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If Europe has started experiencing over 40°C heatwaves frequently, then this planet really is fucked
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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Yep, and Americans answering with "we're ok because we have AC" is a Don't Look Up moment
I sure hope their electricity grid can handle it when everyone turns on the AC and data centers also start pulling extra because it's so hot.
Even in the U.S., we use a lot more energy heating homes than cooling homes. Around 43% of our total in-home energy usage is on heating, and about 8% is on cooling.
Heat waves don't cause nearly as big of a strain on our grid as winter storms, because AC doesn't consume as much energy as even our efficient heat pumps in the winter.
That's because a heat pump that can lower the temperature by 10°-15°C is really all you need in the hottest part of the summer, whereas in the winter raising the temperature 25°C isn't uncommon.
At least in my country (Netherlands) the neoliberals have decided every single fucking thing needs to turn a consistent profit and the company who handles the grid is only allowed to upgrade when there is "utility and necessity" which in essence means any time they want to upgrade in anticipation of future demand everyone involved drags their feet.
The result of that policy is that now there is a ridiculous waiting list for commercial grid connections and there are plans to also restrict new high capacity residential connections. For a country that has been run by businessmen for the past 20 years we sure seem to have an awful lack of long-term vision.
Don't even get me started on the attitude that people here have towards A/C. We don't live in a country that's only hot for 1 week a year anymore but lots of ppl just won't accept that. I guess it's climate coping/denial combined with wanting to feel superior to Americans.
We will be cooked (literally)
EDIT: I just remembered that yesterday they unexpectedly had to cut power to 10000 homes for 14 minutes and it wasn't even a hot day.
Business men are myopic and not strategic for 30 years into the future? I am so shocked! 🙀 😲
They optimized their profit, just not yours you gotta understand. I.e the money is not gone it's just somewhere else.
It's crazy to me because surely you would be extracting more wealth from working people (and raising the blessed holy statistic known as GDP) with a grid that actually works and can take on new customers. I know they're evil but I guess they're also just stupid.
Take my upvote. I too fail to see how "make something work well, get more money" isn't the obvious default choice for businesses
Because making it work well costs more than making it work barely, and those costs are ultimately profits not being paid to shareholders now.
Those making the decisions get paid their bonuses based on the now, not the maybe, in the future.
It's really that simple.
Its like they only know the R in ROI. This short term thinking is the main driver of enshittification I think.
First they underprice anyone to dominate the market and end up as the only one left. They do this on borrowed money and then they need to monetize. That's the R, the rest is other people's money who cares.
Stuff like infrastructure should most of the time not be privatized and remain in state hands.
As a business you just need to outbid your opponent for the electric grid or whatever. Then you do the bare minimum to say you delivered within budget etc. People are sheep and won't notice until they are sitting in the dark.
The company that had a realistic cost in their offer was probably not picked.
Well thats why, why would they ? why would voters elect them
Lots of temporarily embarassed millionaires + red scare propaganda still carved into people's minds
It's definitely not ok, but when treating the root cause will take decades if not centuries (which we absolutely should still do), perhaps it makes sense to look into treating the symptoms as well
To my knowledge a lot of ACs can't even operate at those temperatures, or only in a degraded fashion. The optimal maximum outside temperature of mine apparently is 35°C. After that the radiator can't get rid of the heat fast enough to have the inside unit work at full capacity.
There are genius ways to build homes that get cooled down even without electricity. See the "earthship" design for example, routing fresh air through pipes in the ground where it cools down, going through the home as the hot air gets sucked out by a "thermal chimmey" (literally creates airflow by using the sun). If we combined that with good insulation to avoid the sun heating up walls and windows we'd have liveable temperatures inside even at 50°C outside. But western countries not even remotely progressive enough for such a radical but necessary structural shift, so even right now we keep building houses designed to trap heat.
We're gonna end up having to go with geothermal heat pumps instead of radiators trying to dump heat in +40C air. this guy modified a window unit and was surprised at how well it did. Results @49 minutes. We should also be tripling our insulation requirements to cover the next 50 to 100 years.
Just realize the hole he dug is probably the bare minimum to handle the heat load from the smallest window AC. It takes a lot of digging to cool a real AC unit. And European homes aren't known for have large yards.
You can dig straight down, and run the ground loop vertically, but it's surprisingly expensive to dig the hole. Like 15-40k expensive.
I gotta say I understand the cost. Dig a full size grave by hand some time. It's freakin exhausting. And sure, an excavator can do it in minutes, but that means you're paying for time on a very expensive machine.
Most of downtown Toronto has been cooled by deep lake water in Lake Ontario since 2004. Cuts electricity use by 75%.
Generic residential units are designed to move heat in the ranges they are operated under. Desert units exist that could work in much hotter conditions. Systems can be made to cool way up past 50°C.
But cooling the inside of a house/car is way different than trying to farm crops/animals in that heat.
Solar panels and air con are a good short-term solution for the symptoms
And by short-term I mean my whole life
That would make the oil lobby sad though
Why? Won't they just get to sell more fossil fuels to meet the electricity demand while politicians endlessly drag their feet on cheaper, renewable alternatives?
EDIT: Oh you mean treating the root cause, yeah true
where are these americans saying "we're ok because we have AC"?
Mostly MAGA looking to literally die on that hill, (or expect thier grandchildren to)
I spent three hours convincing a couple MAGAs on nextdoor that global warming is real and we've known for nearly 100 years. Had to go into remedial science mode and explain why greenhouse gasses trap heat in, complete with videos showing CO2 experiments like they do in high school. One guy begrudgingly agreed but the second guy was shook. I think he started coming to terms with the fact he's blindly believed lies and started questioning other "truths".
There may be hope, but he might've just turned Fox on after and stuck his head back into the sand.
Easier to start with the plain truth, something you can see with your own eyes, and work your way to the subtler arguments.
https://archive.org/details/earth_not_a_globe_review_1893-1897_201804/mode/1up
Changing worldviews is hard.
I was raised on a steady diet of fox news. When I finally became traveled enough to realize it was bullshit, I had to come to dozens of separate now seemingly obvious conclusions before i had a half-decent picture. Even CNN, ABC, CBS have their own stuff to sell. The media is a business, and it sells.
I was raised on Fox as well, was even a founding member of my schools young conservative club. Global warming was actually one of the topics that broke me free of that bullshit mindset. I told a few friends global warming was bullshit and they were like "bro you're dumb, here's how we know it's real." I understood enough science to get it was happening as well as the implications. That got me questioning everything the news said, which had me coming to those same realizations you did.
It's been the defining sentiment to the story when discussed in the US. The GOP has taken to the rhetoric of comparing heat deaths in Europe to gun deaths in US, as in Europe is being far more irresponsible not installing AC than US is not controlling guns (their words).
All over the frontpage last week. https://lemmy.today/post/55740469
It was so hot last week, I had to move my fucking pepper pants inside.
losing a chunk of the growing season is going to go poorly in the near term
That’s some spicy legwear!
LOL Typo, but I do in fact own some pepper pj's !
For hot nights!
Anyone who says that doesnt understand our government hasnt modernized our electric grids at all. They cannot handle these ac demands and the ai datacenters they’re forcing down everyones throats.
The only ones saying that are the ones thinking beach weather in the Chicago winter will somehow be a good thing.
They’re idiots.
Not this american. Ive been screaming my head off about how the machery our society runs on is all designed to run in a specific temperature range, and we are nearing the upper edge of that range now.
Most residential air conditioners can only manage a split of 30°F. That means if its 110 outside, your AC will struggle to keep the inside temp colder than 80°F. Sure, there are solutions for this. But they arent being implemented becsuse that is a problem for next quarter.
yeah, its the new form of climate denial
https://theconversation.com/the-new-climate-denial-using-wealth-to-insulate-yourself-from-discomfort-and-change-199101