{"id":3740,"date":"2026-07-05T13:08:43","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T13:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=3740"},"modified":"2026-07-05T13:08:43","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T13:08:43","slug":"america-learned-long-ago-that-air-conditioning-saves-lives-why-does-europe-remain-so-stubborn-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=3740","title":{"rendered":"America learned long ago that air-conditioning saves lives. Why does Europe remain so stubborn about it?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

During his inaugural speech on Jan. 1, Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared, \u201cWe will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Married Australian PM Anthony Albanese says he\u2019d have sex with Kylie Minogue in wild podcast interview<\/a><\/p>\n

It certainly feels warm these days.<\/p>\n

As temperatures climbed during the heat wave that blanketed much of the eastern United States, the mayor took to social media with a familiar message from the government. \u201cNew York: it\u2019s hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool,\u201d he tweeted. \u201cSet your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights\/electronics you\u2019re not using, and unplug what you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the real face of the political left: Individual comfort and convenience should be subordinated to collective priorities, with government officials deciding how much energy ordinary people ought to consume.<\/p>\n

Over the pond in Europe, we are seeing the effects of that warm glow of collectivism in full force. Decades of climate policy, energy restrictions and cultural hostility toward air conditioning have left millions of Europeans sweltering without one of the greatest public health innovations of the modern age.<\/p>\n

They are trying to stay cool with fire trucks spraying water in public squares and parks. Even hospitals and the homes of medically fragile individuals are overheating.<\/p>\n

In a Wall Street Journal\u00a0report\u00a0on the continent\u2019s heat wave, the paper introduced Luca Funaro, a 32-year-old Parisian with a rare genetic illness who relies on both a wheelchair and a ventilator. Despite his condition, his neighbors have spent two years blocking his request to install an air-conditioning unit in his apartment courtyard because they say it would be too loud. His family has spent thousands of dollars fighting them in court while he endures record-breaking heat.<\/p>\n

It is hard to imagine a clearer illustration of the cruelty of collectivism in practice.<\/p>\n

A healthy group of neighbors has decided that one disabled man\u2019s ability to breathe comfortably matters less than preserving their preferred aesthetic and soundscape. They insist they are acting for the common good. The person who bears the greatest burden is the one least capable of bearing it.<\/p>\n

And the price is being counted in bodies.<\/p>\n

The only reliably cool buildings in parts of Paris are its morgues. Funeral homes and mortuaries in and around the French capital have been\u00a0overwhelmed in recent weeks, with some running out of refrigerated space for the dead. France recorded roughly 1,000 excess deaths during the peak of the heat wave, most of them among the elderly.<\/p>\n

This is the absurdity of Europe\u2019s climate regime. After spending fortunes on emissions targets, regulations and green-energy schemes, officials are still reduced to medieval improvisation when the weather turns dangerous: Spray water in the square and hope the old people make it through the night.<\/p>\n

Ironically, many American progressives openly aspire to recreate Europe\u2019s model.<\/p>\n

Sen. Bernie Sanders responded to the heat wave by tweeting, \u201cEurope is suffering through its worst heat wave in recorded history. This week, 3 dozen US states will likely see record-breaking temperatures. No, Mr. Trump. Climate change is not a \u2018hoax.\u2019 We must stop fossil fuel industry greed and save the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The Beatles song Paul McCartney performed at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce\u2019s wedding revealed<\/a><\/p>\n

Sanders is right about one thing. Europe offers an important lesson. Just not the one he intends.<\/p>\n

The lesson is that wealthy societies survive climate extremes by adapting to them. Americans adapted to hot summers with widespread air conditioning, modern electrical grids, affordable energy and buildings designed to keep people alive when temperatures soar.<\/p>\n

Europe chose a different path.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is something almost perversely petty about these policies.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0MIT, heating buildings contributes significantly more to greenhouse gas emissions than cooling them. Yet no serious European politician is proposing that families give up artificial heat in January.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Americans shouldn\u2019t be too smug, though. We have our own version of climate dogma.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The very reason New York City\u2019s electrical grid is straining under the weight of millions of air conditioners is because Democrats spent years crusading to shutter the Indian Point nuclear power plant, finally succeeding in 2020 and 2021. Indian Point supplied roughly a quarter of New York City\u2019s electricity without emitting carbon dioxide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t replaced by windmills or solar panels. It was replaced almost one-for-one by natural gas. New York lost one of the cleanest, most reliable sources of electricity it had just as electrification became the centerpiece of the state\u2019s climate agenda.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The result is almost comical: Politicians lecture New Yorkers to conserve electricity during heat waves because they eliminated the carbon-free power plant that helped make abundant electricity possible in the first place.<\/p>\n

This is not science. It is ideology.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

And like most ideological projects, it comes wrapped in paternalism. Ordinary people cannot be trusted to decide what they need.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Europe\u2019s leaders prefer to congratulate themselves on their moral superiority. But there is nothing virtuous about a policy regime that makes people less able to survive the world as it actually exists.<\/p>\n

At this rate, they may kill more people in the name of fighting climate change than climate change would kill in societies allowed to adapt to it.<\/p>\n

Read more NYPD detective shot in Brooklyn, teen suspect in custody: cops, sources<\/a><\/p>\n

That is the warm glow of collectivism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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