Keeping Cool in a Hotter Europe

I'm melting...

Europe has just had about a month’s worth of hot weather with the highs in the mid-30s (around 90F) for weeks on end where I live. Again and again people bring up one topic: air conditioning. Why doesn’t Europe have any??

The basic reason is that, until recently, Europe didn’t need it. In Finland, it rarely got above 25C (77F), and if it did/does, the government issues a heat advisory. In southern European countries, the Mediterranean Sea moderated the highs, making it a cool, pleasant destination in the summer and winter. Houses there were built to manage the heat while houses up north were built to retain heat in the winter since summers didn’t get that hot. But no more. The Mediterranean Sea is having a heat wave of its own right now, which only exacerbates the heat southern Europeans experience on land. While houses built to manage the heat are great when the highs are in the 30s and it cools down at night, they aren’t effective against highs in the 40s where it only cools down at night to the 30s.

Now, more than ever, Europe needs air conditioning.

But it’s not going to get it.

Many European cultures believe cool air blowing on you will kill you. The apartment we rented in Finland came with minisplit heat pump heating and cooling units and my mother-in-law declared upon seeing them that she would never sleep over at our apartment when those were on. She didn’t even want to be in the room with one on. “It’s so unhealthy!” she complained. Way back in 2006, when I was doing my study abroad in Berlin and visited the parents of two boys my family hosted, the mother complained how when one of their American friends recently visited, “he asked for a fan, so we gave him one and then he slept with it blowing on him the whole night! That’s so unhealthy!” I was jealous. I longed for a fan, spending nights sweating in my dorm room, the window thrown wide open as I prayed for a breeze.

At least Germans are willing to sleep with the windows open and be in rooms with windows open, unless there’s a party going on, in which case it’s a 100% known proven fact that any draft will kill. I remember multiple parties where, upon opening the door to enter or exit the main party room, a chorus of “ES ZIEHT!” would ring out (There’s a draft!) and I would hastily shut the door before anyone died. Otherwise, lüften (airing out rooms) is commonly accepted cultural practice. Rental contracts will mandate twice daily lüften to keep the air fresh and prevent mold. Of course, if Germans had proper HVAC systems like we do in the US, they wouldn’t need to do this but that’s another topic entirely. At least they’re fine with sleeping with windows open. My host parents sleep with their window open all year round.

Finns, on the other hand, do not open windows ever when anyone is in the room. They have mechanical air vents that lets fresh air in and stale air out in a controlled manner. Should larger airings out be necessary, the entire room is evacuated, the door shut, the window opened, then the window opener evacuates as well, shutting the door behind them. My father-in-law would warn us when we came over to their house not to go into that room because the windows were open right now and we would die.

It’s interesting how Finns consider fresh air vital for health when you’re getting it outside. Nothing healthier than biking around outside alongside four lanes of car traffic. Breath deep, inhale those fumes! But as soon as you’re inside, that fresh outdoor air…must be keep outdoors, away from you.

It makes no sense.

These are just the two European cultures I have personal experience with. I’ve heard Italians also consider cold air blowing on you to be unhealthy. I haven’t lived in Switzerland long enough to gauge Swiss beliefs regarding cold air/fans/air conditioning.

But I do know that in some Swiss cantons, air conditioning is actually illegal due to the strain it would place on the electrical grid. Meanwhile, Germany shut down all its nuclear plants and is still working on making up the capacity with carbon neutral energy sources while paying the third highest electric prices in the world. Exactly how much more grid capacity would European countries need for as many buildings to be air conditioned here as are in the US?

My current apartment building was built in the 1990s. It has a commercial store on the ground floor, which is air conditioned. But the apartments above are not. The reason? I assume it’s because the canton doesn’t mandate it and, at the time, no one thought residents would want a/c in the apartments. This is despite the a/c on the ground floor using heat pump and minisplit technology that was already around when the building was built. I live on the fifth floor. I’m dying up here. I could have a/c. I just don’t. Newer buildings are also built without it, unless they’re minergy certified, which come with heat pump minisplits intended to provide heat in the winter. But even so in some cases, the landlord expressly forbids the tenants from using the a/c function.

My only option as a tenant is to use a portable a/c unit, which is terribly inefficient since it requires me to open a window and throw the exhaust tube out it, letting in a certain amount of heat from outside while I cool down one room slightly. I’ve started seeing these all over, dangling out windows like windsocks. But instead of showing which direction the wind is blowing, they show which direction domestic life is trending as Europe heats up and residents try not to die from heatstroke.

These units are wildly inefficient when compared to mini-split units with air-source heat pumps. Europe is wasting criminal amounts of energy by not encouraging the mass installation of these units, both for heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. Not only that, but this could save a lot of lives. I remember the heat wave of 2003, which happened right after I returned home from my year as an exchange student in Germany, and how shocked Americans were when hearing about the number of elderly who died in France due to the heat…and the lack of a/c. Things haven’t improved much on that front since 2003, except heatwaves have become more common. The elderly are still the most vulnerable in heatwaves and, ironically, least likely to use a/c due to ingrained beliefs about it being bad for your health.

There are economic costs to Europe’s a/c dearth as well. Productivity slumps in the heat because no one can work hard when they feel like they’re melting. Hot cultures usually take naps during the hottest part of the day, something Spain has struggled with keeping/abandoning as its economy internationalized. The Modern Economy does not nap. It works. It works more productively with a/c.

And if they’re going to roll out a/c, Finns, Germans and other cultures in Europe are going to have to change their believes about cool, circulating air being unhealthy. As it turns out, heat is the bigger villain.