Since heatwave season seems to be upon us again, this is just a reminder to international Tumblr that most European houses and some public spaces do not have air conditioning and are insulated to trap the heat against our cold winters, meaning that there is nowhere to escape hot weather and temperatures you may find laughably cool can be lethal over here.
Every year, people die in those 30-40C European heatwaves, and every year, non-Euro Tumblr treats this tragedy like a joke.
Please let’s stop doing that.
Okay, I just heard about this now, and I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but I am genuinely confused/curious: why don’t you guys have air conditioning? If it’s causing deaths and illness and stuff, why isn’t there a bigger focus on improving the availability of climate control?
Because:
- Too much expense for too little reward. We only need it for about two weeks of the year in total, it’s expensive to install and run, and nobody can be bothered because the heatwaves don’t last long enough to go through the faff.
- Ableism and ageism. It’s survivable, as long as you’re young and healthy and careful and don’t try to, you know, do anything.
Mostly #1, though.Why would you spend a few thousand pounds on an AC unit for one week of the year, which you can just about survive? It’s just not good return on the money.
Yeah, that makes sense, but still, shouldn’t there be some kind of precautions? Some kind of emergency air conditioning that you don’t keep on all the time? Like, you’d build levies around a big river in case it floods. You don’t just leave people in danger of drowning because it’s only rainy a few months of the year. If these heat waves are killing people, then they’re serious dangers. You can’t just let people die because it’s expensive. Either it’s a serious threat and it needs to be addressed, or its just unpleasant and needs some empathy. If people are in threat of dying, then to me it sounds like the former.
You’re overestimating the Tories, I’m afraid.
(Ironically, “just unpleasant and needs some empathy” could sum them up as well.)