Archives for July 24th, 2007

Europe’s climate in 2071: Get ready to feel the heat. (Click for original)

I don’t know about you guys, but I spent most of last week repeatedly having my face melt off like that Nazi dude at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was wicked hot. But then, that wasn’t really the problem. It may have been hotter than cinnamon balls outside, but the real problem is that here you actually feel it.

I grew up in New Orleans, and have lived in places like Atlanta, Savannah, Houston and Memphis. These are cities that get seriously hot. But I was never in agony thanks to the glories of near-universal air conditioning. Not only that: Our house in New Orleans also came equipped with ceiling fans in every room, and since no one there is scared of drafts, you could actually turn them on and cool down. Basically, the only time you would feel the heat was when you stepped out of your car somewhere and walked into a building.

But it seems that in large swathes of Europe, there’s widespread hostility to air conditioning and a strong belief in relying on natural methods. That means building energy efficient houses and using stuff like double shutters and other techniques that work well until it actually gets really hot. When the mercury starts pushing into the 40s (or 100s in Fahrenheit)… well, then people start cooking to death. That was actually the case in 2003, when the wealthiest parts of Europe lost 35,000 people to a heat wave. To put that in perspective: That’s the entire principality of Liechtenstein, dead, because of a lack of air conditioning and general carelessness. Think about that number, folks: 35,000. That’s ten times more deaths than the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

About a year later, in June 2004, two scuttlebutts named Fredrik Bergstrom and Robert Gidehag, of the Stockholm-based think tank Timbro, published a gloating article entitled “EU versus USA.” (pdf) Their conclusion: If the EU were a state in the U.S., it would be among the poorest. As conservative commentators gleefully noted:

…In the U.S. a large 45.9% of the “poor” own their homes, 72.8% have a car and almost 77% have air conditioning, which remains a luxury in most of Western Europe.

Anyone who has spent time in Europe will see the problem here. And it was the reason why I had such a rough week last week. Namely, many Europeans just flat-out don’t like air conditioning. It’s not that it’s an unaffordable luxury or something: they just fucking hate it. They think it spreads germs and many of them will immediately start complaining the minute you turn it on. So using A/C as a measure of wealth is ridiculous. I could just as easily write a report tracking the number of bidets in Europe and the United States. I only have anecdotal evidence, of course, but since I’ve never seen one in the U.S. and see them in virtually every house and apartment here, I’m willing to guess that Slovenia has more per capita than America. And if there’s any Slovenian think tank ready to sponsor me, I’ll gladly write my own dumbass paper and include something like this:

“Although many Slovenes enjoy the advantages of both a toilet and a bidet, the bidet remains a never-to-be-experienced luxury for the average American. The average American is forced to make do with simple toilet paper to clean their perineum, whilst Slovenes can scrub themselves clean immediately after vacating their bowels.”

It would be a sensation I tell you. I would also point out that Slovenes have a higher rate of home ownership than Americans (82% vs 69%) and I would stress how this is clearly a sign of greater wealth and prosperity. The original authors make a big deal of home ownership in their paper.

And the rest of the report is full of similar flaws in thinking. You almost can’t believe that it was written in Europe. And you definitely can’t believe that these guys got paid to write it. For example, isn’t it safe to say that car ownership is lower in Europe because public transportation is generally bodacious, especially relative to the United States? And not because Europeans are dirt-poor hobos?

If I look at the table of domestic appliances on page 16 I also notice some things that could use explaining. For example, we own a dryer. Now ask me if we use it. No, we don’t. Thanks for asking. Want to know why? Because my wife prefers hanging our laundry up outside. It smells better, she says. It’s fresher, she insists. She also hates microwaves and would never dream of using it to prepare a meal. I’m getting anecdotal again, but I’m pretty certain that these kind of things go a long way towards explaining why Americans have so many more appliances than Europeans. In short, many of these things are not economic questions but social ones. And frankly, anyone who thinks that the average Swede is worse off than the poorest American is a jackass. I’m looking at you, Timbro.

I’m reminded of a story I heard a while back. A professor in Maribor invited some exchange students from Virginia over for summer courses. He later told me that the Americans and Slovenes constantly fought over the temperature of the classroom. The Americans wanted to turn the air conditioning on full blast; the Slovenes kept insisting it be turned off. One of the Virginians ended up going back home because it got to be “too hot” for him. Nevermind that Virginia is hotter than Maribor (summer average in Maribor: 20°C/68°F, summer average in Virginia: 30°C/86°F) it’s that he actually had to deal with it.

That’s just a different experience altogether.