You are correct in parts. But your conclusions, as sadly so many do these days, seem based more on framing every argument as a culture war instead of what it is, a historical oddity. Most European hearing systems are 'wet' i.e.pipes filled with water heated by a boiler or similar. These systems are not convertible to air sourced systems and therefore require secondary systems installing, often retrospectively into old buildings. This is extremely expensive. It was not state actors that prevented this happening iver the last century, but simple economic realities linked to cultural norms. Those cultural norms saw people adjust their lives, in the hotter parts of Europe, to a pattern of living where people rest at midday and early afternoon, with work and play staring early and extending into the evening. The idea that air con wasn't i stalled through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s etc because of objections from the left is quite frankly one for the birds. Cost and cultural adaptation to a more benign climate. With the climate changing the argument has shifted, I'll agree that the left needs to accept the reality of this, but causatively it is irrelevant. A more sensible solution I'd to embrace air based systems that cool and heat, that way electrification continues and people get air con. The French left needs better advice and argument, but the independent commentators need to not automatically accept the rights framing for expediency.
Fair pushback, and you're right about the higher costs of retrofitting in older building, which is also something I acknowledge in the piece. Crucially though, this says nothing about why cooling is so often restricted by law.
And, btw, I'm not claiming the left stalled AC since the 1950s. What I'm describing is today's post-materialist left and their confused thinking on the issue, which I'd wager even the old materialist left would find as outrageous as you would.
Yes, but Im getting to late middle age and so find most things outrage me these days. Its not a metric I'd endorse for any purpose other than alleviating my own sense of frustration with the world!
Mea cuppa on the 1950s comment. I should have been more careful in my wording. The point remains relevant in considering how we got here. I tend to the view that the let's reflexive 'non' is unhelpful, but the rights offer of a massive spending uplift is 'dishonest'.
Though the pragmatism in me says that if it see's proper state led investment in decarbonising heating and cooling of people's homes and can be targeted at low income households then I think we may be at a good point to resolve a lot of disputes. We just need to get past throwing brick bats and see some smart negotiations... it's going to be hard for the right to scale back this position so the left should embrace it and use it.
I agree it has less to do with politics but Europeans, on the bluntest of averages, do dislike AC for these reasons, and are shocked when they go to the U.S.
However, a lot of people have ACs. It's non non-existent
I think you are correct. I think if you check the data you will find that more people die from heat than from cold. A good source I think is Our World In Data. Bjorn Lomborg has also written about this several times I seem to recall. See The Skeptical Environmentalist. If people are worried bout air conditioners creating CO2, then why not a policy of installing solar panels on the roofs of all buildings and other places? In Australia in some places electricity is virtually free because of that.
What Thomas said. Also there are remarkable parallels between European attitudes towards AC and increasingly common American attitudes to data centers. Some of the same arguments are deployed - both are accused of causing global warming through electricity use, wasting water, and causing LOCAL warming through urban heat island effects. The latter two arguments I think are largely bogus but people believe them anyway.
I wasn't able to get past the paywall, so I don't know if you pointed out that the far right is now uniformly opposed to the policies that would make AC sustainable - decarbonizing the electricity grid. They generally want to double down on fossil fuels. They do not seem worried about the fact that most of the expertise on greentech is accruing in China. The RN and other continental parties want to import gas from Russia, which would only worsen Europe's trade balance. The UK right wants to drill in the North Sea and abandon efforts to build more wind or solar, just handwaving away the fact that the North Sea doesn't have enough oil or gas left to meet the UK's needs.
Moreover, I suspect your clickbait-friendly impulse to say "the far right is right" leaves out one of their core contradictions - the best way to cool European homes is to replace gas boilers with electric heat pumps. Because heat pumps can double as AC in the summer, while boilers can't. And yet the far right has always opposed heat pump subsidies.
Good points on the data centers and the heat pumps. Since you couldn't get past the paywall: the piece doesn't actually defend the right's energy agenda or pretend they're right about everything. It makes the narrower point that on cooling itself in this particular moment the populists have the saner position, while the post-materialist left has talked itself into treating AC as a vice due to degrowth thinking. The question is, of course, where all the supposedly sane mainstream parties are.
You are correct in parts. But your conclusions, as sadly so many do these days, seem based more on framing every argument as a culture war instead of what it is, a historical oddity. Most European hearing systems are 'wet' i.e.pipes filled with water heated by a boiler or similar. These systems are not convertible to air sourced systems and therefore require secondary systems installing, often retrospectively into old buildings. This is extremely expensive. It was not state actors that prevented this happening iver the last century, but simple economic realities linked to cultural norms. Those cultural norms saw people adjust their lives, in the hotter parts of Europe, to a pattern of living where people rest at midday and early afternoon, with work and play staring early and extending into the evening. The idea that air con wasn't i stalled through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s etc because of objections from the left is quite frankly one for the birds. Cost and cultural adaptation to a more benign climate. With the climate changing the argument has shifted, I'll agree that the left needs to accept the reality of this, but causatively it is irrelevant. A more sensible solution I'd to embrace air based systems that cool and heat, that way electrification continues and people get air con. The French left needs better advice and argument, but the independent commentators need to not automatically accept the rights framing for expediency.
Fair pushback, and you're right about the higher costs of retrofitting in older building, which is also something I acknowledge in the piece. Crucially though, this says nothing about why cooling is so often restricted by law.
And, btw, I'm not claiming the left stalled AC since the 1950s. What I'm describing is today's post-materialist left and their confused thinking on the issue, which I'd wager even the old materialist left would find as outrageous as you would.
Yes, but Im getting to late middle age and so find most things outrage me these days. Its not a metric I'd endorse for any purpose other than alleviating my own sense of frustration with the world!
Mea cuppa on the 1950s comment. I should have been more careful in my wording. The point remains relevant in considering how we got here. I tend to the view that the let's reflexive 'non' is unhelpful, but the rights offer of a massive spending uplift is 'dishonest'.
Though the pragmatism in me says that if it see's proper state led investment in decarbonising heating and cooling of people's homes and can be targeted at low income households then I think we may be at a good point to resolve a lot of disputes. We just need to get past throwing brick bats and see some smart negotiations... it's going to be hard for the right to scale back this position so the left should embrace it and use it.
I agree it has less to do with politics but Europeans, on the bluntest of averages, do dislike AC for these reasons, and are shocked when they go to the U.S.
However, a lot of people have ACs. It's non non-existent
I think you are correct. I think if you check the data you will find that more people die from heat than from cold. A good source I think is Our World In Data. Bjorn Lomborg has also written about this several times I seem to recall. See The Skeptical Environmentalist. If people are worried bout air conditioners creating CO2, then why not a policy of installing solar panels on the roofs of all buildings and other places? In Australia in some places electricity is virtually free because of that.
What Thomas said. Also there are remarkable parallels between European attitudes towards AC and increasingly common American attitudes to data centers. Some of the same arguments are deployed - both are accused of causing global warming through electricity use, wasting water, and causing LOCAL warming through urban heat island effects. The latter two arguments I think are largely bogus but people believe them anyway.
I wasn't able to get past the paywall, so I don't know if you pointed out that the far right is now uniformly opposed to the policies that would make AC sustainable - decarbonizing the electricity grid. They generally want to double down on fossil fuels. They do not seem worried about the fact that most of the expertise on greentech is accruing in China. The RN and other continental parties want to import gas from Russia, which would only worsen Europe's trade balance. The UK right wants to drill in the North Sea and abandon efforts to build more wind or solar, just handwaving away the fact that the North Sea doesn't have enough oil or gas left to meet the UK's needs.
Moreover, I suspect your clickbait-friendly impulse to say "the far right is right" leaves out one of their core contradictions - the best way to cool European homes is to replace gas boilers with electric heat pumps. Because heat pumps can double as AC in the summer, while boilers can't. And yet the far right has always opposed heat pump subsidies.
Good points on the data centers and the heat pumps. Since you couldn't get past the paywall: the piece doesn't actually defend the right's energy agenda or pretend they're right about everything. It makes the narrower point that on cooling itself in this particular moment the populists have the saner position, while the post-materialist left has talked itself into treating AC as a vice due to degrowth thinking. The question is, of course, where all the supposedly sane mainstream parties are.