Ah, I love that Lee Kuan Yew quote about air conditioning! The man was a true visionary.
It’s honestly crazy to see how European elites are looking at this today. The world has so many weird things that make no sense. I vividly remember a few years back when Trump suggested people drink bleach to cure COVID—right around the time that Flat Earth documentary on Netflix became super popular. Back then, the whole world, including Europe, laughed at America for being so anti-science.
But look at them now. Those same European elites are unironically telling people to rub yogurt on their windows and die in heatwaves just to feel morally superior. I guess every country has its own special way of going crazy.
Culture conversatism is probably the biggest factor in the UK. I mean you have a prominent commentator like Peter Hitchens (brother of Christopher) bemoaning the introduction of central heating and claiming it has ruined society as people no longer sit around a fire as a group. Roger Scruton was another of this kind who thought technology was destroying society, their ideas have more purchase among the population than you think and is a bigger factor than the governments green leanings which are largely derided. The government's policy has more influence on say issues with transport or housing, but buying AC, at least small units is largely an individual decision.
British culture, especially elite British culture has been strongly informed since the late 19th century by a strong romanticist anti-industrial philosophy - although by the late 20th century old industries became part of the nostalgia. I think because Britain was the earliest to industrialise and because it did it in the most brutal and grimiest technological level of the industrial revolution, industry has always been suspect. Cities too - only on Britain compared to other developed countries is inner city a term of abuse, despite having one of the great world cities. People are supposed to aspire to a place in the country. This is a massive factor in the existence of the so called greenbelt, the resistance to new or expanded urban centres or new housing in general via a incredibly restrictive local planning regime that has sent housing to astronomical levels.
On top of that you have a working class culture that sees 'getting above yourself' as a great sin. Spending money above what you should in your class level is looked down on and buying ACs was seen as a luxury good like a flash car. The older generation in general were raised with pretty strict norms on what level of spending were appropriate, what is a waste if money or not and so on.
My bi-Atlantic back-and-forth sense is that habit and conservatism rather than actual policy inclination is much more important and Noah is far too weighting marginal here
Versus spending on infra on the system, that's much more real
Honestly Noah while the anti-AC views you latch on exist, I think you're builidng something of a small mountain out of a mole-hill in real terms
Much more challenging is the slow / non-adaptation on the energy infrastructure front as well as certain transport infra - as like rail.
French reactors (but also broadly including wider euro generation) having to throttle back because cooling infra set-up is generally set-up on base assumption of "not this hot summers" (and e.g. using river water assumed to be both available - non-drought - and significantly cooler).
Grids that aren't ready for heat.
Evidently it's possible - Iberians are fine (but as is evident they didn't assume a cooler climate as Iberia of course).
The sluggish and more 'throttle usage' instinct versus OMG accelerate infra build now is a deeper and more concerning fundamental than some anti-AC postures (and where honestly I think you vastly over-estimate such views and underestimate degree to which just simply wasn't needed and now mentalities will take a bit to catch-up).
I think this downplays an important factor, which is that temperatures have increased very fast. I'm from Paris, and until quite recently, AC was actually fairly unnecessary: temperatures were moderate the whole year. Now that has changed, the amount of adaptation needed is huge, and one way for our elites to mask their failure to anticipate it is to downplay the obvious technological solutions we failed to adopt.
My bet is that this is very transient. In fact, in France even the most pro-"degrowth" parties are starting to admit that AC is part of the solution.
Agree - the recency (and time limitedness) of the change - and the limited rhetorical façade it's more the rapidity of change that mass-market level people are just beginning to think they need something which wasn't really at all needed before*
AC will be bought, what's more broadly concerning is the lack of real genuine urgency for good infra investment (this is global) on either side of Atlantic for grid etc. (and of course infra-wise like the French nuclear plants - where clearly cooling systems revision is needed [hello too warm river water] as what was once rare clearly won't be]
* (now just hope you don't go for refrigerated offices like US, fuck me I hate that, visiting Euro side office I'm pleased to have office that's not a refigerator where the ladies bring sweaters)
I could see European discourse adopting heat waves as American discourse adopts hurricanes and tornadoes in the sense that much more of the same is what Europe has to look forward to if they are not even more austere about climate change.
I live in Germany and will retrofit my apartment with AC. Having said that, the German ARD picture was framing this topic as a dilemma, not advocating people not to use AC. And the dilemma is real. We constantly have to make trade-off decisions. For instance, I believe that AI will solve really hard problems (like grid congestion), which requires building new data centers which require energy and water. You frequently talk about the folly of degrowth. There is an equal folly of continuing on the economic path we’ve been on without accounting for the damages of the commons. I would love to read your thoughts on what the right balance is here. 200,000 heat deaths were caused by lack of AC, and the heat was caused by our economic growth based (largely) on burning fossil fuels. If the cost was priced in, the markets would drive the needed efficiency and innovation. But the cost is ignored by our system, and is borne by families such as those of the 200000 dead. How do we fix this system? Degrowth is folly. Continuing as we have is also folly.
Brit here. There’s a big gap between policy makers & activists and the population at large on this. Anecdote, but about 25% of people in a large group chat I’m in have bought portable aircon units in the last couple years. I know an increasing number of people who’ve retrofitted aircon into their homes. And a far far greater proportion who are or would consider doing one or other to cool their homes.
So it is changing, but it’s driven by need. Until the last 10 years it was unusual to have any days breaking 30 degrees Celsius (mid 80s) in a year. That’s massively escalated especially in the last 5 years with temperatures in the south hitting high 30s (high 90s/100) most years for at least a few days and having weeks in the high 20s (80s). Add to that our housing stock is way older than US / Canada - the average age of housing in the UK is over 75 years old. 20% of houses were built before the First World War… and because it’s unusual to have aircon, having it fitted and serviced is very expensive. So the northern European stance of avoiding AC until pretty recently made reasonable sense… its expensive to buy and to run, and tricky to fit and only really needed a few days a year why would individuals divert needed money to that over other things…
But the speed our climate changing and frequency of much hotter weather is changing the publics mind. And one way or other they are increasingly voting with their wallets to favour aircon. Even if regulations around new builds are lagging due to political/activist objections. You can’t find any model of portable aircon to buy in the UK this week, all sold out, and waiting times to fit window/central AC have rapidly increased…
Having just endured a second week this year where the inside temperatures in our house have hit 35 degrees (95F) every day, no part of our house has been below 25 (77F) day or night for several weeks, with several more to follow, and routinely sleeping in temperatures above 30 (86F) a portable aircon is on my shopping list as soon as any are in stock again. And when we move house next year I’m 100% getting AC installed…
Fully agree that a green movement focused on degrowth is part of the problem now. Also fully believe it’s self defeating in the end as the vast majority of people will not subscribe to it and will make different choices to protect their living standards and we’d do better to lean into that than trying to push the tide further out…
This is a good post. Doing a repost of a "I remain right" piece like this is always fun.
That said, the exasperated tone of "these idiot Europeans defending a status quo that isn't good for them" is exactly how I felt when you wrote your post a few weeks ago defending for profit health insurance.
The defense wasn't that it saved money, or that it improved patient outcomes. Just that it wasn't the BIGGEST source of costs in the US system.
American in Germany here. Thanks for continuing to highlight this issue. Having grown up with AC, I was shocked when I moved here to find that it’s almost universally absent from people’s homes. There’s certainly an element of cultural conservativism here, but also straight-up nonsense. Radio programs warn people about going into air conditioned stores, warning of temperature shock. By the way, the ARD campaign in Germany is funded by all of here, citizens and non-citizens alike. Imagine getting a bill in the mail from PBS once per quarter. I personally pay about $20 per month to fund these information campaigns, which are clearly political. An earlier comment disputes that, but I’m not convinced. One of the items on the laundry list of the AfD is the promotion of evidently political content via ARD, and I can’t help but sympathize to some extent.
A few years ago, there was a vote in my apartment block to permit someone to install an AC in their u it. It was voted down. One of the arguments was that they’re actually illegal because they’re so loud (which is nonsense, because they’re available for sale). So yes, elites block AC but also regular people vote to limit their own neighbors. And this was an elderly guy looking to install the AC.
Another point I rarely see addressed: many European countries produce an enormous amount of excess electricity in the summer. And that’s a good thing! But somehow this electricity isn’t supposed to be used for AC.
/This is not cultural conservativism, Noah. Countries of the former Eastern Bloc are more culturally conservative than those in Western Europe, and politicians don't push this nonsense here.
This stems purely from the Green movement, whose motto is "reduce, reuse, recycle" on everything that eats some resources. You can't reuse or recycle air conditioning (meaning the power spent, not the device), so the only part left is "reduce".
German Greens are extra pronounced in this, a party of teachers (not irony: teachers are overrepresented in Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) whose life mission is to teach and preach aloud to a captive audience, even if the rest of the country is long fed up.
Merkel's CDU used to follow such trends blindly, and VdL is the last vestige of System Merkel still present in top politics, long after her political Mutti lost at the ballot box. Alas, that is how the EU works, unsuccessful people from national politics get promoted into Brussel. This is part of the dysfunctionality you can observe here.
I'm in Czechia, the temperatures are climbing to 40 degC at the moment. The official warning notice sent to mobile phones mentions A/C only to warn that the difference between the inside and outside temperature should not be more than 8 degC. I hate to admit that, but Noah is right.
also in greece we have the small units in all the rooms in my parents’ home. after the US they aren’t going to be a couple of chumps and not do it. We bought one of those same units back in the day when i was pregnant with my son in 2010. That summer was vicious and our house was old and needed more or i might DIEEEE
Ah, I love that Lee Kuan Yew quote about air conditioning! The man was a true visionary.
It’s honestly crazy to see how European elites are looking at this today. The world has so many weird things that make no sense. I vividly remember a few years back when Trump suggested people drink bleach to cure COVID—right around the time that Flat Earth documentary on Netflix became super popular. Back then, the whole world, including Europe, laughed at America for being so anti-science.
But look at them now. Those same European elites are unironically telling people to rub yogurt on their windows and die in heatwaves just to feel morally superior. I guess every country has its own special way of going crazy.
Culture conversatism is probably the biggest factor in the UK. I mean you have a prominent commentator like Peter Hitchens (brother of Christopher) bemoaning the introduction of central heating and claiming it has ruined society as people no longer sit around a fire as a group. Roger Scruton was another of this kind who thought technology was destroying society, their ideas have more purchase among the population than you think and is a bigger factor than the governments green leanings which are largely derided. The government's policy has more influence on say issues with transport or housing, but buying AC, at least small units is largely an individual decision.
British culture, especially elite British culture has been strongly informed since the late 19th century by a strong romanticist anti-industrial philosophy - although by the late 20th century old industries became part of the nostalgia. I think because Britain was the earliest to industrialise and because it did it in the most brutal and grimiest technological level of the industrial revolution, industry has always been suspect. Cities too - only on Britain compared to other developed countries is inner city a term of abuse, despite having one of the great world cities. People are supposed to aspire to a place in the country. This is a massive factor in the existence of the so called greenbelt, the resistance to new or expanded urban centres or new housing in general via a incredibly restrictive local planning regime that has sent housing to astronomical levels.
On top of that you have a working class culture that sees 'getting above yourself' as a great sin. Spending money above what you should in your class level is looked down on and buying ACs was seen as a luxury good like a flash car. The older generation in general were raised with pretty strict norms on what level of spending were appropriate, what is a waste if money or not and so on.
My bi-Atlantic back-and-forth sense is that habit and conservatism rather than actual policy inclination is much more important and Noah is far too weighting marginal here
Versus spending on infra on the system, that's much more real
Honestly Noah while the anti-AC views you latch on exist, I think you're builidng something of a small mountain out of a mole-hill in real terms
Much more challenging is the slow / non-adaptation on the energy infrastructure front as well as certain transport infra - as like rail.
French reactors (but also broadly including wider euro generation) having to throttle back because cooling infra set-up is generally set-up on base assumption of "not this hot summers" (and e.g. using river water assumed to be both available - non-drought - and significantly cooler).
Grids that aren't ready for heat.
Evidently it's possible - Iberians are fine (but as is evident they didn't assume a cooler climate as Iberia of course).
The sluggish and more 'throttle usage' instinct versus OMG accelerate infra build now is a deeper and more concerning fundamental than some anti-AC postures (and where honestly I think you vastly over-estimate such views and underestimate degree to which just simply wasn't needed and now mentalities will take a bit to catch-up).
I think this downplays an important factor, which is that temperatures have increased very fast. I'm from Paris, and until quite recently, AC was actually fairly unnecessary: temperatures were moderate the whole year. Now that has changed, the amount of adaptation needed is huge, and one way for our elites to mask their failure to anticipate it is to downplay the obvious technological solutions we failed to adopt.
My bet is that this is very transient. In fact, in France even the most pro-"degrowth" parties are starting to admit that AC is part of the solution.
Agree - the recency (and time limitedness) of the change - and the limited rhetorical façade it's more the rapidity of change that mass-market level people are just beginning to think they need something which wasn't really at all needed before*
AC will be bought, what's more broadly concerning is the lack of real genuine urgency for good infra investment (this is global) on either side of Atlantic for grid etc. (and of course infra-wise like the French nuclear plants - where clearly cooling systems revision is needed [hello too warm river water] as what was once rare clearly won't be]
* (now just hope you don't go for refrigerated offices like US, fuck me I hate that, visiting Euro side office I'm pleased to have office that's not a refigerator where the ladies bring sweaters)
I could see European discourse adopting heat waves as American discourse adopts hurricanes and tornadoes in the sense that much more of the same is what Europe has to look forward to if they are not even more austere about climate change.
I live in Germany and will retrofit my apartment with AC. Having said that, the German ARD picture was framing this topic as a dilemma, not advocating people not to use AC. And the dilemma is real. We constantly have to make trade-off decisions. For instance, I believe that AI will solve really hard problems (like grid congestion), which requires building new data centers which require energy and water. You frequently talk about the folly of degrowth. There is an equal folly of continuing on the economic path we’ve been on without accounting for the damages of the commons. I would love to read your thoughts on what the right balance is here. 200,000 heat deaths were caused by lack of AC, and the heat was caused by our economic growth based (largely) on burning fossil fuels. If the cost was priced in, the markets would drive the needed efficiency and innovation. But the cost is ignored by our system, and is borne by families such as those of the 200000 dead. How do we fix this system? Degrowth is folly. Continuing as we have is also folly.
Brit here. There’s a big gap between policy makers & activists and the population at large on this. Anecdote, but about 25% of people in a large group chat I’m in have bought portable aircon units in the last couple years. I know an increasing number of people who’ve retrofitted aircon into their homes. And a far far greater proportion who are or would consider doing one or other to cool their homes.
So it is changing, but it’s driven by need. Until the last 10 years it was unusual to have any days breaking 30 degrees Celsius (mid 80s) in a year. That’s massively escalated especially in the last 5 years with temperatures in the south hitting high 30s (high 90s/100) most years for at least a few days and having weeks in the high 20s (80s). Add to that our housing stock is way older than US / Canada - the average age of housing in the UK is over 75 years old. 20% of houses were built before the First World War… and because it’s unusual to have aircon, having it fitted and serviced is very expensive. So the northern European stance of avoiding AC until pretty recently made reasonable sense… its expensive to buy and to run, and tricky to fit and only really needed a few days a year why would individuals divert needed money to that over other things…
But the speed our climate changing and frequency of much hotter weather is changing the publics mind. And one way or other they are increasingly voting with their wallets to favour aircon. Even if regulations around new builds are lagging due to political/activist objections. You can’t find any model of portable aircon to buy in the UK this week, all sold out, and waiting times to fit window/central AC have rapidly increased…
Having just endured a second week this year where the inside temperatures in our house have hit 35 degrees (95F) every day, no part of our house has been below 25 (77F) day or night for several weeks, with several more to follow, and routinely sleeping in temperatures above 30 (86F) a portable aircon is on my shopping list as soon as any are in stock again. And when we move house next year I’m 100% getting AC installed…
Fully agree that a green movement focused on degrowth is part of the problem now. Also fully believe it’s self defeating in the end as the vast majority of people will not subscribe to it and will make different choices to protect their living standards and we’d do better to lean into that than trying to push the tide further out…
This is a good post. Doing a repost of a "I remain right" piece like this is always fun.
That said, the exasperated tone of "these idiot Europeans defending a status quo that isn't good for them" is exactly how I felt when you wrote your post a few weeks ago defending for profit health insurance.
The defense wasn't that it saved money, or that it improved patient outcomes. Just that it wasn't the BIGGEST source of costs in the US system.
American in Germany here. Thanks for continuing to highlight this issue. Having grown up with AC, I was shocked when I moved here to find that it’s almost universally absent from people’s homes. There’s certainly an element of cultural conservativism here, but also straight-up nonsense. Radio programs warn people about going into air conditioned stores, warning of temperature shock. By the way, the ARD campaign in Germany is funded by all of here, citizens and non-citizens alike. Imagine getting a bill in the mail from PBS once per quarter. I personally pay about $20 per month to fund these information campaigns, which are clearly political. An earlier comment disputes that, but I’m not convinced. One of the items on the laundry list of the AfD is the promotion of evidently political content via ARD, and I can’t help but sympathize to some extent.
A few years ago, there was a vote in my apartment block to permit someone to install an AC in their u it. It was voted down. One of the arguments was that they’re actually illegal because they’re so loud (which is nonsense, because they’re available for sale). So yes, elites block AC but also regular people vote to limit their own neighbors. And this was an elderly guy looking to install the AC.
Another point I rarely see addressed: many European countries produce an enormous amount of excess electricity in the summer. And that’s a good thing! But somehow this electricity isn’t supposed to be used for AC.
/This is not cultural conservativism, Noah. Countries of the former Eastern Bloc are more culturally conservative than those in Western Europe, and politicians don't push this nonsense here.
This stems purely from the Green movement, whose motto is "reduce, reuse, recycle" on everything that eats some resources. You can't reuse or recycle air conditioning (meaning the power spent, not the device), so the only part left is "reduce".
German Greens are extra pronounced in this, a party of teachers (not irony: teachers are overrepresented in Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) whose life mission is to teach and preach aloud to a captive audience, even if the rest of the country is long fed up.
Merkel's CDU used to follow such trends blindly, and VdL is the last vestige of System Merkel still present in top politics, long after her political Mutti lost at the ballot box. Alas, that is how the EU works, unsuccessful people from national politics get promoted into Brussel. This is part of the dysfunctionality you can observe here.
I'm in Czechia, the temperatures are climbing to 40 degC at the moment. The official warning notice sent to mobile phones mentions A/C only to warn that the difference between the inside and outside temperature should not be more than 8 degC. I hate to admit that, but Noah is right.
I live in Europe, I love Europe, but I'm way too American to not have AC.
AC revolution is coming no matter what, people are too damn hot, every heat wave the little portable units sell out at the hardware stores.
this is clearly a plot to enrich Big Yogurt
also in greece we have the small units in all the rooms in my parents’ home. after the US they aren’t going to be a couple of chumps and not do it. We bought one of those same units back in the day when i was pregnant with my son in 2010. That summer was vicious and our house was old and needed more or i might DIEEEE
my family is from greece and they insist you’ll die of pneumonia if you fall asleep with it on