At least in my country (Netherlands) the neoliberals have decided every single fucking thing needs to turn a consistent profit and the company who handles the grid is only allowed to upgrade when there is "utility and necessity" which in essence means any time they want to upgrade in anticipation of future demand everyone involved drags their feet.

The result of that policy is that now there is a ridiculous waiting list for commercial grid connections and there are plans to also restrict new high capacity residential connections. For a country that has been run by businessmen for the past 20 years we sure seem to have an awful lack of long-term vision.

Don't even get me started on the attitude that people here have towards A/C. We don't live in a country that's only hot for 1 week a year anymore but lots of ppl just won't accept that. I guess it's climate coping/denial combined with wanting to feel superior to Americans.

We will be cooked (literally)

EDIT: I just remembered that yesterday they unexpectedly had to cut power to 10000 homes for 14 minutes and it wasn't even a hot day.

To my knowledge a lot of ACs can't even operate at those temperatures, or only in a degraded fashion. The optimal maximum outside temperature of mine apparently is 35°C. After that the radiator can't get rid of the heat fast enough to have the inside unit work at full capacity.

There are genius ways to build homes that get cooled down even without electricity. See the "earthship" design for example, routing fresh air through pipes in the ground where it cools down, going through the home as the hot air gets sucked out by a "thermal chimmey" (literally creates airflow by using the sun). If we combined that with good insulation to avoid the sun heating up walls and windows we'd have liveable temperatures inside even at 50°C outside. But western countries not even remotely progressive enough for such a radical but necessary structural shift, so even right now we keep building houses designed to trap heat.

Solar panels and air con are a good short-term solution for the symptoms

And by short-term I mean my whole life

That would make the oil lobby sad though

The problem is that treating the root cause is not profitable. So it will never happen. Ever.

It's been the defining sentiment to the story when discussed in the US. The GOP has taken to the rhetoric of comparing heat deaths in Europe to gun deaths in US, as in Europe is being far more irresponsible not installing AC than US is not controlling guns (their words).

Mostly MAGA looking to literally die on that hill, (or expect thier grandchildren to)

All over the frontpage last week. https://lemmy.today/post/55740469

That’s some spicy legwear!

The reason that "it's ok we have AC" is a dumbass small brain take is that the "it" that is allegedly ok in this scenario is global warming. AC won't save most of the planet from the consequences of our choices and actions.