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You should compare the average carbon footprint in the US with the EU before making these kind of comments.
But I guess that's for right-wingers. Enjoy losing more people to heat than the US does to gun violence
I'll leave it to you to work out why that comparison doesn't hold.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4d2vv935lo
> In a post on X, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said more than 1,300 excess deaths had been recorded since 21 June "linked to high temperatures in Europe".
> On Sunday morning, France's national health ministry said there had been around 1,000 more deaths than expected in the country since Wednesday.
https://www.dw.com/en/heat-wave-european-countries-report-37...
> At least 3,700 excess deaths have been recorded in France, Belgium and the Netherlands alone as a result of the June heat wave that sent temperatures soaring above 40°C (104°F).
Just stop. A lack of European AC is making a negligible difference at best in the fight against climate change and it's killing your people. The models aren't that wrong.
Your solution is to put AC all over Europe. That won't work because our buildings are not made for AC, the amount of retrofitting required would be insane and it probably wouldn't have a significant impact on excess deaths. Counties like France and Germany have a higher percentage of elderly relative to the USA. These people will be contributing massively to the excess deaths. Your AC solution is not going to be in place fast enough for them.
And the world is getting warmer. More than 90 private jets flew into Italy for Jeff Bezos's wedding, and collectively emitted more carbon for that one wedding than either of us will in our lifetimes. Europe is going to get more deadly heat waves regardless of what any of us here on the ground floor would like. So mass install AC or let the death toll rise further, those are your options.
If you get hit by a truck while infected with COVID-19 you died because you were hit by a truck. I'm not sure how you would do it any other way.
That was even technically correct -- the worst kind of correct. Of course, you could have had Covid but died of a heart attack. But then they made the leap to saying "hence we don't know if Covid even is very deadly", and at this point it was just pure denialism.
Coming back to the heatwave. We know that heat contributes to dangerous health conditions. We know there are excess deaths every time the mercury crosses some threshold. Yes, some of these excess deaths could have been unrelated to the heat. No, this doesn't mean that the stats we have are totally BS.
I don't know how it's become such a culture war gotcha.
Yes, I have AC myself and yes, it makes things more bearable.
But it won't refill our rivers, it won't make the outside livable, it won't regrow our crops, it won't refreeze the glaciers and poles, it won't unburn the forests. In short, it won't be able to provide the conditions required for human survival.
To do that, we can't avoid fixing the root cause. Every time we have a conversation about the effects of climate change, somebody derails it with "but AC!"...
Its not constructive or helpful.
And lest anyone mistakes this concern for saving lives for humanitarian concern, this same kind of reasoning makes their answer to a refugee crisis "build a wall". It's all just knee-jerk reaction to first-order effects.
Realistically, what else can be done to deal with the impact of climate change right now? Addressing the root cause would be great, but it's not going to move the needle for people suffering today.
https://www.franceinfo.fr/environnement/energie/nucleaire/de...
https://www.franceinfo.fr/environnement/energie/nucleaire/tr...
https://www.rts.ch/info/environnement/2026/article/secheress...
https://www.rts.ch/info/environnement/2026/article/secheress...
https://www.rts.ch/info/regions/fribourg/2026/article/secher...
https://www.rts.ch/info/regions/fribourg/2026/article/secher...
https://www.rts.ch/info/environnement/2026/article/secheress...