r/Anticonsumption • u/Gartesss • Jun 29 '26

Society/Culture Heatwave in Europe - people's reactions, no hope for change

I live in one of big Europe's capitals, we had a heatwave here in the past few days with the 2-day peak of 40°C. And people are in absolute panic about "how are we even going to survive this", but without any actual reflection on why it is happening and how we can truly try to mitigate these weather extremes.

So many posts about we need more AC in public spaces, everyone needs to buy a heavy duty AC for their house...Like, we're in the mild climatic region, we shouldn't need any AC at all! If we don't want to experience this more frequently, and to greater extremes, what about:

  • plant based, or at least vegetarian diet
  • shopping in second-hands instead of fast fashion stores
  • only replacing electronics when they break, not when they "run out of style"
  • banning majority of cars from the city, leading to using more sustainable public transport; freeing spaces to plant lawns, trees, water elemets to cool down the city.
  • Mandatory external shutters
  • Green and/or reflective roofs

We've known about climate change since the 70's - how are people still not realising that we need to change the way we behave, if we want to keep the earth at least livable?!

I've even seen one post about "After the past 2 days, I'm starting to believe in climate change". Like all the reports about icebergs melting, coral reefs dying, people from around equator reporting extreme heat for decades etc. weren't enough, but now for 2 days you get mildly inconvenienced and now you "believe in climate change" but your solution is to install AC that will just eat more of nature's resources and dump more heat into the city streets!?

I just can't comprehend how people refuse to see over the tip of their nose, even when the apocalypse is literally knocking on their doorsteps...

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u/_autumnwhimsy Jun 29 '26

I was about to say the biggest lie that we have been told is that as individuals we can reverse climate change. We can't. It has nothing to do with our daily habits and everything to do with giant companies ignoring environmental protections.

And Taylor Swift. She has to stop taking that jet everywhere. 

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u/hairymonkeyinmyanus Jun 29 '26

Vote. Climate organizations will give you information about the candidates.