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In my latest essay, I try to list the major points I'm aware of that puncture the progressive narrative on economics, without trying to directly touch on the Culture War's social fronts.
Reality Has a Poorly Recognized Classical Liberal Bias
I think most people here have enough exposure to libertarianism that they are at least aware of these issues (even if they don't agree with them). If you think I missed one or I'm somehow dead wrong please do indicate so.
that is a small aside - but large reason for that is that USA is much hotter and until recently it would be not-so-needed
article you linked even mentions it
Well, yes. That was true of much of the northern U.S. until more recent times.
The problem is that the Europeans can't quite seem to get AC now that they probably ought to have it. It's kind of banned in many places.
That is a citation needed moment. Source - I am from Europe. AC is quite popular and widespread. And treated as necessity during summer. We just don't try to achieve polar temperatures and usually put it to 20-22 C (don't ask me why AC units became such pussies lately)
My recommendation would be to read the article and view the source cited therein as a good starting point.
Honestly I'm surprised this is something someone wants to contest. Do you have a lot of iced beverages in your part of Europe too?
I read it and it doesn't match reality. I look at the façade of my building and out of 40 apartments there are 30+ air conditioners. People use them both to cool in the summer and to heat in the winter. AC are extremely versatile devices when temperatures swing from -20C in the winter to 40C in the summer.
And yes we have ice drinks - we just don't enjoy as much the starbucks travesties - so ice is usually in water, soft drinks or soda water and cocktails. Or you just open an ice cold can of beer and drink it on the go.
We haven't tuned AC to 11 like US because relatively more people in EU live in regions with bearable humidity. And up to 32-33C heat is no problem if humidity is low. You just drink more beer.
Counter anecdote: many parts of Switzerland have serious restrictions on residential AC. Some cities have outright banned them (Basel, Geneva), others require the AC to be powered by solar panels, others just don't allow the heat exchanger of a mini split to be attached to the facade of a building. Those two are de-facto bans on AC in apartments.
When you're talking about Europe, regulations like that will vary wildly between locations, and you'll always find anecdotes supporting whatever side you picked.
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Have you ever heard the phrase "the plural of anecdote is not data"?
I'm not trying to convince you that your particular eyes are lying to you. But Europe is a pretty big place. In most of it, AC is not very common even as heat waves increase.
There is objective data on this fact. In my essay, I linked to such information. This is not, to my knowledge, a contested set of facts. You could, with the language skills and internet access you have go forth and rapidly find out that either I am right in my characterization, or show data that would force me to reconsider my statements.
But you standing outside of a building and telling me I'm wrong will not cut it because 1) I've been to a bit of Europe and 2) I can read sources describing the overall situation in the U.S. vs. Europe.
In even backwater shithole countries like Romania/Serbia/Bulgaria the use of ACs is overwhelming. You'd be hard pressed to find a building without them, even wearhouses and factories are chock full of ACs. New developments are even required to either have central heating/air or ACs, complete with solar panels on the roof.
Citation, please.
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It's the old established areas of Europe that have an allergy (or ideological objection) to A/C, not the ex-communist countries.
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