Europe needs AC

Maybe the soccer World Cup will change attitudes and save lives

The Associated Press reported, “France endured sizzling temperatures on Sunday, with trains, concerts and sports events canceled and authorities cracking down on drinking alcohol in public, as an exceptional heat wave unfurled across parts of Europe.”

The story also said, “Over the last four years, more than 200,000 people across Europe died from heat-related causes, and most of the fatalities were preventable, the World Health Organization’s Europe office said this month. More above-average temperatures are expected this summer, which can cause heat exhaustion and life-threatening heat stroke.”

An estimated 2,394 people died from heat-related causes in the United States in 2024, according to preliminary Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—9,400 over the last 4 years.

Europe is farther north than the 48 contiguous states in the USA. Most of Europe shares the same latitude as Canada. Sunny Athens, Greece, is as far from the equator as Welch, West Virginia, which is pretty much an abandoned coal town.

For once I agree with WHO. Most of those 200,000 deaths in the last 4 years (about 50,000 a year) were preventable. More than a century ago, Willis Haviland Carrier of Buffalo, New York, invented modern air conditioning, not for home use but to control the air in a factory.

The Department of Energy reported:

The idea of artificial cooling went stagnant for several years until engineer Willis Carrier took a job that would result in the invention of the first modern electrical air conditioning unit. While working for the Buffalo Forge Company in 1902, Carrier was tasked with solving a humidity problem that was causing magazine pages to wrinkle at Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company in Brooklyn.

Through a series of experiments, Carrier designed a system that controlled humidity using cooling coils and secured a patent for his “Apparatus for Treating Air,” which could either humidify (by heating water) or dehumidify (by cooling water) air. As he continued testing and refining his technology, he also devised and patented an automatic control system for regulating the humidity and temperature of air in textile mills.

It wasn’t long before Carrier realized that humidity control and air conditioning could benefit many other industries, and he eventually broke off from Buffalo Forge, forming Carrier Engineering Corporation with six other engineers.

About 90% of U.S. households have some form of air conditioning, with roughly two-thirds featuring central air. In contrast, only about 20% of European households are equipped with air conditioning.

Because Europe does not use forced air heating with ducts and all like the USA does, the cost of adding air conditioning would be up to $40,000 (€34,000) per home. Some 120 years after Carrier invented American air conditioning, European engineers still haven’t invented a less expensive European version.

Instead of adapting to the global warming socialists claim we are enduring, the European Union is in the midst of spending €662 billion trying to prevent it.

For that money, Europe could add AC to 20 million homes, which would mean 30% of European households have AC, up from today’s 20%. More AC, more lives saved.

I mean, 91% of Japanese households have AC. Come on, Europe.

What should really embarrass Europeans is 60% to 77% of the homes in Red China are air-conditioned.

As I like to say, turn the thermostat down because there are people in France sweating.

The European reply is there are too few hot summer days to justify the expense.

Canada is 68% air-conditioned.

Now being a red-white-and-blue blooded American, I do not take soccer very serious. But we are hosting the FIFA World Cup, which has drawn a million visitors from foreign lands—legally. Most of the tourists are well-off and organized.

Scottish fans, known as the Tartan Army, drank Boston bars dry. Their consumption was so intense that it forced Sam Adams to schedule emergency beer deliveries after its Boston Taproom ran out of stock, with fans consuming four times the normal volume of a major holiday weekend. Other venues like The White Bull Tavern and Hennessy’s Bar also completely sold out of beer, with some reporting that they had never seen such demand in decades.

Although they wear kilts, the men wouldn’t touch Bud Light. Or so I am told on Twitter.

They sing 500 Miles, the Proclaimers song, with the enthusiasm of Americans singing Country Roads. Well, the Scot-Irish did settle West Virginia because the land was free.

Buc-ee’s, the Texas version of Disney stores disguised as a gas station, blows many a European mind and wallet. Ditto Walmart.

They have taken a cotton to Waffle House. Free refills also delight them. The marketing strategy of forcing customers to serve themselves and save labor costs does not enter their minds. They still believe in free stuff because they learned nothing from the cost of their free health care.

What really blows their minds is the prevalence of air-conditioning. We have AC in our homes, in our cars, in our stores, in our churches, in our hearts, in our brains and in our souls.

After a few weeks here, World Cup visitors will expect Big Gulps, free refills and air conditioning when they get home.

But even with 50,000 unnecessary deaths each summer, environmentalists are still opposed to 400 million or so Europeans enjoying the air conditioning that 60% to 77% of Red China’s 1.3 billion people enjoy.

Switzerland even banned air conditioning.

The Green Dispatch bemoaned:

Even though renewables are advancing everywhere, we still use a lot of fossil fuels for our electricity. With Europe and the rest of the world cooling more of their houses, businesses, and schools, by 2050 the emissions from all of our air conditioning could contribute another tenth of a degree of warming. That may not sound like much, but small increases in the overall planetary temperature have great ramifications.

Yes, there are those who believe that frying 50,000 people each summer will save the world—while everyone else points and laughs at the pagans who worship Gaia.