Post #4245120

2026-07-30 07:22 UTC

🚨 NEW EPISODE🚨 It’s not even August yet, and it’s been a long, hot summer. As temperatures climb and France and Spain fight to keep wildfires contained, we’re devoting the whole of this week’s episode to one of 2026’s most contentious debates: should Europe be using more air conditioning? We talk to three experts about the guilt, the greenhouse gases, and the life-saving upsides of artificial cooling. Bring a fan. https://www.europeanspodcast.com/all-episodes/the-great-european-air-conditioning-debate

Replies (1)

@hzulla@infosec.exchange 2026-07-30 15:47

@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social I'm halfway into the episode and am jumping up and down to respond: While it is true that air conditioning means pumping heat outside of the home, it doesn't necessarily have to be pumped into the neighborhood air. My own home's geothermal heat pump is doubling as a passive cooling system in summer, pumping the heat underground to be stored and partially used again later in autumn. It's pretty nifty, we're not blowing our heat towards the neighbours and it's also totally silent with no AC split unit outside. It's also possible to do this in larger scale and have municipal cold water circulation to city apartment blocks, making it then possible to capture and reuse the heat from the homes for later use. See the link for a large scale example in Paris. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/26/underground-revolution-seine-cooling-network-paris-buildings-heat I do admit that this is way more complicated than just putting up an AC, and passive cold water solutions like mine also have far less cooling capacity compared to the real deal: My cooling system is able to cool down the roof floor to <= 27° on a heatwave day where an actual AC would most likely be able to go down to <= 23°.

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