Neoliberalism at its peak
As a native Floridian, it blew my mind that AC was not the default everywhere. I did know that the only legal requirement for a home was heat and water, but when does your heat source not also cool the home?
You floridians have AC’s as a standard? So you can wrestle alligators and tame lions (before jumping from a plane ofc) in the cold? Nice.
Always wonder what would have happened if the government put the energy it put into arresting people for demanding better insulation, into better insulation instead of arresting them.
That’s commie talk, son.
This means that safety from extreme heat is a privilege not a right.
Access to A/C for everyone is a progressive measure.
Sounds like “the plan” is working then. The poors die of heat stroke, dehydration, or other ill effects of climate change so the rich have a smaller population to subdue.
As an Aussie visiting Europe that regularly deals with these temperatures… This is so much more uncomfortable than an Aussie summer. But it’s an easy fix: make AC a standard measure (the amount of shops and restaurants here that are high 30s INSIDE is something I’ve never seen before), make free drinking water a legal requirement, and make public toilets a thing too (so people don’t need to worry about hydrating!)
Stories like this make me wish I knew how to make people care as much about things that actually matter as they do about whatever mean thing a politician said the other day.
TBF the mean politicians are often climate change deniers as well.
American Southerner, here, and I feel for y’all. Be safe.
And people wonder why the birth rate is falling. You gotta spend extra money just to keep your children from overheating from global warming.
*Rich parents
You can book a cheap premier inn for about £45 a night in the UK.
Sure it’s still expensive, but the occasional splurge to get a comfortable nights sleep seems more cost effective than buying and running your own air con
The WHO regional director for Europe stated that over 200000 people died from heat (and mostly preventably) in the last four years.
