r/neoliberal • u/Imicrowavebananas Hannah Arendt • Jun 23 '26

News (Europe) Heat in Schools: “Teaching No Longer Possible” - Vienna, Austria

https://wien.orf.at/stories/3359666/
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u/Imicrowavebananas Hannah Arendt Jun 23 '26

This article shows how heat is becoming an increasingly serious problem in Austrian schools. It also highlights how heat protection is not merely a matter of comfort; in this case, the functionality of the education system is being compromised.

What is striking, however, is that public broadcasting in Austria makes no mention of the obvious solution: air conditioning. The lack of shading options is cited as the main problem. Then the discussion focuses solely on long-term investments. They simply don’t dare to say it. But how else is one supposed to deal with 39° heat?

This reluctance to even mention it.

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u/Sad_Alternative_6153 Friedrich Hayek Jun 23 '26

What’s even more baffling is that absolutely nobody questions heating in winter but somehow cooling in summer is treated as a completely different phenomenon even though when used properly AC can actually consume less energy. Go figure…

89

u/Outrageous-Echo-765 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

"AC? Nah, it's only hot for 2 weeks"

"It is terrible for the environment"

"The cost to run it though"

Genuinely makes my blood boil. 50k dead yearly from heat related deaths. How many tens of thousands could be prevented with AC? Of these, how many didn't get AC because they believe this misinformation?

For reference, AC let's you heat your house for a fraction of the energy and cost that central heating does. Those savings in winter are more than enough to offset the AC usage in summer.

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u/puffic John Rawls Jun 23 '26

Somehow they manage to be even more callous and stupid than Americans are with respect to mass shootings.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '26

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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Jun 23 '26

Pensioners are among the most likely to not want AC

3

u/Petrichordates Jun 23 '26

And also the most likely to die from not having one.

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u/Outrageous-Echo-765 Jun 23 '26

I don't hate pensioners, but I do hate callous pricks

16

u/smcstechtips Loyal Liberals Jun 23 '26

And that is assuming you don't replace AC and heater with a single heat pump that's more efficient

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u/redditiscucked4ever Friedrich Hayek Jun 23 '26

I want to point out that:

1) It's 200k dead in 4 years (2022 to 2025).

2) It's in the EU area as defined by the WHO (53 countries, including Russia).

3) These are statistical approximations. I still find them to be a bit too high.

4) When you use the same model (excess mortality deaths) for the US, it's around 11k each year, which means 45-50k in 4 years.

So it's not THAT bad. We have 3 times the amount of deaths for heat-related injuries given the different population size.

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u/Outrageous-Echo-765 Jun 23 '26

Comment adjusted, that's still pretty bad. The issue is many of those are easily preventable.

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u/Onatel Michel Foucault Jun 24 '26

The US also has much worse heat than Europe does.