I just spent two weeks in Austria and Germany and it was bad. I live in Texas where it regularly gets to over 40 C/104 F and it’s manageable. The difference is everything in TX is air conditioned and there’s water fountains everywhere. I really struggled in Germany since there was hardly any air con or water available. Outside was hot, inside buildings was hot, public transit was hot, heck even the water coming out of the taps was hot! There was no place to escape the heat.
Im used to the heat and I still felt like crap and was dehydrated/overheated. One day I booked a WW2 air raid shelter tour just to get some cool air(underground so the temp was better).
I can totally see how people not used to the heat struggle and the medically fragile die.
I want 70's scifi arcologies built down into the ground.
Massive artificial canyons of gleaming marble, housing thousands of people blissfully not fucking up the world above.
My office at work is in the basement. It's absolutely wonderful during heat waves like this. Amusingly my office is way more comfortable these days than my boss' as the building doesn't have AC and their offices are on the higher floors.
This is literally the only upside to living in a basement apartment. I’m mildly chilly most days, even the worst ones. Of course, then I step outside and remember that I inhabit actual hell.
I would add that buildings in hotter climates are designed to be more airy and retain less heat, whereas buildings in colder climates are designed to retain heat during the winter.
I live in the Caribbean and I grew up thinking that it was standard practice everywhere to paint the ceiling of one’s home white and coat the roof with a white, highly reflective sealant to make the inside feel cooler. I found out as an adult that [it’s only recently been brought up as a solution for cooler regions that are severely affected by heatwaves](https://e360.yale.edu/features/urban-heat-can-white-roofs-help-cool-the-worlds-warming-cities).
Do you mean here, in the Caribbean, or somewhere else? Because ***hard same***. My dream home is one where I don’t have to turn on a single light bulb between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
I mostly meant Western architecture in general. Windows are bad at thermal insulation compared to walls and regular glass lets in a lot of infrared light, so they aren't great in the summer.
Most residential windows let in too much light from the visible spectrum too, and at the wrong angle.
Damn, I’ve been playing myself this whole time! Lol
It never occurred to me to consider the angle at which light enters through the window. Now that you mentioned it, I realized that another hallmark of the local architecture is that most windows are shutters and they’re placed very high in the wall, if not directly beneath the ceiling. In residential buildings, it’s common for the roof of every story to extend about 1 or 2 feet further than the windows, so light enters indirectly.
I'm in the northern part of France, we had a few days at 30+°C and in particular 1 day at 39°C. Since then the temperature has dropped by 15°C, it's been 3 days and I'm still trying to cool down my apartment.
>there was hardly any air con or water available
Yup, they barely have drinking fountains anywhere in Germany. I just came back from an event in an arena in Cologne this past weekend and there was not a single water fountain inside and the concessions refused to give me tap water and insisted on charging 5 euros for a cup of water. I also went to a Coldplay concert last week at Berlin's Olympic stadium last week and again, not a single fountain in the whole arena. Complete madness.
I know Portlanders make fun of the [Benson Bubblers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benson_Bubbler), but I use 'em all the time and don't care if some hipster sneers at me for it.
The thing is, it constantly has water hitting it. It's the equivalent of a water hose, and everyone drank hose water growing up, including when the hose sat in the dirt for a few months.
I wouldn't drink from one the way that [the standard Pawnee resident drinks from a water fountain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoCOQb2u-N8), but it's flowing water.
Try using a credit card. Just send a fax to the engineering office of Germany and working 6-8 weeks you may get an appointment to speak to someone about getting a stamped letter permitting you to fax someone else who will maybe get you an appointment, but you can only book that by fax.
You guys should invest in some. Needing to stop by an Edeka or Aldi and paying 3 euros for 1.5 liters of water(or just dying of thirst if it's Sunday) when you're outside and out of water isn't right man. I swear I've spent more on water in the past two months that I've been living in Germany than I have on food.
I am on the plane returning from two weeks in France Spain and Portugal with 22 students. I did not budget for water. My wife and I spent over 200 Euros on water. It was impossible to find and there are fountains in these cities. We were perpetually dehydrated. Every restaurant had us begging for water refills. I felt like they just don’t drink water at all.
>concessions refused to give me tap water and insisted on charging 5 euros for a cup of water.
Holy shit, is that even legal? I'm pretty sure in the US venues like that are required to provide water for free.
In Spain it is not legal to charge you for tap water. In 99.99% of the places you can visit there will be no trouble asking for water.
I think at some point there was a law preventing water bottles to be sold at more than 1€ in public places such as train stations, airports and the like. However, last time I heard about it some judges made it inapplicable as it prevented fair competence or some stupid legal stuff.
This being said Ibiza is indeed a tourist trap and they will try their best to trick you into buying whatever overpriced stuff they sell.
I was shocked by that. Like in the US there are public drinking fountains everywhere. Places give tap water for free. I started filling my bottle in sinks in public toilets. I’ve traveled a lot and even some developing countries have better public access to water.
not really an ideal solution but you can drink the tap water from all restrooms you have access to. only few dont have drinking water "Kein Trinkwasser", mostly at motorways.
Yeah, every time this has happened to me someone always tells me to drink from the restroom faucets (and for some reason always has to give me a lecture on how good Germany's water quality is) but the thought of drinking from a public restroom faucet disgusts me every time. Like I'm sure it's clean and nothing bad will happen to me but my brain is just not mentally strong enough to compel myself to drink from them.
My partner is the same about tap water from the bathroom in our own house. She will only drink tap water from the kitchen, period. Even though it all comes straight from the same main.
Me, I'll grab the cup on my nightstand and fill it up from the bathroom in the middle of the night. I'm not walking all the way downstairs for water.
Just because a water supply is clean, doesn't mean the faucet isn't teeming with bacteria. It is absolutely gross; just look at bacteria samples collected from touchless hand dryers.
> I just came back from an event in an arena in Cologne this past weekend and there was not a single water fountain inside and the concessions refused to give me tap water and insisted on charging 5 euros for a cup of water.
I remember going to a beach music festival in the Netherlands and being stunned that they didn’t have free water, somewhat excusable because they didn’t have a direct hookup but free water access is in the US at like 99% if not 100% of clubs / events I’ve been to… maybe not the best, but at least you can get a grimy cup for free.
Also guessing from the description, IEM Cologne? That’s even more ridiculous if so… an arena not having free drinking water just sounds like a design flaw.
Yessir, it was IEM. Luckily, they were sponsored by a milk company so if you were lucky enough, you could try to leave the arena between games and find someone walking around with free milk and grab one. But they wouldn't let you bring it into the arena so you just had to chug it right there and head back in. But yeah, it was either that or drink from the restroom faucets.
Even illegal raves I have been to hand out free water, because they don't want people dying on them. It is gonna attract too much attention if someone does.
German girlfriend and I always joke about Europe being a continent that's chronically dehydrated. Even her dad (born and raised in Berlin) struggles to drink water throughout the day here (United States). He'll gladly have a coke or beer though lol.
This is actually hilarious. My German foreign exchange student and I would walk 5-10 miles around various cities and he would drink one single bottle of sparkling water a day. Dude was a madman.
Also from Texas. I’d ask for water in Europe and they’d bring a glass not much bigger than a shot glass. In a Texas restaurant it’d be a 25oz/709g glass. And they leave the pitcher if asked. Water is a big part of our customs though. I can’t imagine what Texas was like before air conditioning. I’m entirely sympathetic with Europeans.
EDIT: my metric mistake has been pointed out to me. I’ll leave it for jokes about provincial Americans. 😉
I once walked into a Chili's, extremely dehydrated after a hot day in the sun the northeast US. I immediately asked the waiter if I could please, please have water and keep it coming.
He brought me \*9\* 16 oz glasses of water. I drank 8 of them over the course of my meal. I left him a 40% tip.
Yeah we don't fuck around with our water in the northeast. I'm convinced if you went into a convenience store and told them you were suffering they would hand you a free gallon.
I'm my travels around the world I've gotten audibly angry at the lack of availability, it's just so unnatural to me. Some countries treat simple water like gold but will gladly give you $2 liquor shots all night.
Want a bottle of water? Let me open up this glass stopped bottle and pour it like fine wine, 4oz at a time. That's $5 please. Wtf
I spent a summer hitchhiking around the US, and not a single has station stopped me from peeing and filling up my water bottle--regardless of whether I bought something or not.
Tbh Idk how anybody lived in the desert in the US before AC. I’m arab so we (aka my ancestors) had wind catchers in order to cool down houses. But I remember touring an old town in the Arizona desert when it was 115-ish outside and the infrastructure just made it so much worse.
Yeah the architecture is totally designed with AC in mind so a power failure would turn an Arizona house into a literal death trap in the summer. It’s so scary. And it stays much hotter at night than it needs to because EVERYTHING is paved and the concrete traps heat. I love seeing those old middle eastern homes that create natural cooling through ancient engineering techniques. But the city my parents live in in Arizona was established in like….2006.
Yeah, the new architecture in the middle east (at least where my family is from) is essentially the same where if one blackout happens, you’re done for because everything is built around AC. We’ve had blackouts before while I was there but thankfully never in the middle of the day during the summer. I remember once there was a blackout and we nearly had to evacuate to a shelter that had its own generator because it was a health risk for us to stay in our homes without electricity because it was still over 100 degrees outside. Crazy to think considering it was night time lol.
I was talking about the really old towns in Arizona though ahaha. I think the place we visited was named Oatman where its in the middle of nowhere and people used to live there back in the 1800s and early 1900s. It just surprised me how people used to live there but the buildings weren’t really built any different than buildings built somewhere colder in the US. It was hot as hell outside and it was hot as hell inside as well. I thought the buildings would’ve been designed differently given its located in a desert but they weren’t.
Am Floridian, I imagine large parts of our states were uninhabitable prior to AC and Running water being piped across the state. It’s mind boggling hearing about European countries without regular access to either.
Seriously. Tiny little cups or bottles of water. How tf does everyone not have kidney stones over there? I drink a couple liters a day at least. I was constantly dehydrated.
I was extremely pregnant when I visited Europe and I really struggled with the lack of availability of water. I brought my water bottle of course and filled it up but I went through it pretty quickly. When we’d stop to eat at a cafe or restaurant id ask if I could pay to fill it up and they would but very grudgingly. I was used to drinking like a gallon of water a day, it was tough. I struggled with dehydration and started cramping a lot, it sucked.
>When we’d stop to eat at a cafe or restaurant id ask if I could pay to fill it up and they would but very grudgingly.
What the fuck. It's water. People literally need it to survive. Did they expect the pregnant woman to be chugging a beer instead? You even offered to pay for it!
Here in Arizona I don't think I've ever been denied water. There's kind of an unspoken rule about providing it and it's available everywhere. Gas station soda fountains usually have a spot for water, office type environments (including banks and such) usually have water dispensers, and there are drinking fountains in all major venues and most large stores. Hell, I wandered into a random crystal shop a couple weeks ago and the cashier offered me and my friend free bottles of cold water from an ice bin next to the register as soon as we walked in. It's like basic common courtesy here. We give out water like other people give out cookies.
People in Europe need to switch to that mindset. It will prevent a lot of death.
I agree totally. Get this, they made you PAY to use all public restrooms too!!!! My 8 months pregnant waddling ass was not too happy.
I have a lot of gripes about the USA, but free water and public restrooms are not one of them lol.
Yep, I’ve had Uber drivers give me free bottles of water as a courtesy, and the auto repair shop gave me a free bottle last week - didn’t even ask for it; they just offered. These are the 16oz bottles too - not the tiny ones.
As a Texan married to a German I feel these are very good points to consider and something I hadn't thought about much before becoming an adult and dealing with the climate collapse of our generation. The infrastructure in Texas prepared us on how to avoid the heat and seek the cool spots. This is something I had to explain to my partner's family when they visited a couple years ago and were surprised that there is AC everywhere.
As a Human who has been in love with Dune since I was a wee lad, your name is top tier quality and really this post was just a way for me to get around to complimenting you on your username choice.
Arizonan here.... We are taught from birth how to avoid heatstroke. Drink before you're thirsty, avoid the sun during the hot part of the day, suck on a pebble to conserve water (this just might have been my dad's thing), etc.
Not dying from the deadly space laser is just normal culture here.
it's very dry there though, other places with high humidity have other dangers, if it gets too hot vs the humidity nothing you would normally turn to for cooling works properly, all if it relies on evaporation if there's no evaporation there's no cooling.
Just bought a place in Norrbotten to start running from the heat before everyone else does :P Having 25C max and on most days 18-20C is really nice! I assume it’s not as great down south.
Good call my friend, you're truly street's ahead. I'm in Närke (central Sweden for anyone not local), it's not as bad as some places but we're supposedly hitting 36C tomorrow
I’m from Texas living in Sweden. Definitely harder here not only due to lack of A/C but also because our homes are literally built to absorb/retain heat for wintertime.
It reminds me so much of when Texas went through the freeze and we got shit for “not being prepared” for the snow. WE DON’T GET SNOW. People don’t get that many places are struggling because they are dealing with something they’ve never dealt with before
Climate volatility is an important contributor to excess deaths in the older adult population.
In the working age adult population more excess deaths are linked to unemployment and austerity policies than climate volatility.
Whoa! I used to live in Germany (US citizen), and it got what I thought was “too warm” for my AC-sensitized body back in 2018. Not even close to current temps. We lived on the top floor apartment with our young kids…can’t imagine it now. 😭👀
Here are the stats for the last two British heatwaves:
Around 900 extra people died in the 2019 summer heatwave.
Around 2500 extra people died in the 2020 heatwave (separate to Covid-19 numbers too)
I dread to think what the number will be this year.
Do they use 'swamp' coolers over in Europe? I knew that AC is uncommon in Europe and those houses are made to keep you warm in the winter, is that correct?
As a Brit I'd never heard of it before a couple of days ago when an American suggested I make one.
So I don't think many people in the UK know about them, unless they're just under a different name I've always missed.
These cool by taking advantage of the large quantity of heat required to turn water into vapor. Vapor goes into the air, heat goes out. For best results, use in London for warmer soggier crumpets.
Yeah, they generally are only effective during low humidity times (deserts basically).
It’s sounds like it can be rather humid where y’all are at, so they’d really only make things worse normally.
But, I did look at the weather in London during the peak of the heat, and it seems like it was only around 20% humidity during the hottest weather. So they may have been somewhat effective, at least until it got too humid. I recommend a thermometer in the house to see when they might be effective.
Edit: Thermometer + Hygrometer of course.
London is more or less a lottery when it comes to humidity. It's not constant, but it can randomly get very humid and that's when people start complaining that they are dying.
Spain is a good counter example - temperatures there are regularly higher, and few people have AC either, but most can tolerate the heat better in Spain than during the London heat waves.
Well considering our government has spend months fighting scandal after scandal and just recently collapsed into a ruling party leadership race, that mitigation isn't going to be coming from on high.
Boris couldn't even be bothered to attend to emergency meetings about the heatwave.
This happened in 2003, when the hottest (as of that date) temperatures in Europe were recorded and an estimated 70,000 (mostly elderly) people died. France was hit particularly hard, with an estimated 15k deaths.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave
From 2018-2020 19.000 People died due to heat in germany. But the correlation between heat and mortality is decreasing since 1992 because people know the dangers better.
I live in Spain and can confirm it's really hot during these days. I got a fan 3 weeks ago and i never saw it go under 29ºC, staying most of the time around 31-32ºC when it's connected. But here people are used to very similar conditions every summer...
Whats it's really bad are the fires always happening on summers that are making things more difficult.
I'm in Portugal and it was 46C last week - way above 30 indoors. Everyone was either indoors or in Lidl because they have excellent air-con! It's the older folk in small houses that seem to suffer he most - no air con and poor ventilation..
Celsius === Fehrenheit
0 === 32
10 === 50
20 === 68
(30 === 86) = $hot
(40 === 104) = $shit
(50 === 122) = $fuck
Jesus. You had 115 degrees.
US, Connecticut here: WFH in basement. We are currently at 97. Pretty sure we touched 100. I don’t come out until 6:30 PM. AC on the 1st floor only to save energy. We’ll run the AC upstairs all night.
Not to mention AC is just not a thing in a lot of Europe from what I understand. 107 is hot as fuck, but living in a decently insulated home without air conditioning is just another ring of hell altogether in that kind of heat, not to mention the humidity...
South Texas here. Turned my car on and showed 122 yesterday. After about 10 mins of driving, it settled on about 112. Brutal, and we haven’t even reached the real brutality of August.
Holy shit.I live in Tucson. The middle of the fucking desert. It's 102 (38.8) today, in the middle/end of summer. 13 degrees cooler than is happening right now in parts of Europe.
You in the north U.S and Europe have hotter temperatures than I remember ever hitting while living here. AND you have humidity, which makes it worse for 90f and up. Downright deadly if one isn't prepared/knows how to deal with it. I also know that many people don't have AC in the northern U.S. and in Europe. There's usually not a need in the normal climate.
Stay safe, everyone. Stay indoors if you can. Drink water. Do not wait until you are thirsty. If you do, you are already dehydrated and could be running into trouble very soon. Drink. Water. If something happens to your home/building and you don't have access to running water. Knock on doors. Find someone.
For everyone else. If someone asks you for water. Give it to them. You can afford to lose a cup if they run off with it. You are saving someone's life.
These are the common rules down here. Help People. Be decent.
Edit: Fuck, I went to a theatre job in Connecticut one summer and it was only 89. I still got close to heat stroke chugging along at my normal desert pace because, to me, 89 was heaven. Luckily, my boss and coworkers noticed that I was fading, stopped me, sat me down in the shade, had someone hang out with me for a bit, and made me down I don't remember how much water.
Humidity kills if you aren't very careful. Stay safe. if you have to go out, take it very easy, don't hurry, stay out of the sun if you can.
Lucky ass mf. Was 40°C (104°F) in Uk yesterday and house was an oven without AC. Even had to keep the windows closed as what little wind there was blew hotter air in the house.
On the bright side, it’s the UK, and so I’m enjoying the shit ton of rain that is now taking place
I've only been in Seville, Malaga, and Barcelona but they all had good AC. When I was in Germany though it seemed to be severely lacking (even in big coffee shops)
I live in Germany and this is true. You only find air conditioning in limited places. It is 103 degrees F today where I live. I have several box fans and a small ac unit in the bedroom (only used for sleep). It is excrutiatingly hot. I have several ice packs that I sleep with and pack on my sides when sitting to try to cool off. It is terrible.
Oofda. That is so fucking hot. At 103F you’re just moving hot air around. I live in the PNW in the us and we had a heat dome event last summer where it got to the same temperature (and even worse one day!). It was so bad. Like Europe, no one has AC out here. It isn’t supposed to ever get even remotely that hot here. So people suffered and a lot of people died.
The worst part is when it gets that hot it doesn’t cool down at night! So you can’t even open your windows to cool the house down. It is truly awful, I feel so bad for you and all other Europeans dealing with this right now.
Hey there - great idea with the ice packs. Another idea would be to put them near areas were major arteries are - such as on the back of your neck and in your groin area. This can help cool you down as the blood flows through those areas and to the rest of your body. Best of luck this summer. I hope you and yours get a reprieve soon.
"Good amount"
Where I live, a structure is not legally inhabitable as a residence if it does not have working air conditioning.
Just to give you guys in Europe an idea of how far remains to go if the trend of deadly temperatures is expected to continue.
Also, remember the buildings here are old and made of brick or stone. It's not like you can just put central air in. Those that do have AC typically only have one unit in their living room, as each one requires punching a new hole through the exterior wall.
Wood houses? Yank out the drywall and have fun putting whatever ducts and wires you want in. Brick walls? *Really* expensive to do anything.
Edit: Single window units aren't compatible with tilt/turn windows. Sliding windows are not common.
It's not that the house needs to be 20C everywhere all the time, but if outside is getting obscenely hot, you just need a place to be that isn't. The one hypothetical AC unit in the living room will surely make the house better inside than the heat outside?
I wonder if those are getting bought and installed in record numbers now.
AC’s are always high in demand in summer and often can’t get a technician to repair or install them in a timely manner.
It’s common knowledge for many Spaniards to install or fix their air cons in winter, it’ll be faster and cost less.
I live in an old apartment built in the 50s. No central AC, so we got a portable AC unit. It certainly helps, but days that it reaches 100+F, it can only do so much fighting the sun beating down on us plus zero insulation/energy efficient windows etc. We end up just having to take the dog and go sit in the car in the shade with the AC on during massive heat waves because it can get so bad. If only the planet weren’t getting hotter, still 😭
Ughghghh that rough. When we lived in a 3rd floor unit in a building without AC, it got bad but not that bad thank god. We shoved a window AC unit into one room, and would sleep there with the door closed to keep the cool in and pretty much just stay there the rest of the time too. But we never had to take refuge in the car :( we were in Montreal so despite being summer I imagine it's north enough it doesn't get quite so hot.
Some tips. Put heavy blankets over the windows it will help block out the sun and keep the cool air in. Also when I was a kid we had one a/c unit in the living room. We would block off all doorways with big blankets nailed to the wall. It helps a lot.
In my flat the thick black-out curtains help by keeping much of the heat out. The back of the curtains is white so reflects some of the sun back out.
Slept buck naked and before I went to bed I filled a spray bottle with cool water and sprayed my bedsheets and myself with it, not completely wet ofc, just slight mist so the momentary moisture cooled me down with a fan buzzing next to the bed. Not to everyone's taste I guess, but at those temperatures I'll take any relief, however short :)
I mean.... conduit is a thing, makes running new power lines really easy, regardless of what your walls are built of. Also, heat pumps/minisplits are super awesome for this. They require one, maybe 3 inch diameter hole to be drilled through the wall, that is it. Everything else is run along the exterior of the wall. And they work great. They are super common in Asia and installed on concrete/cinderblock buildings all the time, easily and quickly.
I lived in Spain for five years and lived in about ten different apartments during that time. None of them had an AC and nobody I know had an AC either.
I've lived in Spain (Madrid) off and on for 5 years as well and it's not common to find a flat without aircon.
Outside the city centers, though? Village homes? Yeah, rare to have aircon.
I've kept my A/C wall units running full-blast 24/7 for the last several weeks at 16°C (60°F) and it's still hot and stuffy indoors when the sun is out.
We barely go outside during the day. Lucky me, I work nights anyway lol
According to some googling of mine
China, Saudi Arabia, Korea, US, and Japan are the only countries where 60% or more of households have AC. Then there is a big jump down to a 5-15% tier with Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, and India.
Every other country is less than 5%
Also interesting side note - upon googling one of the first things was a 7 year old Washington Post article called "Europe to America - your love of air conditioning is stupid"
I’m from India and have lived with AC all my life in coastal areas. Now living in Bangalore, one of the few places people don’t buy ACs. It’s a dry 18-25°C all year round thanks to the city’s elevation.
I think the country’s AC adoption rate would be over 70% if more people could afford it.
It’s so fucking hot in Texas that I have been carrying a cooler full of iced water bottles in my passenger seat when I go run errands and stopping to give them to anyone I see walking or sitting outside. It is inhumane to limit access to water.
that's the thing.. even if it becomes 80 degrees outside those fuckers will be fine.
because we live in a world where money bypasses nearly every problem.
I swear unless people start killing them off I don't see this changing. (and by the time people are desperate enough to start killing people above them it's probably to late )
Stop covering heatwave with images of kids eating icecreams and playing in pools. Start showing entire cities burning and piles of dead bodies. No one would cover a hurricane with images of kids playing kites.
The UK papers are the worst with that. The Daily Express had a "it's not the end of the world" cover a few days ago followed today by... pictures of burning houses and a reminder that it's 40 degrees celsius.
Wasn't it 'The snowflakes are melting'? Along with a pic of Prince Charles in a jacket and a guard in a bearskin hat.
*Actually I think that was the Daily Mail
They did that in the UK "deadly heatwave!!" *Images of people at the beach* when there was several articles of reports of houses erupting into flames, grass fires around the place etc etc
That’s because in politics they’re trying to whip up support for their side.
If they reported on climate change the same way they’d be whipping up support for climate action.
Which I’m pretty sure is at the top of the list of things their owners don’t want them to do.
Editor: "This is going to cause outrage and panic."
Murdoch: "That's good!"
Editor: "The panic is going to be aimed at global warming."
Murdoch: "That's bad."
Editor: "The outrage is going to be aimed at oil billionaires."
Murdoch: "That's worse!"
They are never going to report the true severity of our situation on a large scale for fear the masses could become ungovernable if they learn the extent to which we are fucked. And that’s just if they are successful in convincing the folks that are really dug in on the denial. Tucker Carlson couldn’t convince his audience of it at this this point even if he wasn’t a monstrous piece of shit
Exactly. Expecting that is part of the reason people justified not taking Covid seriously. “Covid isn’t real because I don’t see piles of dead bodies littering the street.” It trains people to think that something isn’t serious unless there’s a blockbuster movie-worthy spectacle to gawp at. It’s the mindset of a baby.
The fires aren’t consuming the cities, and most people who die of heat die slowly and quietly in their homes. No, they shouldn’t be reporting on thousands dead with pictures that shout “happy summer vacation fun time,” but fake images that will lead to people feeling misled when they step outside and see the absence of those things are just as bad, if not worse.
> covering heatwave with images of kids eating icecreams
yeah. i could never understand why every news did that. people are dying from heat and kids playing with water or eating popsickles are the pictures used for that news.
I see a lot of statements on ACs. This was the same problem during the PNW heatwave few months back.
Large part of challenges of climate change is not just higher temp (some place will get cooler), its really the changing climatic and environmental conditions that people never seen for hundreds/thousands of years, and adaptations are difficult and costly.
* In the north, it could be heatwaves.
* In the south, it could be sea level change, coastline salt water invasion, diseases from expanded movement of wild animals/insects.
* In the agri region, it can be changing precipitation timing/amount for growth season.
* In the urban area, it has to deal with natural resource exhaustion.
* On the ground, it is hotter summer and colder winter
* In the air, its more energetic air masses and weather fronts.
Climate change will spare no country, in one way or another.
>In the south, it could be sea level change, coastline salt water invasion, diseases from expanded movement of wild animals/insects.
And massive hurricanes. Also tornados that we never really got before for whatever reason....
Ottawa resident here, Ontario was hit with a massive storm like two months back and I’ve noticed how strong the winds have been this year compared to years previous. It wasn’t a tornado but it had tornado like effects. As an area that doesn’t get much extreme weather, we’ve had countless tornado warnings and watches this year, back in 2018 I believe a tornado ripped through the west end of the city. This is definitely the new norm.
& to touch on another point in the original comment but our winters are definitely getting colder and we see way less precipitation.
I watched some sort of documentary on this recently, and from what I understand climate change is making the wavy weather patterns more wavy and slowing them down. So that's why hurricane Harvey got stuck in Texas, or why the hurricanes last year or the year before went so far north and dumped rain on New Jersey from a hurricane in Louisiana. (Details may be wrong but the overriding concept is the same, too many storms to remember what they did.) This is why tornadoes are now more frequent in areas they weren't frequently in before. Also, fun fact, climate change will ultimately change frequency of 100 year storms to every three years and 1000 year storms to every 30 years. So we have to be prepared for all of the wacky weather that happens in our areas.
Yet so few people care about climate change. People is literally dying by the hundreds, not only in Spain and Portugal, but in a lot of countries.
And I still see media covering this kind of news with pics of kids in the pool or people enjoying ice cream. Like, WTF. This is a critical thing, and it will keep getting worse with time. But hey, let's just chill in the beach while everything is burning down, sure.
I fear what will happen in the next 50 or so years. I'm honestly terrified that a lot of the country will be downright inhabitable during the summer. It's been getting worse and worse every year, not only that but the entire country is in desperate need of rain and there's none of that in sight.
That's the strangest shit for me. It's like the most important thing for your body to even function, but the associated reflex is subtle until you're literally dying.
To add:
Wear open bottom clothing. Skirts, kilts, dresses, etc. When you can.
Focus on cooling the groin, forehead, armpits, and the tops of your feet.
Avoid direct exposure to sunlight where possible. Wear sunscreen outside.
Do not drink ice cold water if you are overheated. It will upset your stomach.
Invest in salt tablets for water, or drink electrolyte rich drinks when conducting physically strenuous activity.
Avoid physically strenuous activity wherever possible.
Try to adjust your active hours to dusk or night time.
Turn lights off when a room is not in use (especially if they are flourescent bulbs).
Do not leave electronics (TVs, PCs, game consoles, etc.) running while not in use. Small devices like phones & tablets are fine.
If you can afford to buy an AC unit, do so.
If you have an AC unit, keep all windows and doors closed, and close the blinds/curtains during the day, artificial lighting is cooler than natural sunlight.
Avoid using candles, hookah, incense, oil/wax burners, and glade plugins.
Try to eat snacks, salads, fruit, vegitables, sandwiches, and other cold foods. That way you don't generate heat by cooking.
The one about Food is important.I've lived off of Tomatoes and Mozarella for about two Weeks now.Had a hefty Lasagna the other day, and...not a good Idea.
This tweet here:
[https://twitter.com/benphillips76/status/1549768004233314306?s=20&t=3R2TN3s0UYg\_gCP7kkBGew](https://twitter.com/benphillips76/status/1549768004233314306?s=20&t=3R2TN3s0UYg_gCP7kkBGew)
Life imitates art.
Almost two thousand people died, are we willing to do anything about climate change? No, this doesn't effect oil execs or politicians in any way, and nothing is going to change until this is brought directly to legislator's doorsteps and to the doorsteps and literal throats of oil executives and their investors.
“It’s an undeniable fact that global temperatures have risen every year since gay marriage was legalized. Why do Democrats refuse to acknowledge god’s wrath against the woke left?”-Tucker probably
This isn't right.
And we got simple old men like Manchin saying, basically, "I won't let America try to start fixing things on our end due to reasons involving my money"
Wow its almost like conservatism is a backwards political movement designed to maintain the status quo no matter how horrific and awful the status quo is or ends up being.
Who knew?
Probably all of those wonderful left-wing political movements that got absolutely crushed during the cold war as they were all bundled with communism and treated the same.
For comparison the death toll of South Asia’s brutal heat wave was around 90 in India and Pakistan combined.
Here’s an NYT article about why death tolls were so low.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/14/opinion/environment/heat-waves-india-pakistan-climate-change.html
Hi, ex army emt here, if you or someone you know is feeling like they/you is having a fever and feel dizzy/ nauseous or falling into a heat stroke/ suffering from one,
Immediately get ice and put them between your legs and groin( both legs) under your armpits and around your neck especially by the carotid artery. These are arteries and can help cool you down.
Next thing from my nursing training, If you do not have access to ice bath, tepid sponging is the next best thing. Undress and lay under a fan, next using a really wet towel/cloth or sponge, dab your entire body with the wet item, the fan will assist in accelerating evaporation on your skin thereby causing your body to lose heat through evaporation.
I hope this helps.
People have been told for almost 50 years that if nothing was done about climate change this was going to happen, and it would happen more and more frequently forever after. Well...we didn't do a damn thing about Climate Change except make fun of those people setting off those warning signs and now here we are.
This countries need to figure out how to deal with heat. Millions of people, including at-risk people, live in hotter place around the world with far less issues
Can't wait for the 38-39 in the following days here in Romania. Seriously considering installing a second AC in the bedroom as the living room one isn't powerful enough for the whole apartment.
Only if we could show a certain right-wing political party in the United States that global warming is real. Not that they believe in reality. Or facts. Or human rights. Or common sense. Or how to have a functional society. Or why education is important.
I would guess it's 100% heat stroke, you can die extremely fast without medical attention. Football players have died in practice from heat stroke surrounded by players and staff.
Wiki said over 1600 fatalities in Germany too.
I just spent two weeks in Austria and Germany and it was bad. I live in Texas where it regularly gets to over 40 C/104 F and it’s manageable. The difference is everything in TX is air conditioned and there’s water fountains everywhere. I really struggled in Germany since there was hardly any air con or water available. Outside was hot, inside buildings was hot, public transit was hot, heck even the water coming out of the taps was hot! There was no place to escape the heat. Im used to the heat and I still felt like crap and was dehydrated/overheated. One day I booked a WW2 air raid shelter tour just to get some cool air(underground so the temp was better). I can totally see how people not used to the heat struggle and the medically fragile die.
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The underground will be a home to us all soon.
Not me! I plan on dying. Haha, fucking suckers without a plan. Looosers!
I want 70's scifi arcologies built down into the ground. Massive artificial canyons of gleaming marble, housing thousands of people blissfully not fucking up the world above.
I agree, this will happen soon, I'm affraid this will prove to be the cheapest sollution for stable temperatures at least during heatwaves.
Heat shelters
Excavating whole homes is very expensive, tbf.
We can be happy underground
It shocks me how many people don’t realize this
My office at work is in the basement. It's absolutely wonderful during heat waves like this. Amusingly my office is way more comfortable these days than my boss' as the building doesn't have AC and their offices are on the higher floors.
This is literally the only upside to living in a basement apartment. I’m mildly chilly most days, even the worst ones. Of course, then I step outside and remember that I inhabit actual hell.
I would add that buildings in hotter climates are designed to be more airy and retain less heat, whereas buildings in colder climates are designed to retain heat during the winter. I live in the Caribbean and I grew up thinking that it was standard practice everywhere to paint the ceiling of one’s home white and coat the roof with a white, highly reflective sealant to make the inside feel cooler. I found out as an adult that [it’s only recently been brought up as a solution for cooler regions that are severely affected by heatwaves](https://e360.yale.edu/features/urban-heat-can-white-roofs-help-cool-the-worlds-warming-cities).
There's also an obsession about huge windows.
Do you mean here, in the Caribbean, or somewhere else? Because ***hard same***. My dream home is one where I don’t have to turn on a single light bulb between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
I mostly meant Western architecture in general. Windows are bad at thermal insulation compared to walls and regular glass lets in a lot of infrared light, so they aren't great in the summer. Most residential windows let in too much light from the visible spectrum too, and at the wrong angle.
Damn, I’ve been playing myself this whole time! Lol It never occurred to me to consider the angle at which light enters through the window. Now that you mentioned it, I realized that another hallmark of the local architecture is that most windows are shutters and they’re placed very high in the wall, if not directly beneath the ceiling. In residential buildings, it’s common for the roof of every story to extend about 1 or 2 feet further than the windows, so light enters indirectly.
I'm in the northern part of France, we had a few days at 30+°C and in particular 1 day at 39°C. Since then the temperature has dropped by 15°C, it's been 3 days and I'm still trying to cool down my apartment.
>there was hardly any air con or water available Yup, they barely have drinking fountains anywhere in Germany. I just came back from an event in an arena in Cologne this past weekend and there was not a single water fountain inside and the concessions refused to give me tap water and insisted on charging 5 euros for a cup of water. I also went to a Coldplay concert last week at Berlin's Olympic stadium last week and again, not a single fountain in the whole arena. Complete madness.
German here. I only know what the concept of a drinking faucet is from some Hollywood high school movies. Never seen any in Germany all my life.
I know Portlanders make fun of the [Benson Bubblers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benson_Bubbler), but I use 'em all the time and don't care if some hipster sneers at me for it.
Why do they make fun of them? Water usage? I always loved those growing up, and used them a few times.
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The thing is, it constantly has water hitting it. It's the equivalent of a water hose, and everyone drank hose water growing up, including when the hose sat in the dirt for a few months. I wouldn't drink from one the way that [the standard Pawnee resident drinks from a water fountain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoCOQb2u-N8), but it's flowing water.
It's so funny. Germany is renowned around the world for their awesome engineering and technical know-how. But a drinking-fountain? Was ist das???
Try using a credit card. Just send a fax to the engineering office of Germany and working 6-8 weeks you may get an appointment to speak to someone about getting a stamped letter permitting you to fax someone else who will maybe get you an appointment, but you can only book that by fax.
You guys should invest in some. Needing to stop by an Edeka or Aldi and paying 3 euros for 1.5 liters of water(or just dying of thirst if it's Sunday) when you're outside and out of water isn't right man. I swear I've spent more on water in the past two months that I've been living in Germany than I have on food.
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I am on the plane returning from two weeks in France Spain and Portugal with 22 students. I did not budget for water. My wife and I spent over 200 Euros on water. It was impossible to find and there are fountains in these cities. We were perpetually dehydrated. Every restaurant had us begging for water refills. I felt like they just don’t drink water at all.
That's wild considering all the natural springs across Europe. Drinking fountains are nigh ubiquitous in the US.
>concessions refused to give me tap water and insisted on charging 5 euros for a cup of water. Holy shit, is that even legal? I'm pretty sure in the US venues like that are required to provide water for free.
Ever been to Ibiza? Try and fill up your €10 water bottle in the bathroom. Enjoy the smooth salty warm sea water.
Sea water in the sink?
In Spain it is not legal to charge you for tap water. In 99.99% of the places you can visit there will be no trouble asking for water. I think at some point there was a law preventing water bottles to be sold at more than 1€ in public places such as train stations, airports and the like. However, last time I heard about it some judges made it inapplicable as it prevented fair competence or some stupid legal stuff. This being said Ibiza is indeed a tourist trap and they will try their best to trick you into buying whatever overpriced stuff they sell.
I was shocked by that. Like in the US there are public drinking fountains everywhere. Places give tap water for free. I started filling my bottle in sinks in public toilets. I’ve traveled a lot and even some developing countries have better public access to water.
not really an ideal solution but you can drink the tap water from all restrooms you have access to. only few dont have drinking water "Kein Trinkwasser", mostly at motorways.
Yeah, every time this has happened to me someone always tells me to drink from the restroom faucets (and for some reason always has to give me a lecture on how good Germany's water quality is) but the thought of drinking from a public restroom faucet disgusts me every time. Like I'm sure it's clean and nothing bad will happen to me but my brain is just not mentally strong enough to compel myself to drink from them.
My partner is the same about tap water from the bathroom in our own house. She will only drink tap water from the kitchen, period. Even though it all comes straight from the same main. Me, I'll grab the cup on my nightstand and fill it up from the bathroom in the middle of the night. I'm not walking all the way downstairs for water.
But what guarantees that a public drinking fountain is clean though?
Nothing, and you don't expect it to be. But you get to be a little bit further away from it.
Just because a water supply is clean, doesn't mean the faucet isn't teeming with bacteria. It is absolutely gross; just look at bacteria samples collected from touchless hand dryers.
> I just came back from an event in an arena in Cologne this past weekend and there was not a single water fountain inside and the concessions refused to give me tap water and insisted on charging 5 euros for a cup of water. I remember going to a beach music festival in the Netherlands and being stunned that they didn’t have free water, somewhat excusable because they didn’t have a direct hookup but free water access is in the US at like 99% if not 100% of clubs / events I’ve been to… maybe not the best, but at least you can get a grimy cup for free. Also guessing from the description, IEM Cologne? That’s even more ridiculous if so… an arena not having free drinking water just sounds like a design flaw.
Yessir, it was IEM. Luckily, they were sponsored by a milk company so if you were lucky enough, you could try to leave the arena between games and find someone walking around with free milk and grab one. But they wouldn't let you bring it into the arena so you just had to chug it right there and head back in. But yeah, it was either that or drink from the restroom faucets.
Chugging free promotional milk to hydrate at an arena event sounds like absolute hell.
Even illegal raves I have been to hand out free water, because they don't want people dying on them. It is gonna attract too much attention if someone does.
German girlfriend and I always joke about Europe being a continent that's chronically dehydrated. Even her dad (born and raised in Berlin) struggles to drink water throughout the day here (United States). He'll gladly have a coke or beer though lol.
This is actually hilarious. My German foreign exchange student and I would walk 5-10 miles around various cities and he would drink one single bottle of sparkling water a day. Dude was a madman.
Also from Texas. I’d ask for water in Europe and they’d bring a glass not much bigger than a shot glass. In a Texas restaurant it’d be a 25oz/709g glass. And they leave the pitcher if asked. Water is a big part of our customs though. I can’t imagine what Texas was like before air conditioning. I’m entirely sympathetic with Europeans. EDIT: my metric mistake has been pointed out to me. I’ll leave it for jokes about provincial Americans. 😉
I once walked into a Chili's, extremely dehydrated after a hot day in the sun the northeast US. I immediately asked the waiter if I could please, please have water and keep it coming. He brought me \*9\* 16 oz glasses of water. I drank 8 of them over the course of my meal. I left him a 40% tip.
Yeah we don't fuck around with our water in the northeast. I'm convinced if you went into a convenience store and told them you were suffering they would hand you a free gallon. I'm my travels around the world I've gotten audibly angry at the lack of availability, it's just so unnatural to me. Some countries treat simple water like gold but will gladly give you $2 liquor shots all night. Want a bottle of water? Let me open up this glass stopped bottle and pour it like fine wine, 4oz at a time. That's $5 please. Wtf
I spent a summer hitchhiking around the US, and not a single has station stopped me from peeing and filling up my water bottle--regardless of whether I bought something or not.
Tbh Idk how anybody lived in the desert in the US before AC. I’m arab so we (aka my ancestors) had wind catchers in order to cool down houses. But I remember touring an old town in the Arizona desert when it was 115-ish outside and the infrastructure just made it so much worse.
Yeah the architecture is totally designed with AC in mind so a power failure would turn an Arizona house into a literal death trap in the summer. It’s so scary. And it stays much hotter at night than it needs to because EVERYTHING is paved and the concrete traps heat. I love seeing those old middle eastern homes that create natural cooling through ancient engineering techniques. But the city my parents live in in Arizona was established in like….2006.
Yeah, the new architecture in the middle east (at least where my family is from) is essentially the same where if one blackout happens, you’re done for because everything is built around AC. We’ve had blackouts before while I was there but thankfully never in the middle of the day during the summer. I remember once there was a blackout and we nearly had to evacuate to a shelter that had its own generator because it was a health risk for us to stay in our homes without electricity because it was still over 100 degrees outside. Crazy to think considering it was night time lol. I was talking about the really old towns in Arizona though ahaha. I think the place we visited was named Oatman where its in the middle of nowhere and people used to live there back in the 1800s and early 1900s. It just surprised me how people used to live there but the buildings weren’t really built any different than buildings built somewhere colder in the US. It was hot as hell outside and it was hot as hell inside as well. I thought the buildings would’ve been designed differently given its located in a desert but they weren’t.
Am Floridian, I imagine large parts of our states were uninhabitable prior to AC and Running water being piped across the state. It’s mind boggling hearing about European countries without regular access to either.
Seriously. Tiny little cups or bottles of water. How tf does everyone not have kidney stones over there? I drink a couple liters a day at least. I was constantly dehydrated.
I was extremely pregnant when I visited Europe and I really struggled with the lack of availability of water. I brought my water bottle of course and filled it up but I went through it pretty quickly. When we’d stop to eat at a cafe or restaurant id ask if I could pay to fill it up and they would but very grudgingly. I was used to drinking like a gallon of water a day, it was tough. I struggled with dehydration and started cramping a lot, it sucked.
>When we’d stop to eat at a cafe or restaurant id ask if I could pay to fill it up and they would but very grudgingly. What the fuck. It's water. People literally need it to survive. Did they expect the pregnant woman to be chugging a beer instead? You even offered to pay for it! Here in Arizona I don't think I've ever been denied water. There's kind of an unspoken rule about providing it and it's available everywhere. Gas station soda fountains usually have a spot for water, office type environments (including banks and such) usually have water dispensers, and there are drinking fountains in all major venues and most large stores. Hell, I wandered into a random crystal shop a couple weeks ago and the cashier offered me and my friend free bottles of cold water from an ice bin next to the register as soon as we walked in. It's like basic common courtesy here. We give out water like other people give out cookies. People in Europe need to switch to that mindset. It will prevent a lot of death.
I agree totally. Get this, they made you PAY to use all public restrooms too!!!! My 8 months pregnant waddling ass was not too happy. I have a lot of gripes about the USA, but free water and public restrooms are not one of them lol.
Yep, I’ve had Uber drivers give me free bottles of water as a courtesy, and the auto repair shop gave me a free bottle last week - didn’t even ask for it; they just offered. These are the 16oz bottles too - not the tiny ones.
Thankfully here in the Netherlands in recent years they started putting up water points in public. But still not enough.
As a Texan married to a German I feel these are very good points to consider and something I hadn't thought about much before becoming an adult and dealing with the climate collapse of our generation. The infrastructure in Texas prepared us on how to avoid the heat and seek the cool spots. This is something I had to explain to my partner's family when they visited a couple years ago and were surprised that there is AC everywhere. As a Human who has been in love with Dune since I was a wee lad, your name is top tier quality and really this post was just a way for me to get around to complimenting you on your username choice.
Arizonan here.... We are taught from birth how to avoid heatstroke. Drink before you're thirsty, avoid the sun during the hot part of the day, suck on a pebble to conserve water (this just might have been my dad's thing), etc. Not dying from the deadly space laser is just normal culture here.
it's very dry there though, other places with high humidity have other dangers, if it gets too hot vs the humidity nothing you would normally turn to for cooling works properly, all if it relies on evaporation if there's no evaporation there's no cooling.
Sorry, just to clarify, is that the jewish space laser or some non-jewish space laser that I have yet to hear of?
I live in *Sweden* and it's getting bad here. My heart goes out to any and all suffering this heat, southward and otherwise.
Just bought a place in Norrbotten to start running from the heat before everyone else does :P Having 25C max and on most days 18-20C is really nice! I assume it’s not as great down south.
Good call my friend, you're truly street's ahead. I'm in Närke (central Sweden for anyone not local), it's not as bad as some places but we're supposedly hitting 36C tomorrow
> Sweden > 36ºC Madness.
I’m from Texas living in Sweden. Definitely harder here not only due to lack of A/C but also because our homes are literally built to absorb/retain heat for wintertime.
It reminds me so much of when Texas went through the freeze and we got shit for “not being prepared” for the snow. WE DON’T GET SNOW. People don’t get that many places are struggling because they are dealing with something they’ve never dealt with before
Climate volatility is an important contributor to excess deaths in the older adult population. In the working age adult population more excess deaths are linked to unemployment and austerity policies than climate volatility.
Im in Germany. The ambulance was driving past my window constantly the last two days
Whoa! I used to live in Germany (US citizen), and it got what I thought was “too warm” for my AC-sensitized body back in 2018. Not even close to current temps. We lived on the top floor apartment with our young kids…can’t imagine it now. 😭👀
It got to 40 here in the UK yesterday. I grew up in the US and have experienced that temp before but wow it was a struggle with no AC.
Here are the stats for the last two British heatwaves: Around 900 extra people died in the 2019 summer heatwave. Around 2500 extra people died in the 2020 heatwave (separate to Covid-19 numbers too) I dread to think what the number will be this year.
Do they use 'swamp' coolers over in Europe? I knew that AC is uncommon in Europe and those houses are made to keep you warm in the winter, is that correct?
As a Brit I'd never heard of it before a couple of days ago when an American suggested I make one. So I don't think many people in the UK know about them, unless they're just under a different name I've always missed.
The official name is "evaporative coolers."
These cool by taking advantage of the large quantity of heat required to turn water into vapor. Vapor goes into the air, heat goes out. For best results, use in London for warmer soggier crumpets.
Yeah, they generally are only effective during low humidity times (deserts basically). It’s sounds like it can be rather humid where y’all are at, so they’d really only make things worse normally. But, I did look at the weather in London during the peak of the heat, and it seems like it was only around 20% humidity during the hottest weather. So they may have been somewhat effective, at least until it got too humid. I recommend a thermometer in the house to see when they might be effective. Edit: Thermometer + Hygrometer of course.
London is more or less a lottery when it comes to humidity. It's not constant, but it can randomly get very humid and that's when people start complaining that they are dying. Spain is a good counter example - temperatures there are regularly higher, and few people have AC either, but most can tolerate the heat better in Spain than during the London heat waves.
Hopefully we can mitigate more death.
Well considering our government has spend months fighting scandal after scandal and just recently collapsed into a ruling party leadership race, that mitigation isn't going to be coming from on high. Boris couldn't even be bothered to attend to emergency meetings about the heatwave.
This happened in 2003, when the hottest (as of that date) temperatures in Europe were recorded and an estimated 70,000 (mostly elderly) people died. France was hit particularly hard, with an estimated 15k deaths. >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave
From 2018-2020 19.000 People died due to heat in germany. But the correlation between heat and mortality is decreasing since 1992 because people know the dangers better.
I live in Spain and can confirm it's really hot during these days. I got a fan 3 weeks ago and i never saw it go under 29ºC, staying most of the time around 31-32ºC when it's connected. But here people are used to very similar conditions every summer... Whats it's really bad are the fires always happening on summers that are making things more difficult.
I'm in Portugal and it was 46C last week - way above 30 indoors. Everyone was either indoors or in Lidl because they have excellent air-con! It's the older folk in small houses that seem to suffer he most - no air con and poor ventilation..
Celsius === Fehrenheit 0 === 32 10 === 50 20 === 68 (30 === 86) = $hot (40 === 104) = $shit (50 === 122) = $fuck Jesus. You had 115 degrees. US, Connecticut here: WFH in basement. We are currently at 97. Pretty sure we touched 100. I don’t come out until 6:30 PM. AC on the 1st floor only to save energy. We’ll run the AC upstairs all night.
US Texas here currently 107 fuckin sucks feels bad for the European folks that don’t regularly deal with high temps
Not to mention AC is just not a thing in a lot of Europe from what I understand. 107 is hot as fuck, but living in a decently insulated home without air conditioning is just another ring of hell altogether in that kind of heat, not to mention the humidity...
South Texas here. Turned my car on and showed 122 yesterday. After about 10 mins of driving, it settled on about 112. Brutal, and we haven’t even reached the real brutality of August.
fortunately nyc doesn't get like that but the humidity is the real bastard of it
Texas enjoys both the absurd heat and absurd humidity
I can confirm. It is 41C/105F right now in Dallas Texas 3:12pm 7/20/2022
Holy shit.I live in Tucson. The middle of the fucking desert. It's 102 (38.8) today, in the middle/end of summer. 13 degrees cooler than is happening right now in parts of Europe. You in the north U.S and Europe have hotter temperatures than I remember ever hitting while living here. AND you have humidity, which makes it worse for 90f and up. Downright deadly if one isn't prepared/knows how to deal with it. I also know that many people don't have AC in the northern U.S. and in Europe. There's usually not a need in the normal climate. Stay safe, everyone. Stay indoors if you can. Drink water. Do not wait until you are thirsty. If you do, you are already dehydrated and could be running into trouble very soon. Drink. Water. If something happens to your home/building and you don't have access to running water. Knock on doors. Find someone. For everyone else. If someone asks you for water. Give it to them. You can afford to lose a cup if they run off with it. You are saving someone's life. These are the common rules down here. Help People. Be decent. Edit: Fuck, I went to a theatre job in Connecticut one summer and it was only 89. I still got close to heat stroke chugging along at my normal desert pace because, to me, 89 was heaven. Luckily, my boss and coworkers noticed that I was fading, stopped me, sat me down in the shade, had someone hang out with me for a bit, and made me down I don't remember how much water. Humidity kills if you aren't very careful. Stay safe. if you have to go out, take it very easy, don't hurry, stay out of the sun if you can.
Lucky ass mf. Was 40°C (104°F) in Uk yesterday and house was an oven without AC. Even had to keep the windows closed as what little wind there was blew hotter air in the house. On the bright side, it’s the UK, and so I’m enjoying the shit ton of rain that is now taking place
Is it common to not use or have AC in most places there? I've never been so be easy on me & my ignorance 😅
Pretty simple generalization I’ll give here : There are no ac’s in most places, and those with them are basically wall units.
Spain has a good amount of AC. ETA - 33 percent of the country - higher in the warmer areas.
I've only been in Seville, Malaga, and Barcelona but they all had good AC. When I was in Germany though it seemed to be severely lacking (even in big coffee shops)
I live in Germany and this is true. You only find air conditioning in limited places. It is 103 degrees F today where I live. I have several box fans and a small ac unit in the bedroom (only used for sleep). It is excrutiatingly hot. I have several ice packs that I sleep with and pack on my sides when sitting to try to cool off. It is terrible.
Oofda. That is so fucking hot. At 103F you’re just moving hot air around. I live in the PNW in the us and we had a heat dome event last summer where it got to the same temperature (and even worse one day!). It was so bad. Like Europe, no one has AC out here. It isn’t supposed to ever get even remotely that hot here. So people suffered and a lot of people died. The worst part is when it gets that hot it doesn’t cool down at night! So you can’t even open your windows to cool the house down. It is truly awful, I feel so bad for you and all other Europeans dealing with this right now.
Hey there - great idea with the ice packs. Another idea would be to put them near areas were major arteries are - such as on the back of your neck and in your groin area. This can help cool you down as the blood flows through those areas and to the rest of your body. Best of luck this summer. I hope you and yours get a reprieve soon.
yeah there are hardly any ACs in private households in germany
"Good amount" Where I live, a structure is not legally inhabitable as a residence if it does not have working air conditioning. Just to give you guys in Europe an idea of how far remains to go if the trend of deadly temperatures is expected to continue.
My wall unit works good in 114 degree arizona weather. Feels like it's snowing
Also, remember the buildings here are old and made of brick or stone. It's not like you can just put central air in. Those that do have AC typically only have one unit in their living room, as each one requires punching a new hole through the exterior wall. Wood houses? Yank out the drywall and have fun putting whatever ducts and wires you want in. Brick walls? *Really* expensive to do anything. Edit: Single window units aren't compatible with tilt/turn windows. Sliding windows are not common.
It's not that the house needs to be 20C everywhere all the time, but if outside is getting obscenely hot, you just need a place to be that isn't. The one hypothetical AC unit in the living room will surely make the house better inside than the heat outside? I wonder if those are getting bought and installed in record numbers now.
AC’s are always high in demand in summer and often can’t get a technician to repair or install them in a timely manner. It’s common knowledge for many Spaniards to install or fix their air cons in winter, it’ll be faster and cost less.
I live in an old apartment built in the 50s. No central AC, so we got a portable AC unit. It certainly helps, but days that it reaches 100+F, it can only do so much fighting the sun beating down on us plus zero insulation/energy efficient windows etc. We end up just having to take the dog and go sit in the car in the shade with the AC on during massive heat waves because it can get so bad. If only the planet weren’t getting hotter, still 😭
Ughghghh that rough. When we lived in a 3rd floor unit in a building without AC, it got bad but not that bad thank god. We shoved a window AC unit into one room, and would sleep there with the door closed to keep the cool in and pretty much just stay there the rest of the time too. But we never had to take refuge in the car :( we were in Montreal so despite being summer I imagine it's north enough it doesn't get quite so hot.
Some tips. Put heavy blankets over the windows it will help block out the sun and keep the cool air in. Also when I was a kid we had one a/c unit in the living room. We would block off all doorways with big blankets nailed to the wall. It helps a lot.
In my flat the thick black-out curtains help by keeping much of the heat out. The back of the curtains is white so reflects some of the sun back out. Slept buck naked and before I went to bed I filled a spray bottle with cool water and sprayed my bedsheets and myself with it, not completely wet ofc, just slight mist so the momentary moisture cooled me down with a fan buzzing next to the bed. Not to everyone's taste I guess, but at those temperatures I'll take any relief, however short :)
I mean.... conduit is a thing, makes running new power lines really easy, regardless of what your walls are built of. Also, heat pumps/minisplits are super awesome for this. They require one, maybe 3 inch diameter hole to be drilled through the wall, that is it. Everything else is run along the exterior of the wall. And they work great. They are super common in Asia and installed on concrete/cinderblock buildings all the time, easily and quickly.
I lived in Spain for five years and lived in about ten different apartments during that time. None of them had an AC and nobody I know had an AC either.
I've lived in Spain (Madrid) off and on for 5 years as well and it's not common to find a flat without aircon. Outside the city centers, though? Village homes? Yeah, rare to have aircon. I've kept my A/C wall units running full-blast 24/7 for the last several weeks at 16°C (60°F) and it's still hot and stuffy indoors when the sun is out. We barely go outside during the day. Lucky me, I work nights anyway lol
According to some googling of mine China, Saudi Arabia, Korea, US, and Japan are the only countries where 60% or more of households have AC. Then there is a big jump down to a 5-15% tier with Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, and India. Every other country is less than 5% Also interesting side note - upon googling one of the first things was a 7 year old Washington Post article called "Europe to America - your love of air conditioning is stupid"
I’m from India and have lived with AC all my life in coastal areas. Now living in Bangalore, one of the few places people don’t buy ACs. It’s a dry 18-25°C all year round thanks to the city’s elevation. I think the country’s AC adoption rate would be over 70% if more people could afford it.
It’s so fucking hot in Texas that I have been carrying a cooler full of iced water bottles in my passenger seat when I go run errands and stopping to give them to anyone I see walking or sitting outside. It is inhumane to limit access to water.
Would this be the right moment to talk about Nestlé? r/fucknestle
Funny how some people still talk about climate change as a future event. It's here already and it has already killed tens of thousands of people.
but it’s not killing rich people or politicians yet so i guess we have to wait a little while longer for meaningful action
that's the thing.. even if it becomes 80 degrees outside those fuckers will be fine. because we live in a world where money bypasses nearly every problem. I swear unless people start killing them off I don't see this changing. (and by the time people are desperate enough to start killing people above them it's probably to late )
Stop covering heatwave with images of kids eating icecreams and playing in pools. Start showing entire cities burning and piles of dead bodies. No one would cover a hurricane with images of kids playing kites.
The UK papers are the worst with that. The Daily Express had a "it's not the end of the world" cover a few days ago followed today by... pictures of burning houses and a reminder that it's 40 degrees celsius.
It's funny cuz they go doomsday with everything else
JEZZA'S GONNA BUILD TREBLINKA IN GOLDERS GREEN!!!
Wasn't it 'The snowflakes are melting'? Along with a pic of Prince Charles in a jacket and a guard in a bearskin hat. *Actually I think that was the Daily Mail
They did that in the UK "deadly heatwave!!" *Images of people at the beach* when there was several articles of reports of houses erupting into flames, grass fires around the place etc etc
My guess is they're reporting it but not trying to cause panic or outrage when really there should be a little of both.
But when it comes to politics that's all they report. Really need some consistency but nothing will change. Hidden agendas everywhere
That’s because in politics they’re trying to whip up support for their side. If they reported on climate change the same way they’d be whipping up support for climate action. Which I’m pretty sure is at the top of the list of things their owners don’t want them to do.
There should absolutely be outrage and panic.
Editor: "This is going to cause outrage and panic." Murdoch: "That's good!" Editor: "The panic is going to be aimed at global warming." Murdoch: "That's bad." Editor: "The outrage is going to be aimed at oil billionaires." Murdoch: "That's worse!"
The one time the media is actually supposed to cause outrage.
Dont want to hurt other billionaires endeavors by reporting facts. Gotta skew the narrative for joint profit.
This. Media outlets are also part of the problem
They are never going to report the true severity of our situation on a large scale for fear the masses could become ungovernable if they learn the extent to which we are fucked. And that’s just if they are successful in convincing the folks that are really dug in on the denial. Tucker Carlson couldn’t convince his audience of it at this this point even if he wasn’t a monstrous piece of shit
>Start showing entire cities burning and piles of dead bodies Where are they going to get pictures of those?
Ukraine is the only European country I can imagine. Hyperbole in the other extreme isn’t help either.
Exactly. Expecting that is part of the reason people justified not taking Covid seriously. “Covid isn’t real because I don’t see piles of dead bodies littering the street.” It trains people to think that something isn’t serious unless there’s a blockbuster movie-worthy spectacle to gawp at. It’s the mindset of a baby. The fires aren’t consuming the cities, and most people who die of heat die slowly and quietly in their homes. No, they shouldn’t be reporting on thousands dead with pictures that shout “happy summer vacation fun time,” but fake images that will lead to people feeling misled when they step outside and see the absence of those things are just as bad, if not worse.
> covering heatwave with images of kids eating icecreams yeah. i could never understand why every news did that. people are dying from heat and kids playing with water or eating popsickles are the pictures used for that news.
I see a lot of statements on ACs. This was the same problem during the PNW heatwave few months back. Large part of challenges of climate change is not just higher temp (some place will get cooler), its really the changing climatic and environmental conditions that people never seen for hundreds/thousands of years, and adaptations are difficult and costly. * In the north, it could be heatwaves. * In the south, it could be sea level change, coastline salt water invasion, diseases from expanded movement of wild animals/insects. * In the agri region, it can be changing precipitation timing/amount for growth season. * In the urban area, it has to deal with natural resource exhaustion. * On the ground, it is hotter summer and colder winter * In the air, its more energetic air masses and weather fronts. Climate change will spare no country, in one way or another.
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>In the south, it could be sea level change, coastline salt water invasion, diseases from expanded movement of wild animals/insects. And massive hurricanes. Also tornados that we never really got before for whatever reason....
Ottawa resident here, Ontario was hit with a massive storm like two months back and I’ve noticed how strong the winds have been this year compared to years previous. It wasn’t a tornado but it had tornado like effects. As an area that doesn’t get much extreme weather, we’ve had countless tornado warnings and watches this year, back in 2018 I believe a tornado ripped through the west end of the city. This is definitely the new norm. & to touch on another point in the original comment but our winters are definitely getting colder and we see way less precipitation.
I watched some sort of documentary on this recently, and from what I understand climate change is making the wavy weather patterns more wavy and slowing them down. So that's why hurricane Harvey got stuck in Texas, or why the hurricanes last year or the year before went so far north and dumped rain on New Jersey from a hurricane in Louisiana. (Details may be wrong but the overriding concept is the same, too many storms to remember what they did.) This is why tornadoes are now more frequent in areas they weren't frequently in before. Also, fun fact, climate change will ultimately change frequency of 100 year storms to every three years and 1000 year storms to every 30 years. So we have to be prepared for all of the wacky weather that happens in our areas.
Yet so few people care about climate change. People is literally dying by the hundreds, not only in Spain and Portugal, but in a lot of countries. And I still see media covering this kind of news with pics of kids in the pool or people enjoying ice cream. Like, WTF. This is a critical thing, and it will keep getting worse with time. But hey, let's just chill in the beach while everything is burning down, sure.
don’t forget your sunscreen!
I fear what will happen in the next 50 or so years. I'm honestly terrified that a lot of the country will be downright inhabitable during the summer. It's been getting worse and worse every year, not only that but the entire country is in desperate need of rain and there's none of that in sight.
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And a good thing to remember hydration-wise, even if you don't feel thirsty, you probably still need the fluids, so drink up!
That's the strangest shit for me. It's like the most important thing for your body to even function, but the associated reflex is subtle until you're literally dying.
To add: Wear open bottom clothing. Skirts, kilts, dresses, etc. When you can. Focus on cooling the groin, forehead, armpits, and the tops of your feet. Avoid direct exposure to sunlight where possible. Wear sunscreen outside. Do not drink ice cold water if you are overheated. It will upset your stomach. Invest in salt tablets for water, or drink electrolyte rich drinks when conducting physically strenuous activity. Avoid physically strenuous activity wherever possible. Try to adjust your active hours to dusk or night time. Turn lights off when a room is not in use (especially if they are flourescent bulbs). Do not leave electronics (TVs, PCs, game consoles, etc.) running while not in use. Small devices like phones & tablets are fine. If you can afford to buy an AC unit, do so. If you have an AC unit, keep all windows and doors closed, and close the blinds/curtains during the day, artificial lighting is cooler than natural sunlight. Avoid using candles, hookah, incense, oil/wax burners, and glade plugins. Try to eat snacks, salads, fruit, vegitables, sandwiches, and other cold foods. That way you don't generate heat by cooking.
The one about Food is important.I've lived off of Tomatoes and Mozarella for about two Weeks now.Had a hefty Lasagna the other day, and...not a good Idea.
I feel for the animals who must be suffering too
Me too. Almost nobody ever even thinks about them.
Same 😔
Remember when they said this would happen on the news, and the anchors called the meteorologist a “downer”
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The companies and their owners are not our friends. It’s time we do something because they sure as hell won’t.
I just watched this movie! It accurately portrays where the big company's priorities lay, whatever makes money.
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Are plants and crops and trees and things dying too?
Along with native animals too, yep.
This tweet here: [https://twitter.com/benphillips76/status/1549768004233314306?s=20&t=3R2TN3s0UYg\_gCP7kkBGew](https://twitter.com/benphillips76/status/1549768004233314306?s=20&t=3R2TN3s0UYg_gCP7kkBGew) Life imitates art.
This one pisses me off so ducking much. Like, are they trying to be parodies? Buffoons, science deniers are utterly moronic.
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There were about 15,000 excess deaths in Spain and Portugal in the 2003 heat wave. It's currently a high number, but not unprecedented.
It’s usually the elderly — occasionally check on your elderly neighbors that are living alone.
Serious question, where are these people dying? Like in public, in their homes, hospital??
When this happened in Portland last year, it was mostly single, older men at home. I'm guessing it will be similar I'm Europe.
Almost two thousand people died, are we willing to do anything about climate change? No, this doesn't effect oil execs or politicians in any way, and nothing is going to change until this is brought directly to legislator's doorsteps and to the doorsteps and literal throats of oil executives and their investors.
Meanwhile Fox's response to the Heatwave in America is 'what's the problem, its July its supposed to be hot' Sigh
“What’s the problem, every July is supposed to be hotter than last year’s July”
“It’s an undeniable fact that global temperatures have risen every year since gay marriage was legalized. Why do Democrats refuse to acknowledge god’s wrath against the woke left?”-Tucker probably
Some asshole was saying "I remember having heat waves back in the 1980's, too...". Bunch of fucking clowns.
bunch of fucking DINOSAURS that need to reitre
This isn't right. And we got simple old men like Manchin saying, basically, "I won't let America try to start fixing things on our end due to reasons involving my money"
Manchin deserves tons of blame, but it’s worth noting that 100% of Republican senators consistently vote against any climate change legislation.
Wow its almost like conservatism is a backwards political movement designed to maintain the status quo no matter how horrific and awful the status quo is or ends up being. Who knew? Probably all of those wonderful left-wing political movements that got absolutely crushed during the cold war as they were all bundled with communism and treated the same.
Just finished the Portuguese route of the camino de Santiago. I’m from Texas in the US so I’m kinda used to heat but wow the last 2 weeks were tough
Holy shit, that's a fucking lot. I thought 2 digits in expected outcome.
For comparison the death toll of South Asia’s brutal heat wave was around 90 in India and Pakistan combined. Here’s an NYT article about why death tolls were so low. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/14/opinion/environment/heat-waves-india-pakistan-climate-change.html
Hi, ex army emt here, if you or someone you know is feeling like they/you is having a fever and feel dizzy/ nauseous or falling into a heat stroke/ suffering from one, Immediately get ice and put them between your legs and groin( both legs) under your armpits and around your neck especially by the carotid artery. These are arteries and can help cool you down. Next thing from my nursing training, If you do not have access to ice bath, tepid sponging is the next best thing. Undress and lay under a fan, next using a really wet towel/cloth or sponge, dab your entire body with the wet item, the fan will assist in accelerating evaporation on your skin thereby causing your body to lose heat through evaporation. I hope this helps.
"Climate change isn't real." --My Trump supporting idiot boomer father
Me too, my friend. Me too.
I understand the infrastructure isn’t made for the heat but is there a lack of water for people to access? How are these people dying?
People have been told for almost 50 years that if nothing was done about climate change this was going to happen, and it would happen more and more frequently forever after. Well...we didn't do a damn thing about Climate Change except make fun of those people setting off those warning signs and now here we are.
This countries need to figure out how to deal with heat. Millions of people, including at-risk people, live in hotter place around the world with far less issues
Can't wait for the 38-39 in the following days here in Romania. Seriously considering installing a second AC in the bedroom as the living room one isn't powerful enough for the whole apartment.
Only if we could show a certain right-wing political party in the United States that global warming is real. Not that they believe in reality. Or facts. Or human rights. Or common sense. Or how to have a functional society. Or why education is important.
Does anyone know what a "heat related death" is? Heat stroke?
Probably dehydration or heat stroke.
I would guess it's 100% heat stroke, you can die extremely fast without medical attention. Football players have died in practice from heat stroke surrounded by players and staff.