons for this are obvious and boring: there is not enough demand for it in the us. They are same reasons why sushi, italian, and vietnamese food in germany mostly blah. But food availability (driven by prefernces) is mostly local, and asserting otherwise is silly. (Also, this variation is a good thing!)
This started well, but again man the idea you can't find carbonara or oxtail stew in the US is absurd. I can find both within two blocks of my house. I truly don't know why people feel compelled to make this stuff up.
Oxtail stew is extremely common here due to the Caribbean influence. I grew up in Seattle which has razor clams by the trillion and a dozen other mollusks not available to Europe. European oysters are trash compared to what we produce on both coasts. This idea there's a bevy of options of any kind available to Europe we don't have in spades is, again, pure cope.
Glad to hear that there are places to get some of these things in the us and I will keep it in mind if and when I find myself there. The places I lived (Iowa city, a small town in NM, Chicago, NYC, SLC, Pasadena, upstate NY) didn't have those specific things, hence I gave them as an example. You kind of prove my point though: food is local. The seafood you get on the coasts is ocean rather than sea stuff, so it is different. (Better and more variety, though? Not convinced, but also not looking for an argument). And having a large imigrant community leads to particular food is an example of the demand being there. (I think tge sauce in the stew you are thinking of is quite different. Might be good though.)
Cheers
P.S.: My objection to carbonara and oxfail stew is preparation, not availability. And the reason is that most of the people there like it that way. Of course you can just cook these yourself, so it isn't a big deal.
Chicago has some good restaurants: ethiopian, the vietnamese places uptown, modern mexican which has been getting more expensive, a kind of/sort of ok greektown, good steakhouses.
I've lived there for six years and have done plenty of looking.
Point me to a restaurant in chicago that serves coratella, please.
I agree there are many lovely local things about every place in the world. We can agree on that.
The two-step in this discussion I don't appreciate as much is the idea that AC is just as much of a normal preference as food choice. It's killing tens of thousands of people per year, and the response is (a) well they're old so we don't care and (b) we like it the way it is. It would be more convincing if the greatest modern contribution to global politics by todays European gentry was something other than moral grandstanding.
Imagine the European protests if Bangladesh banned AC and tens of thousands started dying. Its a strange dichotomy to witness.
This is also a two-step though, as pointed out elsewhere in these comments. The places where many elderly people are dying because of the heat are in southern europe while the genuine anti-ac sentiment is further north, where people can afford to feel that way, so to speak. You can find some anecdotes in these comments attesting to this. I can give you more. One half of my extended family lives in athens. Some are well off, others not so much, but they all have ac. They grumble about the electricity bill, but would never consider not using it.
@Quinn: You live in a weird world where European gentry is banning AC. But that's not the case. Almost everyone can install it if they want to and lots of people in Europe do, all the time.
You're also wilfully misconstruing my argument. The lives of old people count just as much. It's just statistically much harder to actually say whether the leading cause of death is heat in many cases - and throwing out one number and then claiming that's it is simply statistically unsound.
And that is especially so since Europeans, despite this apparently massive AC issue which supposedly is directly causing so many deaths, still have higher life expectancy than Americans (by a significant margin).
Any serious debater should at this point at least consider if we might have some data pollution and causation / correlation issues here. That's just good debating practice.
And yes, of course comparing and contrasting median lifestyle is still interesting and we can learn loads of things from it.
But doing it a bit like Tyler Cowen and going to Europe, seeing no dryers and AC and then claiming living in Europe is “shabby” is a bit like an Amsterdamer going to Dallas, seeing no canals, bike lanes, trains and Indonesian food right around the corner and saying Dallas is shabby. It's just a silly comparison.
There's way more to both lifestyles. Comparing and contrasting it is good. Picking out a few peculiar things that one - for whatever reason - can't live without and then claiming the others live shabby is, well, just not very insightful.
@Quinn: No, you are missing the point. There's nothing that's claimed in your post or that of Noah that you can't have in Europe too, easily and affordably.
You can buy a house or apartment with a dryer and AC, a pickup and a sauna or whatever else you like. It's down to preferences that people don't have them yet.
Just as having public transport or bike lanes or parks or pools right around the corner - and the density of them, ease of access, pricing points - is things that you can indeed have in the US and in Europe, in different places and in different density.
So just as AC and dryers are not American, parks and bike lanes and culture are not European. But the respective density and ease of access and preferences differ massively.
And that's totally okay. It just gets silly if you claim that one thing that you yourself believe everyone should have - say, AC and a dryer - is the bare minimum while not seeing that somebody else may perhaps have other preferences - say, public transport, bike lanes, parks, free healthcare, whatever.
I'm not telling Americans they must turn all their cities into bike utopias. It's their choice. And I'd also rather have them not tell me I must have a drier when I simply don't like or need one. It's a free country and I can decide what my preferences are.
But so can others and I'd never tell them - be they European or American - that *they* should or shouldn't get a drier or AC if they want them.
I mean I get it but if tens of thousands of people were dying for literally any other reason there would be marches across Europe calling people genocidal for not fixing it. The inability to look inward is…odd. If it were simply about the choice to be a bit cooler then sure go nuts. But it's worse than any health or violence epidemic in America and this whole notion is met with a shrug and “well they're old so we don't care if they die” it's truly strange coming from a European gentry whos greatest modern contribution to global politics is moral grandstanding.
@Quinn: Again, you misunderstand the point. It's not that I or anyone doesn't care about these people.
It's about the fact that it's very hard to statistically tell if the heat is actually causal for their death - and once you dig a little bit deeper, you soon find out that there's a high chance of correlation, not necessarily causation.
And that's quite a lot different from gun deaths, where the causation is very clear. This is simply a factual point. We can all throw out numbers and claims, but a real debate must also contest with questioning assumptions. And a whole lot of assumptions went into this particular number and comparison, many of which simply don't hold up to scrutiny.
There's also no grandstanding whatsoever. Everyone should get AC if they want to and in fact it's being installed in most new buildings in Europe, old ones are being retrofitted, most shops already have it and public buildings increasingly too. That's a good thing.
It's just strange to throw out numbers and claims, then jump to increasingly wild guesses as to the why and how, and then just draw a very generalized conclusion.
That's what Europeans sometimes (not always) also do vis-à-vis America. It never makes much sense. Nor does it the other way around.
You simply do not believe that heat is the issue????? So why, then, are tens of thousands of European elderly dying at the height of summer? Every year? You think this is just a lie?
I thought a key point of the healthy, local, and family friendly European lifestyle being touted here would include not wontonly dismissing the preventable deaths of your elderly. I think the reason Americans find it so odd is precisely this disconnect of purported family/community-oriented values you preach.
DCs metro has 500k train journeys a day. London has 6million. These are not equivalent systems! Americans food is awful and you just don't even know it because it is all you have ever known.
Yes…and London has 13x the population of DC. I’m not a mathematician but, I think, if you multiply 500k by 13 it’s…hang on…stick with me here…over 6 million.
> But the chances that they'd die of a cardiovascular cause is very high - and if it happens during a heat phase, it's suddenly classified as a heat death, even though it's rather unlikely they'd have lived many years or decades longer with AC.
On the other hand, Japan, with a very old population, has 1-10kish heat deaths each year.
Even the high end estimate based on statistical models rather than a count of actual deaths actually attributed to heat stroke, would be about a quarter to a third deaths per capita vs Europe.
That would be inline with the 75% decrease in heat deaths in the US following widespread adoption of air conditioning.
@Sassy: True story. But the thing is, I looked a little but into the European numbers and they are also not as solid as one might want.
There clearly are strong indications for excessive fatality rates in European countries during intense heat waves. But how large and why exactly is much harder to figure out.
Country to country comparisons are harder still because you have a whole range of confounding factors and different methods.
So the thing is, I actually do agree that it is a pretty substantial problem and that Europe definitely should roll out AC faster. But with my sober statistics head on, I also see that the data base is not very solid right now.
The tendency is clear. The actual magnitude not so much.
Europeans are always lecturing Americans they need to adopt Euro style health care or gun laws. Telling Europeans that they need to adopt American practices is the only way we will ever get them to quit with the pomposity.
No need for lecturing or pomposity. We can learn from each, that's it. Ultimately, each country or place, needs to decide how they want to organize society.
“This is also one of the general issues I have with this particular heat death statistic. Most of these deaths are people of very high age. Again, obviously I want them to live longer too. But the chances that they'd die of a cardiovascular cause is very high - and if it happens during a heat phase, it's suddenly classified as a heat death, even though it's rather unlikely they'd have lived many years or decades longer with AC. It's a bit of a correlation or causation problem, statistically speaking.
- This is especially true since - despite the nominally massive gap in heat deaths - average European.lofe expectancy is way higher than that of the US, and that at almost every percentile of age or income class. “
These are the same claims of the “dying with COVID” brigade for people with chronic diseases - the calculation of life years lost was still very high.
You are usually correct, but this post is taking a few cases and extrapolate to Europe, which may be half the US as a surface but far more diverse as culture. I traveled across most of Europe and I still can't remember of accommodation that lacked air conditioning. It's ubiquitous. From Greece to Germany and Portugal to Romania, everywhere there are split, heat pump based AC units. I have one in each room and everyone around me has at least one unit per apartment. I stayed in the center of Rome, historical buildings, and they still had air conditioning every time. So you're simply falling for senzationalist media on this one instead of facts.
Hmm Germany, I’m not so sure. Modern hotels yes, but AC is very rare for residential flats. I’m in Berlin and I’ve never visited a friend’s flat that has AC. Yes in the southern countries it is much more common.
This is right. I Live in Bonn in Germany. Virtually no residential units have ac, not even the rooftop loft apartments that heat up in the summer. Most university buidings do not have ac either, sometimes for historical preservation reasons, but often just because. The approach really is "it only gets hot for a few weeks in the summer, we can stick it out".
Yes, though to be fair, they are way more common in hotels, some public buildings and the like than in private apartments or houses. That's changing too, but still.
But yes, the point is rather that having an AC if you want one really isn't hard in Europe in most places. A lot of people simply don't want one (yet), for historical, cultural, or idiosyncratic reasons.
But that's changing and will continue to change. The rest is mostly chatter.
Broadly agree, but with two caveats: First, the further south in europe you go, the more accepted air conditioning is. Greece, southern italy and southern spain do not have german attitudes to this.
And second, some of the southern european cities really are designed in a way that makes it possible to be outside in 40+ degree weather in a way that the us cities of the desert southwest are not: I was on vacation in Seville a few days ago and it got up to 43C (ca 110F) for a few days in the afternoon. This should be intolerable but (being an american, though currently living abroad) i walked around the center of the city in this weather and it was manageable. It's narrow strees, 3-4 story buildings and old trees, lots of shade, fountains, tarps, water and liberal use of air-conditioning in the stores, cafes, on public transport etc. It is a completely different experience from being out-and-about in the us southwest in 43 degree weather, and also quite different from a place like athens which is a city that for the most part less that 150 years old and grew up---by necessity---in a very haphazard way (Even though the climate is Seville and the desert southwest is basically the same: hot, dry and cools down overnight. athens is similar but a bit less dry).
So, my somewhat tongue-in-cheek question is whether there is a us stigma against adopting middle eastern city planning in places that have middle eastern city climate?
Surely an all-of-the-above approach to dealing with dry, hot weather---including ac, cars with ac, and the energy to support those---makes more sense than what either the us or germany are doing.
P.S.: For context, i went to school in new mexico, currently live in germany, and have family in athens.
P.P.S: After Seville I moved on to Lisbon, and it feels like switching a video game from hard to easy mode.
P.P.P.S.: Singapore is hot and humid rather than hot and dry. It is a somewhat different problem. Humidity is not something thst shade can save you from.
Not one of your strongest blogs. Somewhat light on facts and weighs on opinions.
Some key issues missed: reverse cycle (heat pumps) vs simple ac; energy efficiency of reverse cycle vs traditional boilers; European flats in in older settings - it’s difficult to install and close neighbors do rightly object when someone’s ac points directly at their flat across a narrow street; benefits of an integrated solar - heat pump setup which I’m currently enjoying on a cold winters day in Sydney.
Most of Germany does not have old buildings for ... reasons, and the streets aren't narrow. On the other hand, some of those old buildings on narrow streets in southern europe do have ac's, because they are not insane and care about their well-being.
FWIW I think America, especially the really hot parts, could stand to learn something from Europe about smart building practices. Even if you _do_ install AC, you'll have better comfort if your home is designed to take advantage of many of the passive techniques you mention. RMI has a lot of good whitepapers on various techniques where you invest a little more up front, but then save more than the investment on operating cost, while delivering better environmental control.
As a European I find this a weird story to read, it is both accurate and arrogant.
In daily life in the Netherlands I don’t see AC as a hot topic. Cars, trains, offices and shopping malls tend to have AC while private homes don’t. The number of days that we need AC is limited but admittedly increasing. The general attitude towards AC is not necessarily positive, quite a few people hate it to live with closed windows, they want to drive with open windows, have their office windows open. They want to be in touch with outside air and deeply mistrust any form of mechanical climate control.
I agree with your assessment that it is a “cultural thing”. I think the relationship between culture and technology is interesting to explore. But the focus on just this one subject framed in a simple right/wrong thesis makes your story shallow.
Europe does not have one single culture, every country has its own very distinct culture. You pass a border and enter a different world entirely. Which makes it very visible how different the way is that different countries adapt to new technology. I don’t think there’s one good way to do it, which is what makes Europe such a fascinating continent.
You are probably right that Europe is more restrained in adapting new technology, which sometimes indeed is to our disadvantage. But I have other examples as well where not rushing into futurism has been hugely advantageous (Did you mention “beautiful cities”?).
So yes, I agree with the gist of your story that Europe needs more AC. And I go along with you in the fascinating relationship between culture and technology. But it also invokes this feeling of: “Hey American, shall we have this nice little shouting party, in which we tell each other how ugly and awful we are?”
I live in Berlin. My first summer here was brutal. I was used to extreme air conditioning. But then honestly? I got used to it. Yes of course there are still those few summer days where everybody moans. But it’s rare.
Now when I visit my parents in Ohio, I’m shocked how cold their home is. 66-68 degrees Fahrenheit even in 90+ degree summers. They wear blankets and sweatshirts inside. Sorry, but this is another example of Americans taking something to the extreme.
Berlin has AC in the trains, but it’s just enough to take the edge off. Which I think is fine.
I agree that Europe needs to consider allowing for more AC, but America could also learn from Europe on lessons in moderation.
AC unlocks personal preference that's it. If you don't want it to be 66, which most people don't, it doesn't have to be that's the point. Idk why this is so challenging to grasp. It's just about freedom of choice.
@Quinn It is indeed. The freedom of choice includes when you want - or don't want - to install it in your home. In Europe, that's ever-more the case. In some places and for some people, it's just not their choice yet. Everyone should be able to choose as they please.
I used to live in Vietnam which has, for the most part, adopted air conditioning as quickly as people can afford it. And there isn't anything about "culture" of not using it, since Vietnam has always been hot and humid.
But there is still an absolutely massive culture of insane health takes about it. Changing temperature will make you sick, so you shouldn't at it below 24. Babies will freeze to death if the room is under 25. Etc.
So I'm not sure it is tied to "culture" the way you argue. I think it is just a freestanding insane belief that people scavenge for post-hoc explanations for.
(My absolute favourite Vietnamese insane health take is that taking a shower at night can kill you and everyone has an uncle who has a friend that that happened to.)
"If you don't dry your hair after a shower, the water will seep to your brain" and "If you don't wear a yarmulke, your brain will evaporate" are quite similar, considering they come from two completely different cultures.
As for the green "argument" I'm surprised you didn't mention that air conditioning only accounts for a small fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions compared to heating, 4ish billion tons of CO2 vs just 1 billion for cooling.
And since over a third of homes globally have air conditioning, universal air conditioning would be responsible for less greenhouse gas emissions than current heating.
And to top it all off, if you install air conditioning, you get the most efficient form of heating, 3-5x more efficient than typical systems in Europe, basically for free.
Having "collaborated" with a decent amount of Germans, I can confirm that some indeed think Americans are lazy and stupid and any idea coming from an American is probably worse than worthless. Fun times.
I think there is at least one missing element: it's expensive. Electricity is expensive, installing the AC is expensive especially as competition is low and there are many electricians who just want to make a quick buck.
We have four ACs in our house, and we run them constantly at night or sometimes even during the day because of mosquitoes, but there are many low-to-middle class people who just can't afford it. Salaries haven't kept up with inflation, and most people can't spurge thousands of dollars for something they believe isn't essential.
I don't doubt that climate change culture wars are a big factor especially in a country like the UK, but Italy has only around 50% of households with ACs and nobody here really seems to embrace a degrowth agenda. Only a small irrelevant party nobody actually votes for.
If we can afford it in Romania, you have no excuse. Around here it's about 500 euros a high quality heat pump inverter ac unit and installation is usually included in the price. Electricity is not expensive, you're just whining. Poverty is unknown in the EU, even in its poorest countries in Easter Europe. If you are working you should afford whatever air conditioning costs and not starve.
For once, it's an old study. Second, România has very diverse relief and climate. Mountains cover half the country. There are many people leaving on countryside in houses that don't need cooling. I assure you, very few lack air conditioning in cities. If you want a picture from my neighborhood let me know.
I'm just saying I've literally never heard one person refusing to buy AC because of climate change but I've heard of plenty not buying them because of the costs related.
I'm sure your neighborhood is very nice, and I'm happy if Romania began buying AC en masse, but it's not like we don't buy them because we're dumb.
@Davide: I actually don't agree with that. I think pretty much everyone in Europe could quire easily afford it if they wanted to, both the installation and running it. We can afford heating too - and holidays, cars, electronics, restaurants, massages. It's mostly simply a matter of preference and history.
Ah, another story from an economist in which consumption is somehow better than trying to limit the damage we're doing to the environment. It's so refreshing that I don't even need to install AC anymore.
I'm a European, living in Czechia. Here people usually don't have an A/C in their home, but they are common in shops and offices, and of course ubiquitous in cars.
I have never heard of anyone refusing A/C because it's bad for climate or because they want to protect "traditional culture". But most people do consider A/C unhealthy and we do all have stories about freezing in over-cooled spaces! Also, most people live in buildings that were built before cooling became an issue or even before A/C was invented. Even today, an A/C is useful for at most a couple of weeks every year.
While I agree that Europe is facing a risk of becoming technologically irrelevant, I don't think that everything can be explained in terms of a culture war.
(As a side note, I'm currently sitting in a house that's more than 100 years old, in a rented apartment that is equipped with an A/C. It was installed by the previous owner, and I think that nobody else in the house has one. But this is an exception that proves the rule: we turned it on exactly once in two years!)
Not one of your strongest blogs. Somewhat light on facts and weighs on opinions.
Some key issues missed: reverse cycle (heat pumps) vs simple ac; energy efficiency of reverse cycle vs traditional boilers; European flats in in older settings - it’s difficult to install and close neighbors do rightly object when someone’s ac points directly at their flat across a narrow street; benefits of an integrated solar - heat pump setup which I’m currently enjoying on a cold winters day in Sydney.
Continues to grate with me how Noah talks about Europe. The differences between, say, Norway and Greece really are enormous in every way. I really think an American should think about whether they would suggest the same solution for Mexico and Canada as a comparison. In any case, I would say a big part of the UK reticence is that we really only need A/C during a heatwave and those are only a couple of weeks at year at most.
Noah wears his biases openly on his sleaves (in broad strokes, pro south and southneast asia, a bit anti europe, middle east and china), which is pretty refreshing, and makes for interesting reading.
I mostly agree with the gist of the article, with a couple of caveats.
- The comparison between deaths due to heat and due to guns is very tricky. Guns affect mostly the young or very young, heat deaths affect mostly the (very) old. Not that this doesn't matter, but it's a big difference in terms of how much life years you're effectively robbed off.
- This is also one of the general issues I have with this particular heat death statistic. Most of these deaths are people of very high age. Again, obviously I want them to live longer too. But the chances that they'd die of a cardiovascular cause is very high - and if it happens during a heat phase, it's suddenly classified as a heat death, even though it's rather unlikely they'd have lived many years or decades longer with AC. It's a bit of a correlation or causation problem, statistically speaking.
- This is especially true since - despite the nominally massive gap in heat deaths - average European.lofe expectancy is way higher than that of the US, and that at almost every percentile of age or income class.
Having said all that though, I agree that it's silly and completely unnecessary to resist installing AC. It definitely improves the living conditions of many people who suffer under intense heat and we know it improves productivity and health outcomes. So in this sense it's a no-brainer.
I also agree that this is really mostly a cultural thing. Some Europeans simply don't like AC very much. Others fear (even if only unconsciously) that it might disrupt traditional and cherished architecture and ways of living (from long summer holidays to picturesque towns). Plus, the bureaucracy doesn't help. I don't think any of that needs to be the case and I think AC will become more common pretty quickly.
One final point, though: I very much disagree with Tyler Cowen and his claims.
People in Europe live well and according to their preferences. I don't have a dryer or AC because I don't and want need either - but I could easily afford both and very much support anyone who wants to have one!
I can bike to work, have a beautiful old-style building next to a park, great public transport and a car, loads of free or super affordable cultural and leisure options all around, great food, beautiful parks, buildings, and everything close nearby.
This is for *me* a way better standard of living than I personally could ever have in most of the US, Singapore, or even Japan. But that's me and down to my personal preferences. And I completely know and understand that Americans or Singaporeans or Japanese have other preferences and that's cool too.
But that's why I think Tyler Cowen’s article is wide off the mark. He wants to live an American life in Europe and it doesn't work for him. Just as I could hardly live a European life in the US (except, maybe, New York) and that wouldn't work for me either. That doesn't mean Americans live more shabby than me or vice versa.
There's nothing you say you like doing you cannot do in America. In DC I bike to work, live in a brick 100y+ building, have transit readily available, also a car if needed, world class food and leisure and parks etc etc. We also have air conditioning when it hits triple digits with humidity. I also have a washer/dryer in home.
This idea that these things are "European" in any sense is absurd. You're literally proving the point of the article about the whole philosophy being bourgeois nonsense backed by a misplaced sense of being unique via NOT having basic amenities. It's truly head scratching from across the pond. Get a dryer man. Maybe a garbage disposal while you're at it. Saves a lot of useless time.
Given enough money, one can have a mostly european lifestyle in the us, just like given enough money one can have a mostly us lifestyle in europe. At the end of the day, flying New York to Paris, Rome or whatever takes one afternoon and a few hundred dollars/euros, so to some extent you can even combine the two. It is still interesting to compare and contrast the median lifestyles which are, on average, quite different.
And of course, "life in the US" is a weird construct to begin with. In NYC I can go tk the met opera pretty much any day of the week. In small town New Mexico I have to plan a trip to Santa Fe and an overnight stay months ahead to accolplish the same, all to see an objectively worse performance.
P.S.: Also, there are many (many!) things you can get at a restaurant it Europe that are hard to impossible to find in the US (even NYC, even if you are willing to spend a lot). Coratella, Iberico ham, florentine steak, razor clams, black sea turdot (a long list of other seafood), various forms of tripe dishes, even "normal" things like good oxtail stew, non-soggy carbonara made properly al dente. The reasons for this are obvious and boring: there is not enough demand for it in the us. They are same reasons why sushi, italian, and vietnamese food in germany mostly blah. But food availability (driven by prefernces) is mostly local, and asserting otherwise is silly. (Also, this variation is a good thing!)
This started well, but again man the idea you can't find carbonara or oxtail stew in the US is absurd. I can find both within two blocks of my house. I truly don't know why people feel compelled to make this stuff up.
Oxtail stew is extremely common here due to the Caribbean influence. I grew up in Seattle which has razor clams by the trillion and a dozen other mollusks not available to Europe. European oysters are trash compared to what we produce on both coasts. This idea there's a bevy of options of any kind available to Europe we don't have in spades is, again, pure cope.
Glad to hear that there are places to get some of these things in the us and I will keep it in mind if and when I find myself there. The places I lived (Iowa city, a small town in NM, Chicago, NYC, SLC, Pasadena, upstate NY) didn't have those specific things, hence I gave them as an example. You kind of prove my point though: food is local. The seafood you get on the coasts is ocean rather than sea stuff, so it is different. (Better and more variety, though? Not convinced, but also not looking for an argument). And having a large imigrant community leads to particular food is an example of the demand being there. (I think tge sauce in the stew you are thinking of is quite different. Might be good though.)
Cheers
P.S.: My objection to carbonara and oxfail stew is preparation, not availability. And the reason is that most of the people there like it that way. Of course you can just cook these yourself, so it isn't a big deal.
Chicago has literally all of those food items, you just have to actually want to go find them.
Chicago has some good restaurants: ethiopian, the vietnamese places uptown, modern mexican which has been getting more expensive, a kind of/sort of ok greektown, good steakhouses.
I've lived there for six years and have done plenty of looking.
Point me to a restaurant in chicago that serves coratella, please.
I agree there are many lovely local things about every place in the world. We can agree on that.
The two-step in this discussion I don't appreciate as much is the idea that AC is just as much of a normal preference as food choice. It's killing tens of thousands of people per year, and the response is (a) well they're old so we don't care and (b) we like it the way it is. It would be more convincing if the greatest modern contribution to global politics by todays European gentry was something other than moral grandstanding.
Imagine the European protests if Bangladesh banned AC and tens of thousands started dying. Its a strange dichotomy to witness.
This is also a two-step though, as pointed out elsewhere in these comments. The places where many elderly people are dying because of the heat are in southern europe while the genuine anti-ac sentiment is further north, where people can afford to feel that way, so to speak. You can find some anecdotes in these comments attesting to this. I can give you more. One half of my extended family lives in athens. Some are well off, others not so much, but they all have ac. They grumble about the electricity bill, but would never consider not using it.
@Quinn: You live in a weird world where European gentry is banning AC. But that's not the case. Almost everyone can install it if they want to and lots of people in Europe do, all the time.
You're also wilfully misconstruing my argument. The lives of old people count just as much. It's just statistically much harder to actually say whether the leading cause of death is heat in many cases - and throwing out one number and then claiming that's it is simply statistically unsound.
And that is especially so since Europeans, despite this apparently massive AC issue which supposedly is directly causing so many deaths, still have higher life expectancy than Americans (by a significant margin).
Any serious debater should at this point at least consider if we might have some data pollution and causation / correlation issues here. That's just good debating practice.
Completely agree with you, Grigori!
And yes, of course comparing and contrasting median lifestyle is still interesting and we can learn loads of things from it.
But doing it a bit like Tyler Cowen and going to Europe, seeing no dryers and AC and then claiming living in Europe is “shabby” is a bit like an Amsterdamer going to Dallas, seeing no canals, bike lanes, trains and Indonesian food right around the corner and saying Dallas is shabby. It's just a silly comparison.
There's way more to both lifestyles. Comparing and contrasting it is good. Picking out a few peculiar things that one - for whatever reason - can't live without and then claiming the others live shabby is, well, just not very insightful.
@Quinn: No, you are missing the point. There's nothing that's claimed in your post or that of Noah that you can't have in Europe too, easily and affordably.
You can buy a house or apartment with a dryer and AC, a pickup and a sauna or whatever else you like. It's down to preferences that people don't have them yet.
Just as having public transport or bike lanes or parks or pools right around the corner - and the density of them, ease of access, pricing points - is things that you can indeed have in the US and in Europe, in different places and in different density.
So just as AC and dryers are not American, parks and bike lanes and culture are not European. But the respective density and ease of access and preferences differ massively.
And that's totally okay. It just gets silly if you claim that one thing that you yourself believe everyone should have - say, AC and a dryer - is the bare minimum while not seeing that somebody else may perhaps have other preferences - say, public transport, bike lanes, parks, free healthcare, whatever.
I'm not telling Americans they must turn all their cities into bike utopias. It's their choice. And I'd also rather have them not tell me I must have a drier when I simply don't like or need one. It's a free country and I can decide what my preferences are.
But so can others and I'd never tell them - be they European or American - that *they* should or shouldn't get a drier or AC if they want them.
Free choice, baby!
I mean I get it but if tens of thousands of people were dying for literally any other reason there would be marches across Europe calling people genocidal for not fixing it. The inability to look inward is…odd. If it were simply about the choice to be a bit cooler then sure go nuts. But it's worse than any health or violence epidemic in America and this whole notion is met with a shrug and “well they're old so we don't care if they die” it's truly strange coming from a European gentry whos greatest modern contribution to global politics is moral grandstanding.
@Quinn: Again, you misunderstand the point. It's not that I or anyone doesn't care about these people.
It's about the fact that it's very hard to statistically tell if the heat is actually causal for their death - and once you dig a little bit deeper, you soon find out that there's a high chance of correlation, not necessarily causation.
And that's quite a lot different from gun deaths, where the causation is very clear. This is simply a factual point. We can all throw out numbers and claims, but a real debate must also contest with questioning assumptions. And a whole lot of assumptions went into this particular number and comparison, many of which simply don't hold up to scrutiny.
There's also no grandstanding whatsoever. Everyone should get AC if they want to and in fact it's being installed in most new buildings in Europe, old ones are being retrofitted, most shops already have it and public buildings increasingly too. That's a good thing.
It's just strange to throw out numbers and claims, then jump to increasingly wild guesses as to the why and how, and then just draw a very generalized conclusion.
That's what Europeans sometimes (not always) also do vis-à-vis America. It never makes much sense. Nor does it the other way around.
You simply do not believe that heat is the issue????? So why, then, are tens of thousands of European elderly dying at the height of summer? Every year? You think this is just a lie?
I thought a key point of the healthy, local, and family friendly European lifestyle being touted here would include not wontonly dismissing the preventable deaths of your elderly. I think the reason Americans find it so odd is precisely this disconnect of purported family/community-oriented values you preach.
Because if you actually look at a number of serious studies on this topic these findings vary wildly and are often not replicated.
Do you want to believe one number because it confirms your priors? Or do you want to look at the actual science and see what it says?
It's not about belief. It's about statistical facts and scientific findings.
DCs metro has 500k train journeys a day. London has 6million. These are not equivalent systems! Americans food is awful and you just don't even know it because it is all you have ever known.
After a year in Spain I can unequivocally say we do it better. Sorry you guys are the ignorant ones here.
Yes…and London has 13x the population of DC. I’m not a mathematician but, I think, if you multiply 500k by 13 it’s…hang on…stick with me here…over 6 million.
> But the chances that they'd die of a cardiovascular cause is very high - and if it happens during a heat phase, it's suddenly classified as a heat death, even though it's rather unlikely they'd have lived many years or decades longer with AC.
On the other hand, Japan, with a very old population, has 1-10kish heat deaths each year.
Even the high end estimate based on statistical models rather than a count of actual deaths actually attributed to heat stroke, would be about a quarter to a third deaths per capita vs Europe.
That would be inline with the 75% decrease in heat deaths in the US following widespread adoption of air conditioning.
@Sassy: True story. But the thing is, I looked a little but into the European numbers and they are also not as solid as one might want.
There clearly are strong indications for excessive fatality rates in European countries during intense heat waves. But how large and why exactly is much harder to figure out.
Country to country comparisons are harder still because you have a whole range of confounding factors and different methods.
So the thing is, I actually do agree that it is a pretty substantial problem and that Europe definitely should roll out AC faster. But with my sober statistics head on, I also see that the data base is not very solid right now.
The tendency is clear. The actual magnitude not so much.
Europeans are always lecturing Americans they need to adopt Euro style health care or gun laws. Telling Europeans that they need to adopt American practices is the only way we will ever get them to quit with the pomposity.
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/the-great-divergence/comment/118428100
No need for lecturing or pomposity. We can learn from each, that's it. Ultimately, each country or place, needs to decide how they want to organize society.
“This is also one of the general issues I have with this particular heat death statistic. Most of these deaths are people of very high age. Again, obviously I want them to live longer too. But the chances that they'd die of a cardiovascular cause is very high - and if it happens during a heat phase, it's suddenly classified as a heat death, even though it's rather unlikely they'd have lived many years or decades longer with AC. It's a bit of a correlation or causation problem, statistically speaking.
- This is especially true since - despite the nominally massive gap in heat deaths - average European.lofe expectancy is way higher than that of the US, and that at almost every percentile of age or income class. “
These are the same claims of the “dying with COVID” brigade for people with chronic diseases - the calculation of life years lost was still very high.
Yeah, sure, but that exact calculation is even harder for heat in Europe when you look at solid studies. And that's the whole point.
You are usually correct, but this post is taking a few cases and extrapolate to Europe, which may be half the US as a surface but far more diverse as culture. I traveled across most of Europe and I still can't remember of accommodation that lacked air conditioning. It's ubiquitous. From Greece to Germany and Portugal to Romania, everywhere there are split, heat pump based AC units. I have one in each room and everyone around me has at least one unit per apartment. I stayed in the center of Rome, historical buildings, and they still had air conditioning every time. So you're simply falling for senzationalist media on this one instead of facts.
Hmm Germany, I’m not so sure. Modern hotels yes, but AC is very rare for residential flats. I’m in Berlin and I’ve never visited a friend’s flat that has AC. Yes in the southern countries it is much more common.
This is right. I Live in Bonn in Germany. Virtually no residential units have ac, not even the rooftop loft apartments that heat up in the summer. Most university buidings do not have ac either, sometimes for historical preservation reasons, but often just because. The approach really is "it only gets hot for a few weeks in the summer, we can stick it out".
Yes, though to be fair, they are way more common in hotels, some public buildings and the like than in private apartments or houses. That's changing too, but still.
But yes, the point is rather that having an AC if you want one really isn't hard in Europe in most places. A lot of people simply don't want one (yet), for historical, cultural, or idiosyncratic reasons.
But that's changing and will continue to change. The rest is mostly chatter.
Broadly agree, but with two caveats: First, the further south in europe you go, the more accepted air conditioning is. Greece, southern italy and southern spain do not have german attitudes to this.
And second, some of the southern european cities really are designed in a way that makes it possible to be outside in 40+ degree weather in a way that the us cities of the desert southwest are not: I was on vacation in Seville a few days ago and it got up to 43C (ca 110F) for a few days in the afternoon. This should be intolerable but (being an american, though currently living abroad) i walked around the center of the city in this weather and it was manageable. It's narrow strees, 3-4 story buildings and old trees, lots of shade, fountains, tarps, water and liberal use of air-conditioning in the stores, cafes, on public transport etc. It is a completely different experience from being out-and-about in the us southwest in 43 degree weather, and also quite different from a place like athens which is a city that for the most part less that 150 years old and grew up---by necessity---in a very haphazard way (Even though the climate is Seville and the desert southwest is basically the same: hot, dry and cools down overnight. athens is similar but a bit less dry).
So, my somewhat tongue-in-cheek question is whether there is a us stigma against adopting middle eastern city planning in places that have middle eastern city climate?
Surely an all-of-the-above approach to dealing with dry, hot weather---including ac, cars with ac, and the energy to support those---makes more sense than what either the us or germany are doing.
P.S.: For context, i went to school in new mexico, currently live in germany, and have family in athens.
P.P.S: After Seville I moved on to Lisbon, and it feels like switching a video game from hard to easy mode.
P.P.P.S.: Singapore is hot and humid rather than hot and dry. It is a somewhat different problem. Humidity is not something thst shade can save you from.
Not one of your strongest blogs. Somewhat light on facts and weighs on opinions.
Some key issues missed: reverse cycle (heat pumps) vs simple ac; energy efficiency of reverse cycle vs traditional boilers; European flats in in older settings - it’s difficult to install and close neighbors do rightly object when someone’s ac points directly at their flat across a narrow street; benefits of an integrated solar - heat pump setup which I’m currently enjoying on a cold winters day in Sydney.
Most of Germany does not have old buildings for ... reasons, and the streets aren't narrow. On the other hand, some of those old buildings on narrow streets in southern europe do have ac's, because they are not insane and care about their well-being.
Americans go to Europe and only go to tourist areas that are typically in center cities and think "this is how Europeans live." It's pretty hilarious.
I have dual heat pumps on an attached rownome brick building built in 1890. It's not hard to do. This is silly.
FWIW I think America, especially the really hot parts, could stand to learn something from Europe about smart building practices. Even if you _do_ install AC, you'll have better comfort if your home is designed to take advantage of many of the passive techniques you mention. RMI has a lot of good whitepapers on various techniques where you invest a little more up front, but then save more than the investment on operating cost, while delivering better environmental control.
As a European I find this a weird story to read, it is both accurate and arrogant.
In daily life in the Netherlands I don’t see AC as a hot topic. Cars, trains, offices and shopping malls tend to have AC while private homes don’t. The number of days that we need AC is limited but admittedly increasing. The general attitude towards AC is not necessarily positive, quite a few people hate it to live with closed windows, they want to drive with open windows, have their office windows open. They want to be in touch with outside air and deeply mistrust any form of mechanical climate control.
I agree with your assessment that it is a “cultural thing”. I think the relationship between culture and technology is interesting to explore. But the focus on just this one subject framed in a simple right/wrong thesis makes your story shallow.
Europe does not have one single culture, every country has its own very distinct culture. You pass a border and enter a different world entirely. Which makes it very visible how different the way is that different countries adapt to new technology. I don’t think there’s one good way to do it, which is what makes Europe such a fascinating continent.
You are probably right that Europe is more restrained in adapting new technology, which sometimes indeed is to our disadvantage. But I have other examples as well where not rushing into futurism has been hugely advantageous (Did you mention “beautiful cities”?).
So yes, I agree with the gist of your story that Europe needs more AC. And I go along with you in the fascinating relationship between culture and technology. But it also invokes this feeling of: “Hey American, shall we have this nice little shouting party, in which we tell each other how ugly and awful we are?”
I live in Berlin. My first summer here was brutal. I was used to extreme air conditioning. But then honestly? I got used to it. Yes of course there are still those few summer days where everybody moans. But it’s rare.
Now when I visit my parents in Ohio, I’m shocked how cold their home is. 66-68 degrees Fahrenheit even in 90+ degree summers. They wear blankets and sweatshirts inside. Sorry, but this is another example of Americans taking something to the extreme.
Berlin has AC in the trains, but it’s just enough to take the edge off. Which I think is fine.
I agree that Europe needs to consider allowing for more AC, but America could also learn from Europe on lessons in moderation.
AC unlocks personal preference that's it. If you don't want it to be 66, which most people don't, it doesn't have to be that's the point. Idk why this is so challenging to grasp. It's just about freedom of choice.
@Quinn It is indeed. The freedom of choice includes when you want - or don't want - to install it in your home. In Europe, that's ever-more the case. In some places and for some people, it's just not their choice yet. Everyone should be able to choose as they please.
I used to live in Vietnam which has, for the most part, adopted air conditioning as quickly as people can afford it. And there isn't anything about "culture" of not using it, since Vietnam has always been hot and humid.
But there is still an absolutely massive culture of insane health takes about it. Changing temperature will make you sick, so you shouldn't at it below 24. Babies will freeze to death if the room is under 25. Etc.
So I'm not sure it is tied to "culture" the way you argue. I think it is just a freestanding insane belief that people scavenge for post-hoc explanations for.
(My absolute favourite Vietnamese insane health take is that taking a shower at night can kill you and everyone has an uncle who has a friend that that happened to.)
"If you don't dry your hair after a shower, the water will seep to your brain" and "If you don't wear a yarmulke, your brain will evaporate" are quite similar, considering they come from two completely different cultures.
As for the green "argument" I'm surprised you didn't mention that air conditioning only accounts for a small fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions compared to heating, 4ish billion tons of CO2 vs just 1 billion for cooling.
And since over a third of homes globally have air conditioning, universal air conditioning would be responsible for less greenhouse gas emissions than current heating.
And to top it all off, if you install air conditioning, you get the most efficient form of heating, 3-5x more efficient than typical systems in Europe, basically for free.
Having "collaborated" with a decent amount of Germans, I can confirm that some indeed think Americans are lazy and stupid and any idea coming from an American is probably worse than worthless. Fun times.
That’s always been the case.
I think there is at least one missing element: it's expensive. Electricity is expensive, installing the AC is expensive especially as competition is low and there are many electricians who just want to make a quick buck.
We have four ACs in our house, and we run them constantly at night or sometimes even during the day because of mosquitoes, but there are many low-to-middle class people who just can't afford it. Salaries haven't kept up with inflation, and most people can't spurge thousands of dollars for something they believe isn't essential.
I don't doubt that climate change culture wars are a big factor especially in a country like the UK, but Italy has only around 50% of households with ACs and nobody here really seems to embrace a degrowth agenda. Only a small irrelevant party nobody actually votes for.
If we can afford it in Romania, you have no excuse. Around here it's about 500 euros a high quality heat pump inverter ac unit and installation is usually included in the price. Electricity is not expensive, you're just whining. Poverty is unknown in the EU, even in its poorest countries in Easter Europe. If you are working you should afford whatever air conditioning costs and not starve.
Around 70% of households in Romania don't have AC.
https://www.energynomics.ro/en/e-on-one-in-three-households-in-romania-is-equipped-with-at-least-one-air-conditioner/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
For once, it's an old study. Second, România has very diverse relief and climate. Mountains cover half the country. There are many people leaving on countryside in houses that don't need cooling. I assure you, very few lack air conditioning in cities. If you want a picture from my neighborhood let me know.
I'm just saying I've literally never heard one person refusing to buy AC because of climate change but I've heard of plenty not buying them because of the costs related.
I'm sure your neighborhood is very nice, and I'm happy if Romania began buying AC en masse, but it's not like we don't buy them because we're dumb.
@Davide: I actually don't agree with that. I think pretty much everyone in Europe could quire easily afford it if they wanted to, both the installation and running it. We can afford heating too - and holidays, cars, electronics, restaurants, massages. It's mostly simply a matter of preference and history.
Ah, another story from an economist in which consumption is somehow better than trying to limit the damage we're doing to the environment. It's so refreshing that I don't even need to install AC anymore.
All of Europe could get AC right now and it won't make a dent on climate change
I'm a European, living in Czechia. Here people usually don't have an A/C in their home, but they are common in shops and offices, and of course ubiquitous in cars.
I have never heard of anyone refusing A/C because it's bad for climate or because they want to protect "traditional culture". But most people do consider A/C unhealthy and we do all have stories about freezing in over-cooled spaces! Also, most people live in buildings that were built before cooling became an issue or even before A/C was invented. Even today, an A/C is useful for at most a couple of weeks every year.
While I agree that Europe is facing a risk of becoming technologically irrelevant, I don't think that everything can be explained in terms of a culture war.
(As a side note, I'm currently sitting in a house that's more than 100 years old, in a rented apartment that is equipped with an A/C. It was installed by the previous owner, and I think that nobody else in the house has one. But this is an exception that proves the rule: we turned it on exactly once in two years!)
Not one of your strongest blogs. Somewhat light on facts and weighs on opinions.
Some key issues missed: reverse cycle (heat pumps) vs simple ac; energy efficiency of reverse cycle vs traditional boilers; European flats in in older settings - it’s difficult to install and close neighbors do rightly object when someone’s ac points directly at their flat across a narrow street; benefits of an integrated solar - heat pump setup which I’m currently enjoying on a cold winters day in Sydney.
Continues to grate with me how Noah talks about Europe. The differences between, say, Norway and Greece really are enormous in every way. I really think an American should think about whether they would suggest the same solution for Mexico and Canada as a comparison. In any case, I would say a big part of the UK reticence is that we really only need A/C during a heatwave and those are only a couple of weeks at year at most.
Noah wears his biases openly on his sleaves (in broad strokes, pro south and southneast asia, a bit anti europe, middle east and china), which is pretty refreshing, and makes for interesting reading.
Refusing A/C seems like refusing antibiotics!