France's Minister of Ecology, Barbute, vented frustration over air conditioning: "We agree that people shouldn't suffocate, but I'm shocked by those who tell me we just need to install air conditioners everywhere... Do you really think installing air conditioners everywhere will prevent forest fires or animal deaths? This isn't adaptation to global warming!"
Why do French and Europeans so strongly resist air conditioning?
The reasons are numerous—bureaucracy, poverty, and more.
But the main reason is decades of environmental campaigns convincing the public that "air conditioning is the devil." Brainwashing, in effect.
As a result, there's nowhere to escape the heat.
Most buses, subway lines, and shopping malls lack air conditioning. Schools close due to extreme heat.
French people demonize air conditioning because it emits carbon dioxide, exacerbates climate change, and so on.
Yet France already has one of the cleanest electricity grids in the world thanks to nuclear power—or it accounts for less than 1% of global emissions.
Some still oppose air conditioning, arguing it merely "transfers the problem" outdoors, dumping heat into the streets!
Yet research shows that even if every building in a city were equipped with air conditioning, the increase in outdoor temperatures would be negligible.
Instead, people would rather endure indoor heat than allow even a slight rise in outdoor temperature.
In Europe, between 50,000 and 70,000 people die annually from heat—mostly elderly and poor.
By comparison, around 44,000 Americans die from firearms each year.
Which threat is deadlier?
Opposition to air conditioning has become almost entirely detached from reality—a moral posturing. Europeans claim moral superiority by saying they don’t pollute.
They criticize America’s gun culture, yet tolerate policies that kill far more people.
Extreme heat is literally burning out Europeans’ minds.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1869232225890441/
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