Europe Sizzles While Americans Stay Cool
If 1967 was the summer of love, 1985 was the summer of sweat.
For me, anyway.
I spent a lot of time on the beach 31 years ago. Over the roar of the surf I could hear Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” blaring from boomboxes, vying with Huey Lewis’ “The Power of Love.”
The soundtrack to my summer, however, was “The Heat is On” by Glenn Frey.
The heat really was on, although after reviewing historical temperature charts it seems there was nothing remarkable about 1985. It was an ordinary southeastern Virginia summer with temperatures in the 80s and low-90s.
Humidity in the gazillions.
It felt awful because it was my first full summer in what we all then called Tidewater. I’d moved here after a three-year stint in Ireland, where summertime temps seemed stuck in the 50s and 60s. Where people wilted if the mercury climbed to 75.
Not only was I unaccustomed to southeastern Virginia’s unrelenting heat, but I was living in a cramped one-bedroom garage apartment at the oceanfront.
Second floor. Low ceilings. Small windows.
No air conditioning. My landlord insisted the ancient electrical system couldn’t handle the load.
As the summer baked on, I bought fan after fan until they covered every flat surface in my apartment, making it impossible to read a newspaper and putting my cat’s tail in perpetual peril.
The next summer, I defiantly bought a small air conditioner and installed it in a rear window where no one could see it. If the wiring burst into flames, I planned to jump out one of the tiny windows and enjoy the breeze on the way down.
I was reminded of that first stifling summer as I read about the heat wave that’s baking most of Europe. Temperatures in parts of France and Spain are topping 100 degrees.
Worse, almost no one has air conditioning.
CNN reports:
Air conditioning is very rare in European homes. Many residents ride out the searing heat with the help of electric fans, ice packs and cold showers.
But Europe hasn’t approached heat in the same way as the historically hotter United States. While nearly 90% of US homes have air conditioning, in Europe it’s around 20%.
As the kids say, it sucks to be you, Europe.
Europe is familiar with the technology of cooled air. And it gets hot every summer on the continent. Still, they balk at allowing folks to air condition their homes and businesses.
Few Europeans have air conditioning because climate loons like Greta Thunberg have brainwashed the perspiring public into a belief that air conditioning is wasteful, immoral and contributes to climate change. Cool air, they say, is a symbol of greed and decadence.
In fact, GB News reports that some homeowners have been ordered to remove cooling units from their property:
Britons have been ordered to remove air conditioning from their homes - despite the country baking in up to 40C heat this week - under a fresh Net Zero crackdown.
Planning officials at councils have told residents to take down their cooling units over concerns about carbon dioxide emissions.
They say AC, despite the heat, should serve only as a "last resort".
The crackdown comes from building regulations which demand "active cooling" is used only after all "passive cooling" methods, like opening windows or running fans, have been exhausted.
The Tories have accused the Government of leaving Britain "in the dark ages" through Net Zero policies which prevent citizens from accessing "modern conveniences that are completely normal in other countries".
Never mind that the World Health Organization estimates that 175,000 Europeans die of heat-related problems every year.
By contrast, only about 44,000 Americans die by gunfire each year and 60% of those deaths are suicides. My point? You have a much better chance of dying of heat stroke in Europe on a summer vacay than you do of being shot to death in America any time of year.
According to the latest reports from the federal government, the average American household uses 40-60 million BTUs to heat their home in winter and 10-15 million BTUs to cool their home in summer.
In other words, it’s cheaper to air condition a home in the American South in summer than it is to heat a home in the frigid Northeast in winter.
It makes sense then to know that the migration of millions of Americans from the North to the South in recent years has no doubt reduced the amount of fossil fuel burned to keep our homes comfortable.
Take that, Europe!
As an estimated 3.7 million foreigners experience an American summer during this year’s World Cup, they are not only being dazzled by our free drink refills, Moon Pies and BBQ, they are experiencing the miracle of cool hotel rooms, restaurants and even entire stadiums.
Here’s my prediction: Once they’ve felt the refreshing deliciousness of refrigeration on a steamy day, European visitors will go home and demand not only ice in their drinks but ice in their air.
