In an over-heating Europe, treating air conditioning as ‘American decadence’ has become dangerous

First published in Deník N. Americans laugh at Europeans for not having air conditioning in their buildings. Europeans tell Americans that they would not need it if the overuse of air conditioning in the United States were not contributing to global warming. Both sides are a little bit right, but not by much. Everyday life in the US differs from Europe in many respects: more cars, wider motorways, almost no public transport, greater social inequality, larger portions in restaurants. And above all, vast space, plenty of room everywhere, horizontal expansion. Despite all these differences, my most striking recurring experience was how easy it is to catch a chill in America in summer. You land, say, in Houston, where daytime temperatures throughout the summer range between thirty and forty degrees , so roughly as it was in Europe several times already this summer, except with higher humidity, which makes the local heat more oppressive. Within two minutes, your shirt is soaked through. Then, in that damp shirt, you walk into the lobby of a hotel, a shopping mall, an office or any other building, first breathing a sigh of relief… but after a while you realise it is not such a blessing after all. Air conditioning is commonly set to 18 °C, sometimes even lower. Local people are used to such abrupt temperature changes – among other reasons because they spend as little time as possible outside buildings and vehicles. I have forgotten this lesson several times, and for each such lapse I have one American sweatshirt at home that I had to buy there on the spot. One of them even has Superman on it, because that was the only one on sale. I have never understood the American urge to cool things down ad absurdum, but it probably has something to do with those big portions, big cars and the general conviction that bigger is better. In the United States, air conditioning units (air condition, or A/C – Americans regard the European words die Klimaanlage, la clim, klimatizace with suspicion; they hear in them klima, climate, that is, politics) have been part of the standard of living since the middle of the last century. They are as common as fridges or televisions, which means that even the poorest households have them. Most Americans have never experienced life without air conditioning – unless they go on a trip to Europe. This generous approach to cooling comes at a price. Air conditioning accounts for about 20 percent of the electricity consumption of US households, on average over the whole year and the whole country. In summer it probably approaches 40 percent, and during the afternoon peak in the southern United States it is even higher. For office buildings, the figure is similar if we add together the consumption of air conditioning and ventilation. There are therefore days when a quarter to a third of the United States’ instantaneous energy production goes to running air conditioning. Cool air in intensive care Last summer I spent a few days in a large Prague hospital. I received good care there and had a bed under a window facing west. In those days it was around thirty degrees outside in the afternoon, and similar inside. The staff, tormented by the heat just like the patients, accepted it with resignation: in summer it is hot, what can you do. Then I somewhat unexpectedly ended up in intensive care (no, the heat was not to blame), which is of course not pleasant, but it did have one advantage: there was air conditioning. Being hooked up to tubes is a nuisance, and a bearable temperature cannot make up for it, but it does at least improve the situation a little. I do not know whether there is a single hospital in the Czech Republic that is fully air-conditioned; I have never been in one. I also do not know whether there is a fully air-conditioned school, library or research institution anywhere. I know air-conditioned office buildings, I know several air-conditioned modern factories, which is more for the sake of machines and products than people, and I know a number of air-conditioned cafés and restaurants, because it is good for their business. Many people have air conditioning in their cars, hardly anyone at home.