As temperatures in Britain soared to an alarming excessive of 104 levels Fahrenheit (40 levels Celsius) this week, some residents resorted to easy, time-worn measures to attempt to quiet down. They waved handheld followers, wetted towels and reached for the ice.
However for others, it was time for a change. Amid the record-breaking warmth, they stood able to embrace what many in Europe have lengthy dismissed as each an pointless luxurious and planet-destroying menace: Air-con.
The energy-intensive cooling system used broadly throughout the US has grown more and more engaging to Britons and different Europeans now coping with brutal summer season temperatures induced partly by human-induced local weather change. In current days, excessive warmth has scorched a lot of Western Europe, kindling wildfires in France, Greece and Italy and inflicting the deaths of greater than 1,000 folks in Portugal alone.
Gross sales of moveable air con models rose 2,420 p.c week-on-week, British retailer Sainsbury’s stated Monday. And a surge in demand for centralized AC models in London has some set up corporations booked by means of the autumn.
However why weren’t European households already outfitted with air con? And can Europe fall sufferer to a “U.S.-style dependancy to AC,” as local weather management researcher Stan Cox has warned?
