Essentially, wherever AC gets rolled out, heat-related death plunges. Taking Barreca’s estimate and applying it to Europe suggests that as many as 100,000 European lives — 0.013% of the population — could be saved every year if the 80% of European households who don’t have AC were to get it.
Is the effect strong enough to show up in life expectancy tables? Average lifespan is already quite a bit longer in much of Western Europe than the US (https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1lih4a0/oc...) that it surprises me that this would push it even farther. Am I wrong to be skeptical?
For that matter, does it show up in differences between US states? Personally I've lived in 9 different states, 4 which are in the top ten for life expectancy, and I haven't had central air conditioning in any of them. Is this an anomaly? Is there any correlation between air conditioning use within the US and life expectancy?
I doubt it matters much to overall life expectancy, since the people effected most are the very elderly who will die soon anyway, if not from heat then from catching a sniffle or slipping in their shower. For young able bodied people to die from heat requires very extreme temperatures or a severe lapse in judgment.
I stayed in a house in Rome that kept out the fierce summer heat, because of thick walls. AC would be redundant. In other places, like Hong Kong, the thin walls of the apartments need AC to remain liveable in summer. I've read about the lack of shade in many built environments. Seen TV shows where someone builds floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows in a location that would be below 0 for much of the year. Unsustainable construction drives AC use and greenhouse gas emission that makes the problem worse.
You maybe stayed in that house in Rome but didn’t live in it. I grew up in a 100+ year old stone and mortar house with almost 1.5m thick walls and relatively good window insulation. The problem is the thermal capacity of those walls. When they heat up during a hot summer spell it’s like living in an oven. You cannot sleep most nights during the summer. Something similar happens in the winter too, if you go on a vacation. The house gets so cold you need couple of days to warm it up again. When my parents installed AC it was heaven during summer.
Glass windows can be surprisingly efficient insulators. Have you seen
multilayered argon-filled glazing? Or vacuum glazing? The best are as efficient as a triple-brick wall.
> I believe attitudes toward air-conditioning are class markers in many European countries. Air-conditioning is seen as prototypically American
Anecdotally, from the Europeans I know, this is true. When the topic comes up, I will mention that we almost universally have air conditioning here in Canada. (As we do.) After any initial surprise fades over AC in a country generally known for being cold a retort comes usually along the lines of "well you're practically Americans culturally anyway". That may be part of it, sure.
But I think it's mostly that electricity is cheap here, while it reaches almost 40 °C in summer.
Speaking of electricity, the article doesn't really mention energy costs. Here in Canada I don't know many who don't have AC because they don't like it philosophically, but I know some people who don't have one, or who don't use their AC as much as they would like, because they just can't afford it. And it's not the AC itself. It's the electricity. A window unit running on high will consume its weight in electricity in one summer, or sooner.
And that's at Canadian electricity prices, where we pay about 0.10 CAD (0.06 EUR / 0.07 USD) per kWh here. To run AC like Canadians do (often with central air to cool the entire home) could cost potentially thousands of dollars a year, if we paid German electric rates.
Air conditioning has long been very rare in homes in Vancouver, but that's been changing in the past decade after a series of summer heat waves and rising temperatures. It's become a problem as many landlords and stratas ban the installation or operation of air conditioners, especially in older buildings where the wiring wasn't intended to support air conditioning loads. This has led to recent court battles where renters try to fight the bans, and also resulted in British Columbia updating the building code to ensure that all new buildings have at least one climate-controlled room (although it can be passively cooled).
It’s the same story all along the west coast of the U.S.
There are high CoL areas with many rentals where up until 10 years ago the climate has been mild all summer. Seattle, Portland, SF, down to LA.
Landlords have no desire to update their properties. Why would they when the investment home they bought in 1980 for $70k is now worth 1.5M and bringing in $3000/mo in income? That’s just taking money out of their poor empty pockets.
There are many trending indicators I can see building up toward a big anti-capitalist movement and this kind of thing is top of mind. The utter disregard some landlords have toward the well being of their tenants…
It's because Europe has managed for the last, what, 30,000 years without AC even around the Med when "normal" temperatures reach 40C under the Sun in summer.
When AC appeared it was a luxury that became affordable so people could do "like Americans".
Now, serious heatwaves are become usual so this may change. But on the other hand, adequate architecture and practices may help, too. Even traditional ones vs "modern" overuse of glass, for example.
Living in the Med (Cyprus), I remember having ac all my life. I think the more heat waves become common the more air-conditioning will. It's just that it hasn't been necessary in central Europe until now.
We should have AC everywhere where night temperature is regularly over 20C part of the year. I get 30C some days almost every summer but almost never over room temp at night - meaning I can easily just open a window in the evening and the house is cool.
The only real problem with more widespread AC is it might lead to the short term win long term loss where people build cheaply (without _at least_ 300mm/1ft insulation and triple glass windows etc) and then spend continuously on heating and cooling instead. The simple solution to this in places where AC is banned: allow it only for well insulated buildings. Yes it’s where it’s least needed but it gives incentive to fix the root cause first.
The conversation has also moved on -- I have a heat pump (split unit) in my apartment, and my monthly power bill has always hovered around $40 in the summer here in WA.
Now, arguably the capex for a heat pump is substantial, and that's a valid point. Also WA summers are not that hot outside of a few really warm weeks (in the 90s).
All that said, the energy consumption (and thus costs) of running AC is much lower these days.
Heat pumps are to traditional A/Cs what LED lights are to incandescents.
In my cold(er) part of the world no one has a dedicated AC but lots of people have heat pumps for heating, which can be used as an AC during the (annoyingly few) hot days. But while their efficiency is great (3+ kW heat for 1kW electricity) I think most units are less efficient when used for cooling? Might be wrong though.
My electricity bill with heat pump heating (one exhaust heat pump and one split) and relatively cheap electricity is still pretty substantial. 25000 kWh per year for 150sqm/1600sq ft. Usually pay $0.30/kWh for power.
I chuckled. Here in Chennai we (speaking for my family and a few others, I didn't ask everyone) set the AC to 24C when we use it, and don't really use AC when it's "cool outside", which is like 26-28C.
Ceiling fans are on 24x7 though, even when the AC is running.
Dunno about all Europe, but I visited a few recently built apartments in Belgium lately and all of them have heat pumps, this is the only way one can get the A energy efficiency ratings.
Heat pumps work as aircos or heaters but are more efficient.
The article wants to cherry-pick to make it seem like no one in Europe is installing heat-pumps. My partner works in energy research and the prevailing advice seems to be ‘insulation first, remediation second’. That's it. We build much better houses, and the European South is installing more and more AC; but that's also where solar plays a bigger role.
Anecdata, but our A-rated apartment in Belgium rides heatwaves like it's nothing. We're on the last floor and in the corner of a building that gets sun from midday to sundown. A floor fan to move air around and that's it, the building's built-in ventilation and good insulation keep us going. It gets to 26C inside max, and that's after 2–3 weeks of outside temps above 32C (after the brick mass has absorbed too much heat that radiates inwards). In winter we barely need heating.
I have de warmtepomp and it doesn't really AC. It pumps the water through the floors (warm in winter, cold in summer) and cools the house down a few degrees, so when the outsides are 35C for a few days, it's enough to close the windows to have the house somewhere around 25 insides, but it doesn't really get it cold.
I had a proper split system AC before and it's a different thing entirely. Press a button and have a flow of freezing cold air in the face.
The problem with heat isn't only temperature, but in many places, it's the accompanying humidity. Heat and humidity are energy sapping and drains you of the ability to do highly focused intellectual work. You pay a price in productivity.
I was once working out of the corporate HQ of one of the largest multinational companies in Germany, and despite the modern buildings, the offices had no A/C and it was hot in the summer. Germans are against A/C for various reasons: (1) it's environmentally unfriendly; (2) it's only a few weeks in the summer; (3) Continuous cold air on skin is unhealthy. (4) You get used to it.
There are varying degrees of truth here, but for me, it didn't matter: I couldn't do intense focused work. That to me was too huge a cost.
Growing in Poland I'd say Eastern Europe was until recently too poor to afford AC, but also the climate was indeed less extreme just 30 years ago. Nowadays most new detached houses do have AC in at least one room (bedroom or living room) - mine included. Alternatively many new houses have heat pumps. Apartament blocks are less consistent in that matter, but there are interesting initiatives as well - like using combined-heat-and-power citywide heating installations for cooling (by pumping cold water through them).
Readit News
Is the effect strong enough to show up in life expectancy tables? Average lifespan is already quite a bit longer in much of Western Europe than the US (https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1lih4a0/oc...) that it surprises me that this would push it even farther. Am I wrong to be skeptical?
For that matter, does it show up in differences between US states? Personally I've lived in 9 different states, 4 which are in the top ten for life expectancy, and I haven't had central air conditioning in any of them. Is this an anomaly? Is there any correlation between air conditioning use within the US and life expectancy?
Guess what got installed in a lot of cabins this year by people I know in AK?
Air conditioning!
Doesn’t work when the overnight low is 20C
Anecdotally, from the Europeans I know, this is true. When the topic comes up, I will mention that we almost universally have air conditioning here in Canada. (As we do.) After any initial surprise fades over AC in a country generally known for being cold a retort comes usually along the lines of "well you're practically Americans culturally anyway". That may be part of it, sure.
But I think it's mostly that electricity is cheap here, while it reaches almost 40 °C in summer.
Speaking of electricity, the article doesn't really mention energy costs. Here in Canada I don't know many who don't have AC because they don't like it philosophically, but I know some people who don't have one, or who don't use their AC as much as they would like, because they just can't afford it. And it's not the AC itself. It's the electricity. A window unit running on high will consume its weight in electricity in one summer, or sooner.
And that's at Canadian electricity prices, where we pay about 0.10 CAD (0.06 EUR / 0.07 USD) per kWh here. To run AC like Canadians do (often with central air to cool the entire home) could cost potentially thousands of dollars a year, if we paid German electric rates.
There are high CoL areas with many rentals where up until 10 years ago the climate has been mild all summer. Seattle, Portland, SF, down to LA.
Landlords have no desire to update their properties. Why would they when the investment home they bought in 1980 for $70k is now worth 1.5M and bringing in $3000/mo in income? That’s just taking money out of their poor empty pockets.
There are many trending indicators I can see building up toward a big anti-capitalist movement and this kind of thing is top of mind. The utter disregard some landlords have toward the well being of their tenants…
When AC appeared it was a luxury that became affordable so people could do "like Americans".
Now, serious heatwaves are become usual so this may change. But on the other hand, adequate architecture and practices may help, too. Even traditional ones vs "modern" overuse of glass, for example.
Why do you think it's "because" of this?
Humans survived without computers for that long too... but I don't see anyone yelling to abolish them.
The only real problem with more widespread AC is it might lead to the short term win long term loss where people build cheaply (without _at least_ 300mm/1ft insulation and triple glass windows etc) and then spend continuously on heating and cooling instead. The simple solution to this in places where AC is banned: allow it only for well insulated buildings. Yes it’s where it’s least needed but it gives incentive to fix the root cause first.
Now, arguably the capex for a heat pump is substantial, and that's a valid point. Also WA summers are not that hot outside of a few really warm weeks (in the 90s).
All that said, the energy consumption (and thus costs) of running AC is much lower these days.
Heat pumps are to traditional A/Cs what LED lights are to incandescents.
My electricity bill with heat pump heating (one exhaust heat pump and one split) and relatively cheap electricity is still pretty substantial. 25000 kWh per year for 150sqm/1600sq ft. Usually pay $0.30/kWh for power.
I chuckled. Here in Chennai we (speaking for my family and a few others, I didn't ask everyone) set the AC to 24C when we use it, and don't really use AC when it's "cool outside", which is like 26-28C.
Ceiling fans are on 24x7 though, even when the AC is running.
A dew point temperature (~heat index, humidex) would be more meaningful than simple air temperature.
Your energy-score had to be below a certain limit (where 0 is neutral).
Now, we wanted to install AC, but that would actually bump our energy-score, because the idea is that if you need AC you didn't insulate enough.
Except... when you have such thick walls the house overheated starting mid-spring until mid-fall.
Heat pumps work as aircos or heaters but are more efficient.
Anecdata, but our A-rated apartment in Belgium rides heatwaves like it's nothing. We're on the last floor and in the corner of a building that gets sun from midday to sundown. A floor fan to move air around and that's it, the building's built-in ventilation and good insulation keep us going. It gets to 26C inside max, and that's after 2–3 weeks of outside temps above 32C (after the brick mass has absorbed too much heat that radiates inwards). In winter we barely need heating.
In France, tax credits were denied for air-to-air heat pumps that could also cool (which they all can).
I had a proper split system AC before and it's a different thing entirely. Press a button and have a flow of freezing cold air in the face.
I was once working out of the corporate HQ of one of the largest multinational companies in Germany, and despite the modern buildings, the offices had no A/C and it was hot in the summer. Germans are against A/C for various reasons: (1) it's environmentally unfriendly; (2) it's only a few weeks in the summer; (3) Continuous cold air on skin is unhealthy. (4) You get used to it.
There are varying degrees of truth here, but for me, it didn't matter: I couldn't do intense focused work. That to me was too huge a cost.
Today it was 19/10 degrees Celsius (68/50 F) in Warsaw. With these temperatures you could only use AC to warm your home.
I understand there are more hot days in Poland now, but it makes no economic sense to spend $1-2k on AC and only turn it on 15 times a year.