It doesn't make sense to have AC preparedness when it's only used for 1 week out of a year.

Also the environmental impact of everyone having an AC, that's not good.

In France and the UK hardly any has an AC because it's not really needed. Your suggestion is that they spend billions of dollars for this? Who buys everyone the AC?

I lived in PNG which is near the equator and hot. It's not the temperature that's the true problem, but humidity. We stayed cool by using the fan, resting, removing clothing, swimming.

By that logic, it doesn’t make sense to fit a building with a sprinkler system when it’s only used for one hour out of a century.

The question should be whether AC would be used much, but whether it has a net benefit. And yes, the environmental impact should be taken into account.

To me, that depends (a.o.) on whether those 1,500 excess deaths get ‘compensated’ by lower death rates just after the heat wave (which would mean many of those who died lost ‘only’ a few weeks)

Many areas around the world have storm shelters or bomb shelters.

Perhaps laws requiring community centers also function as temperature extreme shelters could be instated.

The laws would have to also provide funding to install and maintain AC and Heating systems suitable for the population around that area.

Additionally, if a business doesn't have AC or heating during extreme temperature alerts, it should close for the safety of the workers.

It seems increasingly needed now, and is one of many profit externalities to the fossil fuel companies costing everybody else money. The fairest, and market leveraging way would be to make them pay for this.

Shell and EXON buying everyone in France an AC unit so everyone can keep driving cars around is one of the most dystopian ideas I have considered in some time.

It's not even to keep people driving cars. It's just the new normal. Even if we stopped driving today we're still going to bake Paris in the summer. The damage is already done. Think of it more like a fine for destroying the environment.

A more reasonable shortish term solution is to air condition large communal buildings and allow people to camp out overnight when the temperatures become inhospitable.

Why are cars relevant here? Weren't most of the people who died from this elderly anyway, less likely to be driving?

I think the most dystopian idea would be Exxon not paying for their crimes against humanity, but rather allowed to continue lying to the public about climate change, lobbying governments to reduce their penalties.

If you phrase it as "fossil fuel companies should pay large amounts in taxes and the government should use those taxes to help mitigate the effects of climate change" it changes from dystopian to socialism without missing a beat.

> It doesn't make sense to have AC preparedness when it's only used for 1 week out of a year.

If that one week a year can kill people, still think it doesn't make sense?

Air conditioning is better for the environment than heating - if the alternative is living somewhere with cooler summers and colder winters, AC saves energy.

Does it make sense for residents in area where hurricanes occur to keep a generator in their garage?

> In France and the UK hardly any has an AC because it's not really needed

Thousands of people just died. It is clearly needed.

The people of France aren't ignorant. They have just acclimated to a climate that is rapidly getting hotter.

It would be patronizing if French people offered basic advice on not building on floodplains and storm preparation after Harvey. People just plan based on their prior experiences.

Im from Belgium and like France we are completely unprepared when it comes to these summers.

The Texas model offers some good ideas to think about. Why must you get so offended, I didn’t.

My perspective is I'm much more concerned that France has to take US Gulf Coast level climate management steps in the first place. I think all the advice is good, but I don't think the problem is lack of knowledge but rather denial that the climate crisis is as bad as it is. I am not offended, sorry to both of you if it came off that way.

Ah so it's the fault of the US for France's heatwave?

If it's related to climate change, then definitely yes.

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis...

US responsible for about a quarter of cumulative CO2 emissions, and has been #1 since about 1911.

China is emitting more now, but cumulative emissions are only half as much.

And France has done its best to invest in nuclear power.

No they go on holiday in august - the last time this happened it was mostly older people who stayed behind in the city who died.

The use of AC in France is also quite foreign. None person in my family use one, despite them living all over the country. But go to the states or to India, and there is AC everywhere.

When I grew up in India AC was actually almost nonexistent (except for very rich people and some offices). Instead there were lots of trees, high-velocity ceiling fans, and ventilation (which is important when there's no electricity). Heatstroke/sunstroke outdoors was known, but deaths from hot conditions indoors were rare.

Today, there's fewer trees and a lot more AC. It's ironic because AC (especially inefficient window units) contributes to global warming in a big way.

There will probably be a period of adjustment here in San Francisco, CA, too. My apartment does not have an air conditioner, and neither do many (most?) other SF apartments. If people start dropping dead because of the heat here, I have no idea what the city could/would do to address that situation.

Being on the Pacific will moderate the chances of that; and give you somewhere to chill.

More EU major cities are in-land than US (something about war after war), so there’s less ability to cool off.

And less moderating circulating waters.

>People just plan based on their prior experiences.

That’s... pretty much the definition of ignorant. Being ignorant isn’t bad and being able to recognize what you’re ignorant of it much more important than “not being ignorant”.

And all Texas cities basically shut down with any amount of snow or ice. Imagine if there was a blizzard in Houston and some yank was like, “where are their snow plows, snow chains, heavy jackets, insulated pipes, etc?”

If 1500 people died from a blizzard, it would be a reasonable response to suggest that those kind of things would be a good idea.

if 1500 people died from a sustained blizzard lasting a decidedly "abnormal" period of time would be a better equivalency. It's not like someone just turned the heat lamp on France for a day and zapped 1500 people and then turned it off. People are much better equipped to quickly respond to a catastrophic event. They're less prepared for a sustained shift of their fundamental way of experiencing life.

This is true.

Texas for the most part is not prepared for blizzards or icy conditions. We do not have winter tires, we do not carry snow shovels. There are no snowplows that I have ever seen or heard of. We close schools after 1 to 2 inches of snow, and we put sand on roads.

Most people have heavy coats/jackets, but rarely ever wear them. But despite our under-preparedness, not many people die from cold weather in Texas.

This data is a bit old(2003-2008), but is illustrative.

https://www.dshs.texas.gov/chs/vstat/Hotcolddths/hotcolddths...

Arguably, the yearly flu death are related the the winter month weather. People dying from that every year are about factor 10 more then the summer heat deaths.

> * “where are their snow plows, snow chains, heavy jackets, insulated pipes, etc?”*

I live in Houston. When it snows here we will sometimes see sand trucks driving around. They come down from North.

You can't just truck in AC though so I think your example is like comparing apples to oranges.

In France it's very very uncommon to have AC.

Its not just France, its an issue across northern/western Europe. Combine that with the difficulty of getting a proper AC installed in a rented house/apartment with normal stone walls and it explains the current lack of AC units. Most landlord will immediately be scared for the buildings substance. The few AC units that you see are those "mobile" devices with a single tube hanging out of a window. Even window units are a rare occasion because of the kind of windows installed across the country. Not to mention regulations stopping renters from changing the outer appearance of the house. I really dont see a viable plan to retrofit living spaces in a reasonable time frame. At this point i would even be doubtful, that there would be enough people capable of doing the job available.

An often overlooked point is also the situation in workplaces, some parts of Europe simply lack the worker protection needed during heatwaves.

I honestly dont see how most countries in Europe could retrofit buildings to a detectable degree, let alone finance it. There are just to many older buildings build for another kind of climate. Providing air conditioned shelters during the weeks of deadly heat sounds like the most realistic option. That would be similar to what is being done in winter to prevent people from freezing to death.

Many supermarkets have AC (here in the Netherlands), and I seriously considered camping out in one for a bit during the heat a few weeks ago...

You have to understand that my apparent is older than Dallas, Installing AC would be very complicated and expensive. Adapting buildings to the changing climate will take time, rushing it could be disastrous to old buildings.

Mandatory AC is not the solution but many other solutions are being deployed. The first massive heatwave happened in 2003, it wasn't as hot as this summer but took us by surprise and caused over 15,000 death in France, around 70,000 in Europe. Compare this to 1,500 death in the record breaking heatwave of this summer.

Maybe more appropriate topic of discussion should be how climate change affects the people of France and what can be done about it, instead of chastising them for not having Dallas housing codes.

Heck, cut right to the chase and ask how occasional high peak summer temperatures kill people and what to do about it. An old lady keeling over in an apartment isn't helped a bit by internet climate change wars.

Given the super low price of smaller window A/C units, you'd think they'd install a few more of those, maybe it's impractical for some reason. Looking at a chart showing summer highs in Paris since 1900, it would be interesting to look at a newspaper from 1948 and see what happened (the chart shows a roughly 1 C upwards change since 1900 on average, but the last couple of years are outliers similar to a few earlier heatwaves).

I've always wondered what would happen if the power went off for a day or two in Phoenix in August.

>I've always wondered what would happen if the power went off for a day or two in Phoenix in August.

The same as the power going off in Minneapolis in the middle of January. It’s treated as a crisis by the utility.

>Given the super low price of smaller window A/C units, you'd think they'd install a few more of those, maybe it's impractical for some reason.

In Europe you generally have another kind of window, which you tilt.

https://www.bew24-fenster.de/media/catalog/category/Kat_Kuns...

https://www.plejadium.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/kippfens...

Given the construction, you cant conveniently seal an AC in there. Due to the houses being made from stone, you cant easily replace the type of windows. People also generally rent in the cities, so you would have to convince your landlord to let you screw with his outer wall, which is a big no no. Some countries like Germany also dont allow renters to change the outer appearance of a house. This mostly means no satellite dishes hung out of the window, but also no bulky ACs.

> Maybe more appropriate topic of discussion should be how climate change affects the people of France and what can be done about it

That's what Zadkey was doing, though.

Not constructively. Zadkey essentially derided France for being unprepared for a situation for which they had no true context. If you take no issue with Zadkey's comment, then I'd assume you have no issue with the Harvey response.

They're a bit blunt, maybe, but I don't see any derision. They described factually how Texas prepares for their summer heat, and expressed hope that France can do the same now that their climate is changing.