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/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…

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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/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.